GBSB 1

Lauren and Tilly working hard

I had a lovely day today – reorganising Libro a little bit has led to me being able to take full days off with impunity; hopefully long gone are the days of working all day, every day.  One of the things I’ve been meaning to do more of now I have more free time is my crafting / sewing. I’m more of a cross-stitcher really (certainly not a knitter) but I have made four sets of curtains for our house, not to mention that 150 metres of bunting last year … Anyway, I’ve been enjoying watching the Great British Sewing Bee on the TV, and was excited to see that Lauren Guthrie from the show was opening a haberdashery shop, Guthrie & Ghani in Moseley today.

GBSB 2

Liz meets Stuart

So off we trotted and met Jen there, too, and to cut a long story involving a dash back to Kings Heath to buy the last copy of the book in Smiths, I bought the book, had it signed by Lauren, Tilly and Stuart, all contestants on the programme, and had a lovely chat with Stuart who, it turns out, was a contemporary of mine at University! Anyway, the shop is lovely, I bought buttons, ribbon and a pincushion, and will be back – and I’ll be talking a bit more on here about any crafty creations I manage to finish and anything else lovely I buy from the shop.

GBSB 3But of course, this has led to yet another book confession, as a shiny copy of the GBSB book had to be purchased in order to be signed. It does look great, though, doesn’t it! And has loads of hints and tips, and I haven’t bought a sewing book for *ages* (well, not a modern one; I can’t resist those old Golden Hands books when I find them second hand, even though it’s often a seventies fest inside).

20130427 1This confession reminded me that a Virago book landed on the doorstep in the week, kindly sent to me by Dee from the LibrayThing Virago group. I very much enjoyed the last Mary Webb I read, and this is her last short novel plus some short stories, so a real treat, and a lovely original Virago Green, too.

20130427 3After my second (ahem) visit to Guthrie & Ghani, I went to the regular BookCrossing meetup. To my shame, I didn’t take any books along (again), but I did only pick up one, a travel book about completing the Silk Road in China, etc., on horseback, so right up my street. Um, road.

20130427 4And then I got home and found that my next read-with-Matthew read (we so enjoyed reading Capital together, we thought we’d do it again with another book – all are welcome to join in) had arrived – Ruth Ozeki’s “A Tale for the Time Being” which centres around the Japanese tsunami. We’ve both enjoyed Ozeki’s other novels, so this should be a good read – and it has 430-odd pages of fairly small print, so should last us a while.

So, a variety of books on a variety of subjects, and a lovely day, too, involving the purchase of buttons, ribbon, a pincushion and then some falafel at the Farmers’ Market! What could be better?