Finishing up. A project, a plea and a book crush.

While I’ve been lacking in blogging, I’ve been pretty busy doing other things, alongside home educating, settling Amelie into school and bringing little boys.

He’s such a big boy now, so much part of everything. Walking, contributing to life with the ever present, all useful “da!” and generally making a mess and an impression.

And then, there is this, my Christmas present which I worked at diligently over 3 months of evenings after sleepy bedtime feeds. I’d never done granny squares before but I loved doing this, so therapeutic and easy.

The Rowan Renew yarn is sadly discontinued, which means I’m buying it up and hoarding it so I can make a similar blanket out of squares like this.

So that kept me quiet and has been pretty good for my mental health too really, which is (chemically or peace induced) in a better state than it was a while back.

And then there is this.

That’s the very first shop I’ve ever built on my own, though “on my own” does not do justice to the massive assistance I got from Peter Bance and side orders of codey loveliness I got from Colneis. But basically I managed. Even when I couldn’t work out the problem answer, I mostly found what the problem was and with some help, I built it. I’ve even learned to modify bits of code and hunt things down.

I guess this shop marks a shift. I was always more craft orientated, my Hama Beads and Fimo are my roots and toys were a distraction. Toys are now pretty hard to make a living on and when one of our suppliers forces us off Amazon in May, so they can sell to our customers direct, the death knell is likely to sound for an awful lot of small traders like us. We work so hard but the internet has given our suppliers access to our customers as it once gave me access to high street ones. As the supplier in question said, we are just a drop in the ocean to them… and so I can see it follows that if they can make the retail money themselves, why not?

C’est la vie.

So I’m going back to my roots. I always wanted to sell things that let people innovate and create and I love making and selling beautiful things. So if you can bring yourself to support us in our new venture, with a link, a purchase, a pimp or a review, you’ll be very welcome. I’m damned if I’m going to watch my livelihood, my life and all my hard work go under because some big people cornered a market and then wanted mine. I worked too hard and I’ve survived too much to see that happen. All I want is enough to support my family and it makes me so angry that I’m going to lose that to add to the £millions of Amazon and people who already have enough. The Simple Craft Shop will welcome you if you care to come.

So I’ve built a shop and I’ve built a blanket and I’ve built a boy in three months – and while I’ve been doing that, I’ve been listening to stories in my ears so I can get on with work and crochet without my mind wandering into places I prefer it not to go.

The girls and I got hooked on the Wee Free Men stories by Terry Pratchett at the beginning of the year and all fell a bit in love with Tiffany Aching. I was surprisingly moved by the stories which were not only great but a charming coming of age series too. When I finished them, I felt as if the Feegles and Tiffany had been living in my head and I truly missed them. So I thought I’d move on to the City Watch series, which I had read a couple of in the past. For 2 months, Commander Sam Vimes, the flawed but honourable, rough but ready, strong but loving, decent and dirty man of the watch has had my heart beating to the strains of a full on book crush. Having gone the distance of six books together now and with only one to go, I’m wondering what on earth I’m going to do without Sam and Tiff… Mr Pratchett, I salute you.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

So, what I want to know is, do you have a book crush?