Etsy and tatting

Today I'd like to show my appreciation for the wonderful world of Etsy.com. Etsy is the place to buy and sell all things handmade. It contains thousands of shops of people from all over the world selling anything from jewellery and clothes to cosmetics and accessories, all handmade by themselves. I've found a lot of good products on there covering all price ranges. These people put a lot of love and attention into their products and this shows. I have to resist the urge to keep buying things.

I've placed the Etsy mini on the right of this page. Mine seems to be mostly corsets and medieval dresses at the moment. I suppose it fits with who I am. Most of the blogs on the left are of Etsians, check them out.

This brings me nicely to my next point. For the last year or so I've been tatting. This is a form of lace made by a series of knots. It is very durable and also elegant. Last December I discovered Etsy by accident through a Google search. I immediately realised that I could turn my hobby into a job. I would never have dreamed that this was possible but Etsy opened my eyes to a handmade world.

The pictures below show one of my own designs 'Elizabeth'. The first one is the black and red bracelet and the second one the red and cream necklace. I've also done these in other colours. I'd love to know what people think. I'm nearly set up and ready to go and I hope to become a seller very soon.

x

Winter Is Coming

Hello. Today I would like to discuss 'Game of Thrones'.

'A Song of Ice and Fire' by George R.R. Martin is a series of medieval fantasy books. It focuses on political intrigue more than magic and for once we do not get elves and the like. This is what was so appealing to me when I first found it a few years ago. It feels more like a historical novel than a fantasy. Yes it is set in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros but George himself has said that the story is based on the War of the Roses. This fan-made trailer, which uses elements of other films, is very good at showing the various aspects of the books.



Recently HBO announced that they were going to film a pilot for this series and call the TV version simply 'Game of Thrones'. We already have Sean Bean (Sharpe), Lena Headey (Terminator - The Sarah Connor Chronicles) and other well known actors.

Today we finally had confirmation that Rory McCann is going to play the Hound. I've only seen him in one film, Hot Fuzz, where he plays the store assistant who simply says 'yarp'. I'm sure he will be fantastic as this character.

I hope this pilot is given the all clear as it would be amazing to see the series on the TV. I've always thought it had a filmic quality about it. This is not quite that but it's close.

x

Within Temptation and Elane

I've had an interesting day today. I woke up this morning and remembered we were due to have something new from the band Within Temptation. I found it later in the day. It was a trailer for their new CD 'An Acoustic Night At The Theatre' due out in October. Along with clips of some of their songs, it also includes a snippet of their new single 'Utopia'. Here is the trailer.



I cannot wait to hear this song in full. They seem to have filmed this gig so maybe one day we will have a DVD to accompany the CD. This is one of the reasons why I love them so much: they are prolific. It's great to have a band who release albums and then spoil us rotten with hours and hours of DVD footage.

That was the first bit of news to happen today. The next came completely out of the blue. I was on last.fm looking through their collection on Mediaeval Baebes songs and I decided to listen to the Baebes radio. After a few tracks of similar artists, I heard something that was absolutely beautiful. It was Nebeltanz from the gothic/dark folk band Elane. I had heard of them before but had never got round to listening to their songs. It is so atmospheric and emotional (especially with the violin). You could write a gothic story just based on this tune. I'm so glad I found that track today. I immediately went to buy it on iTunes and have listened to it several times since. Tomorrow I think I will check out more of their output.

I usually dig to find my kind of music but today came with was one of those amazing finds that I was not even looking for.

Heather x

Hello all

I've finally taken the plunge into the big, wide world of blogging. I've recently done two on my Myspace page but i've never had a site just for blogs. Wish me luck. I was thinking about starting one of these a few months ago but I decided to finish my degree at University before I got stuck into it. I suppose I should say a bit about myself.

I'm Heather. I've just finished studying Ancient History at Uni in Wales. My three years there were fantastic: made loads of great friends and was woken up at all hours by the sheep just outside our windows. Well maybe that last part was only slightly true, they were a bit farther away but they were still noisy.

I adore all things gothic, especially the art and music side of it. I love Within Temptation and have been a fan since Mother Earth first came out. Another band I follow is Mediaeval Baebes. They are both as good as each other for different reasons. My music tastes are quite eclectic. Apart from gothic, I love folk, acoustic, rock, alternative, some metal, celtic and classical (mostly living composers like Ludovico Einaudi). My favourite singer-songwriter is Darren Hayes who i've been following (no not in a stalker way teehee) for 12 years since the days of Savage Garden.

I can be quite geeky when it comes to films, Tomb Raider, A Song Of Ice And Fire, Farscape, anime and manga (especially Godchild). I like to do shuttle tatting and have decided to turn this into a job (this is what I wrote about on my Myspace page). It's still in the stages of being set up but I'm getting there.

There you go. I hope I haven't dragged on too much. I look forward to meeting new people on here.

Heather x