Reading in Hamburg (and Pinterest issues).

Look what I found in the Neugraben part of Hamburg last week: a book booth! 

Is that not the most lovely thing ever? I think it's brilliant. I even jumped up and down with childish glee. Let's get reading everyone! Shame the books were in German... 

What I'm reading:

On a slightly related note, I'm reading Our Mutual Friend by Dickens. Very lovely and atmospheric. It's a sister read-a-long, motivated by the unfortunate failure we both experienced trying to read this book in the past! My kindle tells me that I'm 25% through, so happy face :)

What I'm thinking:

On a totally unrelated note, I have deleted my Pinterest account. 

I am very sad about this because I loved pinning and looking at pins. But it has come to my attention that I should really have read the conditions carefully before signing up:

• When becoming a member you confirm that you own the rights or have express permission from the person who owns the rights, for everything you pin. Yup, even though it's not intended for self-promotion...! 
• Also there is some talk that I don't completely understand, that says anything that is pinned becomes the property of Pinterest, for them to do as they wish with (i.e. sell) with no liability to the original owner (i.e. royalties). 
• Oh and that in any legal issues that arise regarding ownership of images etc, the final liability rests with the person that pinned (that's me and maybe you!)

My personal concerns are:

• I might have contributed to artists losing control over the ownership of their images, items and ideas. 
• When I feature someone's work (usually Etsy shops) on my blog I always email them and check that I can use their pictures. I never did this when pinning, but if I follow the principle, I should have asked the image owners!
• Although I like the promotion of my creations over Pinterest, I totally don't want them to think that they can do whatever they want with my images.

 All this is explained much more clearly at The Window Seat. I have just seen that they have updated their post and that there is some kind of communication flowing with the Pinterest guys. That's good. Maybe they can work a way around this.

Maybe I'll be able to pin again sometime soon. Meanwhile I'll have to find a new way of organising the gorgeous things I find online, what do you do?

Perlen Poesie Beading Magazine - Who's that girl?

Perlen Poesie Magazine

I'm very excited! This week I received my copy of Perlen Poesie (Poetry of Pearls) magazine. 

Why am I so excited? Because I modeled for this issue - heehee :) You can see me on page 13-16. I must say I never expected to model anything, but this wasn't too bad, as you can see all they needed was my neck - haha!

Perlen Poesie is a great beading magazine for beaders, packed full of what is going on in the world of beads, new techniques, patterns and instructions for your own projects.

The magazine is prepared and published in Hamburg, in German (by my friends). However, this is the first issue that carries an English translation of the text everywhere it is sold outside Germany (I understand it is the biggest beading magazine in Europe, plug plug). You can find out more on their website: www.perlen-poesie.de

Meanwhile I had a super lovely morning. I went down to Mylys as I needed some ivory cotton yarn for a custom order. I had a yummy hot choc in their cafe and a nice chat with Naima. You should pop in if ever in Hamburg, it is the friendliest and cosiest wool shop I have ever been to.

Free street stuff: Bed linen

On the way back to the car I found this pile of bed linen on top of an outside rubbish bin cupboard. Wow! I was happy it was left in plain sight and not just tossed in the trash, it's all clean and nicely folded. I know exactly what I want to do with it - cushions for our rather uncomfortable kitchen chairs. Do you ever pick good stuff up off the streets?

I will make it live again!

Update: What I did with the bed linen.


PS: Remember, if you are an Etsy seller you can get free promotion of your stuff right now at the Etsy Stock Take! 

Design Submission

I want to remember this day: It's the first time I have ever tried to submit a design (of my own devising) in response to a craft magazine's call for entries.

Haha! 

I am so inexperienced at this that I really have no idea how my design will be received or whether I prepared the submission in the right way. Still I hope I am in with some kind of a chance...

The submission is an item (well 2 actually!) for the 2012 Jane Austen Knits by Knitting Daily. I blogged about my plan back in October and more recently. The 2011 version was quite lovely and I am looking forward to seeing the new one. Yes, even if my design's not in it... :)

Have you ever tried your hand at design professionally? Any tips for me?

Checking out Bloglovin...

I'm looking for a nicer way to manage my blogs that Google Reader, which I find clunky and sometimes annoying.

Maybe Bloglovin is the way forward... hence the weird bit of code down below, apparently I have to 'claim' my blog, I'll let you know if that turns out well!

Oh, and I'm also baking a cake, Sticky Toffee Pudding no less! Have to make my own now not living in the UK. Did you know that some unusual ingredients go in? Tea, coffee, even dates! Right, off now to make the Caramel sauce...

Mmmmmm!


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Book Review: The Moonstone

First one volume edition by Smith, Elder in 1871.

I have just finished The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. 

*Deep sigh and a big smile*

This book is widely considered the first ever detective novel and precedes the better known works of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie's multitude of murder mystery novels.

Collins was a contemporary of Dickens and writes charmingly of the adventure of the Moonstone, a huge yellow diamond, on its travels from deep in India to mid-19th Century England.

Composed as a collection of accounts written by those characters that have contact with the diamond and its mysterious disappearance in a country house in Yorkshire, this book had enough suspense to keep me from putting it down. Night after late night I have struggled to continue reading as my eyelids battled against me, impatient to know where the tale would lead next.

Along with mystery, war, peace, romance, tragedy, country and city life combine to give you a vivid picture of life circa 1850.

I loved the book from the moment I started to the disappointing moment that I finished it. It's by far the best thing I've read for ages (even if I have read 2 brilliant Jane Austen novels this year!). I am sure this is one I will return to as the twists and turns will keep me on my feet after some time has passed to dull my memory.

Get it! It's great! 

The FREE Kindle edition is available at Amazon (it's a good quality file, this is how I got my copy).