The Blog Is Moving- Please Come Too!!

After lots of mulling, I finally took the plunge and went self-hosted for my blog!

So my new blog is www.thebarethreads.com please come see me there!
All my subscribers are being migrated so hopefully I wont lose* anyone!

One of the main reasons if that I was about to hit the ceiling on my media uploads and would have had to pay to expand that storage anyway.  I had this blog for three years so I felt like I was doing pretty well, but had cut corners with appearance and formatting to use as few images as possible.  I started using collages of images so I could get around the upload limit which worked sometimes but limited me in other times.

I hope to take advantage of the other benefits of self-hosting at some point, but right now I have to move house…

www.thebarethreads.com

 

*lose…loose…lose…anyone know?

Sherlock Bones Vol.4 by Yumi Ando and Yuki Sato

I started reading the Sherlock Bones series a few years ago, and had a little break inbetween Vol.3 and Vol.4, which is a shame because it ended in the middle of a mystery!  Sherlock Bones is a tiny, adorable, dog who is really the reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes…when he puts his pipe in his mouth he can talk to his ‘owner’ Takeru and solve crimes.

Microwavable Rice Pack

It’s bloody freezing right now, and I’m forcing myself to go outside and walk to the gym. It’s sheer madness I know.  It has forced my hand though to get on and make some microwavable rice pack because it’s cold and I’m aching.

I bought a fat quarter of fabric for £2.85, and a 500g bag of rice for 88p.  I already had a little bottle of what I thought was lavender essential oil but was actually lavender massage oil.

I cut the fat quarter into a piece that was 32 x 58 cm (I just eyeballed the size I wanted).

I folded it in half longways right side together.  Then I sewed closed two sides, and about a third of the way along the third side.

I turned it inside out, so right way out really.  Then poured in the rice, and a few drops of the lavender.  Then I hand sewed the open side using my terrible version of slip stitch.  I was worried that my hand sewing wouldn’t be strong enough and rice would explode everywhere but so far so good.

I put mine in the microwave for two mins and it came out very hot, so I think 1min 30secs might be better.  I did notice it didn’t keep it heat as long as a hot water bottle, although if you spend four hours trying to pose with it and take pictures for your blog then what do you expect?

My Heart And Other Black Holes by Jasmine Warga- Book Review

I was very much drawn to this from the title.  In my world, you don’t judge a book by its cover but by its title.  Our protagonist, Aysel is a Turkish-American high school student who spends her free time surfing on Smooth Passages, a suicide website (sounds more like anti-constipation website to me). It’s here that she answers a message from FrozenRobot who is looking for a suicide partner to stop him flaking out.

Ratatouille

I found this recipe on pinterest but it’s actually from a sugarfree, gluten free, paleo friendly nonsense website, so I made some alterations.  I’ve very much been wanting to eat more vegetables so a ratatouille makes sense, but lacks protein and carbs (my favourite things!).  So I added potatoes and cheese to make it more balanced and yummier.  OK the cheese also adds fat but in moderation it’s not too bad. 

The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky- Book Review

The Perks of Being A Wallflower is my first book of 2017 and I can’t say it’s a great start.  I finished the book and pretty much just went hmmm…

Healthy Lunch

This healthy lunch required pretty much no cooking or skill, not sure how cost effective it is though.  I used a seedy pitta bread, 2 poached eggs, cucumber, Quorn chicken pieces, microwavable veg, lentil thingies, and a chunk of feta.  This was me trying to eat protein after a run, and more veg after Christmas.

I calculated it at 712 calories which seems like a lot for what looks like a salad but protein does bring the cals.

Agfa Film Photos

I got some more photos developed from my analogue camera.  This time it was from my Agfa which I was clearly shaking all over the place when I took the snaps because they pretty much all came out blurry.

This was really the first time using it, I did shoot a roll of film in it before but after paying about £10 to develop the roll of pictures my sister had left in there about 3 yrs earlier.  All my hard work down the drain.

With this roll I got two decent images of Castle Hill where we go on Christmas Day for a walk.

Crafty Christmas Presents

Just a few crafty bits and bobs I got for Christmas. A new copy of Selvedge magazine which is stupidly expensive, but has pretty pictures and articles on artisanal* crafty things.  A book of 20 different fabric flowers for me to try making, and some pretty silver tape.

Homemade Calendar