February always goes by so quickly, being shorter and not January. Here’s what I got up to.
Fave 5 from the blog
- Jammie Dodger through the ages
- Making Pancake pancakes for Pancake Day
- My new Solar System gift wrap
- On-demand customer envy
- All the new Jammie Dodger products
Links I Loved
- Really good article about copying and originality on DesignSponge. I have to agree with a lot of this, and there’s some great debate in the comments too.
- I would love to go to the Sapporo Snow Festival on year, but in the meantime, I can still enjoy all the photos by Jenna and RocketNews24.
- I’ve been meaning to do a post about decluttering tips from when I moved but this post is almost exactly how I did it too.
- There are few things more satisfying than clever packaging design.
- Good ideas of food-related travel souvenirs to bring back from your holiday at Serious Eats.
- I’m so looking forward to Rainbow Rowell’s Simon Snow book, based on the fanfiction her character writes in Fangirl.
- Tor have put together a detailed six season outline for a Legend of Zelda TV show. Would watch.
Things I Want To Make
Giant pompom bunnies! Finally a use for my giant pompom maker.
I’ve always wanted to try sashiko embroidery but the traditional blue/white colours never thrilled me. Rebecca sewed hers with rainbow sashiko thread and I love it.
Fruit pompoms! If anyone has any kind of yarn they don’t want, I will trade you for it so I can go pompom crazy.
I got Mollie Johanson’s Stitch Love book to review and it is too cute! Ther’s even an angel bunny.
Reading
New Spring by Robert Jordan
This Wheel of Time prequel was fun to read, letting me dip back into that world after finishing the 14 book saga a couple of years ago. It’s more of the same really, just a bit lighter and shorter focusing on a few of the characters before the events of the main story kick off. The only bad thing is that it made me want to re-read (some of) the Wheel of Time books, which nooooo. [Buy on Amazon]
Northern Delights by Anne Ward
Having loved Anne’s book on Scotland, I was looking forward to seeing what unusual places of interest she would find in the North of England, since I haven’t spent much time around there. With everything from quirky museums and outlandish buildings to tiny bookshops and little-known oddities, there’s something to intrigue everyone, and it makes me want to go hop on a train right now. [Buy on Amazon]
My Japanese Husband Thinks I’m Crazy (1 &2) by by Grace Buchele Mineta
I stumbled across Grace’s blog a while back, where she shares comics and articles about her experiences moving from Texas to Tokyo to live with her Japanese husband. I will read anything about Japan and these are fun collections of short comics about everyday happenings, lost in translation confusion or relationship stuff. In between the comics she also includes articles explaining some of the interesting things she’s discovered about Japan. For Japanophiles, these can be a bit obvious, but others are based on her own experiences and give a different perspective. If you enjoy the comics on her blog, these are worth a buy. [Buy on Amazon]
Unread books update: 2 down, 0 added!
Watching
We Are The Best
I love films about bands, especially teenage girls in bands. We Are The Best is about 3 girls in 1980s Stockholm who form a punk band and get up to the usual teenage stuff, including fighting over the boys in a local punk band, dealing with embarrassing parents and annoying siblings and general boredom and hijinks. The actual band stuff is awesome; the idea to start one only really happening in order to steal a practice space from some tedious rock band. Watching them batter away at the instruments and write their first song (Hate The Sport! – it’s actually brilliant) is cool enough, and then they recruit and convert their shy religious schoolmate who can actually play the guitar. Girl gangs are the best and you should seek this out. [Buy on Amazon]
Wolf Hall
Really really didn’t want this to end and I wish they had more time, but they did a remarkable job of capturing the feel of the book. So many little moments and looks that instantly take you back to a passage from the book. I only hope they can get everyone back to finish it off.
What Did Lovefilm send me?
We Are The Best, as above. Guardians of the Galaxy, which I found about 50% awesome fun and 50% boring exposition and one dimensional villains, and finally The Grand Budapest Hotel, which I will watch this weekend.
Listening
Still mostly JPop with the new Capsule album and digging up some old stuff by Sawa and Vanilla Beans. The new Shellac is pretty good too.
How was your month?
