The Month That Was

February...gone...already. In February I forsook my blog...and not by choice. Auto immune disease strikes again...but before it took its hold ...

...I celebrated lots and lots of birthdays (February is a big birthday month on both sides of the family).

...I made things for Crop And Swap such as..

...sachets for the pantry

...herb salt with herbs from my garden

...and some herb butter...

...I was inspired to sew some birthday gifts by Kath at Hillside House Blog.  I loved her crazy patchwork covered coat hangers so much I thought I'd try my hand at crazy patchwork (not something I have attempted before).

Kath used flannelette as a base for her work but I experimented with off-cuts of wadding.  I stitched straight onto the wadding and used my walking foot for the entire project.

 (Do drop by and visit Kath...she is bravely undertaking a house renovation as well as doing lots of sewing.)

Wow, was I thrilled with the results!  

 I used a little soft toy stuffing to add some padding... 

The above two coat hangers I made for my niece and her husband using crazy patchwork and fancy sewing machine stitches as suggested by Kath.

Don't you just love this fabric?  I used it for my nephew (yes the brother of the above mentioned niece.)I used whole cloth for this and did some simple quilting to finish off. He is a mechanic and the fabric matches the lining I used for a toilet pouch I made for him last year.

Another one and this time for the third sibling (nephew), and also matches his pouch lining fabric.  His birthday is in November but since I was on a roll...I thought...why not?

It's finished off with vintage yellow buttons from my button collection.

And for my BIL (their father)...I thought some paisley print would be appropriate for his age bracket (hehehe!).  Guess in which decade he was born?

Then, there was a brief hospital stay and little activity has taken place since then...except for some reading. 

So...I've finished reading two books...Gone With The Wind (if you haven't already read this book I highly recommend it) and The Boy Who Fell To Earth by Kathy Lette.

I have mixed feelings about Kathy Lette's book...witty, fast-moving writing about a mother(Lucy) and her autistic son (Merlin) his absent, opportunistic, father and extended families.

Read at your own discretion.

And last but not least...I've stopped drinking coffee, and eating sugar, and ingesting gluten...just like that! The thought of them turns my stomach.

What I'm Reading ATM

I pride myself in being an avid reader and would go as far as saying reading is one of my longest and most favourite passions which began from the instant I realised I could read.

I'm a little ashamed that I haven't kept my blog up-to-date with my current reads...and I have omitted many 'reviews' of books I've read over the past months but I will attempt to remedy that in the future with a list of what I have read since my last "What I'm Reading ATM" post. (Gosh...has it really been more than twelve months!!)

When I mentioned to a friend recently, that I have not read Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind or seen the movie she couldn't believe it and insisted on loaning me her copy of the classic.

I had just a few days earlier started reading Tolstoy's Anna Karenin (another classic I've not as yet read) (and which I'd picked up for two dollars off a social page garage sale). 

When I realised that Gone With The Wind is a hefty tome of a book (and exceeds the page count of Anna by something like two hundred pages), I put Anna aside and commenced on Gone With The Wind  so I could return it to its rightful owner sooner rather than later.

I have to admit surprise to the book's easy and instant engagement with me the reader. I have read over two hundred pages of the one thousand plus pages (filled with minuscule print) and I continue to want to move forward and to have revealed to me more of Scarlett's un-ordinary life and irascible character.

What I find amusing is how fashionable the names of the characters have been in the twentieth century...Rhett, Ashley, Cade, Brent, Scarlett, India...well, if I'd seen the movie or read the book earlier I would have know why...and there I was thinking these names were so contemporary...as if someone had pulled them out of thin air.

Mitchell writes with ease and I can just darn hear the drawl of the Southern belles and beaux and even more so of their many, many, slaves. 

I realise now that I have been depriving myself by not having read the book and will hold judgement on the movie until I've seen it.

Is there a 'classic' novel title missing from your life's book list that you have put off reading...for whatever reason...or insist on not reading? Why?