Tiger Finish

Hooray! It's finally complete!

I was a little worried I'd be sick of him by the time I'd finished with the stitching, but last weekend I put the whiskers onto him and that was the end of that! Just need to get him framed and find a place on the wall. And I'm pleased to say that it looks much better in real life, although the photo is still quite impressive knowing that I finished that all myself, I think it worked out at about 30,000 stitches in the end.

To be fair, it's taken about 10 months I think, but with such a lot going on over the last year planning the wedding etc and then being away, it was never going to be completed by the end of last year, I think I was being a little optimistic!

So, onto the next one... which is actually a restart. I'd put about the first 100 stitches onto Beyond the Garden Gate and then put it in a box. I found it as I was going through my stash so thought I'd better pick it up and finish it off before I start on anything else. I'm presently managing to stitch for a few hours most days which is great and I'm not sick of it yet. I've also sorted some of my leftover threads out and had a general tidyup. Go Me!

One Soup! and Another Soup!

In my quest to cook more, I've discovered that once you have one of those hand blendery things, that soups are actually the easiest thing in the world to make. So much so that to tackle one of my off work tasks, I've decided to start wading through the Delia Smith 'Soup' book which has been happily sitting on my shelf never to be touched for about oooh, 5 years now.

So far I've made the following, all of which have been delicious:

Carrot & Coriander (using coriander from my balcony baskets, how fresh it tasted!)
Spinach
Potato
Mushroom
Tomato
Butternut Squash

Ok, so I know these are all the easy ones, but they turned out well, so I'm going to attempt some of those with more ingredients over the coming weeks. But I'm pretty happy with myself so far that I'm getting on and trying new things.

Out of This World

In an attempt to get out and about more in my time off, I decided to visit the Out of This World exhibition at the British Library and headed down there on Monday morning in searing heat.

After grabbing breakfast at the cafe outside, I headed in to the free exhibition. I wasn't very sure what to expect, but in front of me were a variety of works from centuries ago up until the present date, highlighting stories of people from other planets, travel to other planets, time travel and a whole lot more besides.

There were detailed excerpts and you could actually see the original books and illustrations of what these authors and illustrators thought might have been possible, alongside the more recent comic book superheroes, through to Doctor Who's TARDIS. (I don't think The Doctor is ever in the TARDIS, I've seen it quite a few times now!)

I think I read through most of the exhibition and it took just over an hour. Given that it was at the British Library, it shouldn't really have surprised me that the focus was primarily written material, but it hadn't occured to me that I'd be able to see the original books and manuscripts, which was lovely. It made a change for me as I am used to Science Fiction via the TV shows or films, so to see some of the inspiration behind these gave me a different perspective.

Out of This World is open at the British Library until 25th September 2011.