Catching up with more crafts: Rainbow longstitch; 80s penguins; birthday card and others.



More crafts for today and to start with, here's a longstitch kit from the '80s, designed by Roger Reinardy. This one inexplicably contained some dull grey patches so I improvised with leftover yarn from a previous project, to keep it looking light and airy. With the photo, it was originally my intention to have the sheep wearing the "Scotland's for me!" thimble on its head, but no such luck, it wouldn't balance there.
Alas, what could have been.


A cross-stitch based on a pattern from the '80s; the designer wasn't credited. This kit was an Avon Needlecraft effort with tapestry gear to make a draught excluder, but the pattern was difficult to read, faded and damaged in places, so I remade it in Winstitch and set about making this as an incredibly long-winded proof-reading exercise, to weed out any errors in the new version of the pattern (it's very easy to get snowblind with these things.) I still need to get 'round to re-uploading this one.


A shiba inu birthday card; definitely done within a sensible time frame and not at all stitched, washed and assembled in a panic with all of about 2 days to spare. This pattern was made by La Selva Design.


A celestial gate by Hygge Cross Stitch and one of the first patterns that I stitched, a few years back. Here it is with Meditating Molly and a little ammonite fossil from a museum in Buxton.


Finishing up with a bit of embroidery, a folky hare from a Hawthorn Handmade kit, in a refreshingly cheery frame that I found in a charity shop a while back.
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Further rambling

Twa Thousand Corbies

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Going to start this post with an illustration, because of this blog layout, posts lacking images tend to look a bit pants. The art here is by G. Howell-Baker. A while back, I was joking about gathering together as many versions of Twa Corbies as possible, and finally, here we are. This is going to be a continually evolving list, so if you know of a version that needs to be included, or if you've recorded one of your own, then by all means, let me know. You can put a comment here or e-mail me at looksinnocuousnenoughchaps [at] gmail [dot] com. Let's begin! 1.  Folly Bridge - My personal favourite, performed completely a capella with some beautiful, eerie harmonies. 2.  Hamish Imlach - A live version, and a very close second favourite. Hamish's distinctive voice works wonders here and we're treated to some elegant sitar as well. 3.  Ayreheart - This one features the lute and a passionate vocal performance, it's quite pleasant. 4.  The Corries - Quite a brisk and e...
'Ave a gander 'ere

Some thoughts regarding Silent Hill Downpour

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Getting up at 3am for work is never a recipe for focussed and cogent thought, but it does seem to result in getting down some rabbit holes. On this occasion, after feeling an overwhelming desire to know what A Lyke Wake Dirge would sound like done in the style of Pookiesnackenburger (for the record, Alisdair Reynolds' version is my personal favourite) and weighing up whether or not to pursue a change of setting in an absurdist comedy script-in-progress because it feels like a repurposed shipwreck might provide more fertile ground than a haunted theatre, I got to thinking about Silent Hill Downpour for a bit. This game gives me some very mixed feelings; overall, I'd come down on the side of being fond of it, there's definitely a lot to love here but there's a near-equal measure of things that are frustrating about it. I guess the one-word summary would be "undercooked". It's got a lot of potential, and the green shoots of some really interesting ideas, but...
'Ave a gander 'ere

Revisiting Crapston Villas (while actually sober)

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So recently, I played the Silent Hill 2 remake (really enjoyed it, a nicely done update of an old favourite) and while scrambling about in the flats, something emerged from the dusty caverns of long-buried memories: namely this stop-motion animated cat, lurking in the sallow light of a knackered hallway with blood dripping from his jaws. Quite the sight. Look upon him!!! To be honest, if it were a toss-up between the cat and Pyramid Head, yeah, I'd rather take me chances with the Traffic Cone Twat, thank you. So as it was, the only other things I could remember about Crapston Villas were an homage to that one King Crimson album, a scene involving a horrific-looking fish, there was a lot of gallows humour and the fact that I was howlingly drunk on questionable ale when I watched it (this was around 2013.) Incidentally, it seems to be a running theme with people that I've talked to over the years, whenever the topic of Newcastle Brown comes up, someone always has a story about...
'Ave a gander 'ere