An old favourite

One of the activities on Needlecraft Haven (a crafting forum I host for members to chat about stitching, knitting, crochet, beading, in fact any craft really) is our Reading Challenge. Each December I ask for volunteers to nominate our reading books over the coming year. This year 4 members volunteered so over the year we'll each choice a book three times ....

.... for me that's good news as selecting one book would have been tricky for me, I'm so pleased to be able to choose three!

This year's theme is childhood favourites, any book you loved reading as a child. As these will be re-read books we are reviewing the books in the same month (usually we review a month later to allow everyone time to read).

January was my choice and one book I loved when younger was Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. I love the descriptiveness in his writing, you can picture the river bank, Mr Badger, Mole, Ratty and of course mischievous Toad. The characteristics of each animal is so apt for their role in the story, and although he causes quite a bit of trouble you can't help but chuckle at Toad's antics.

I have really enjoy reading this again, it brought back many memories of my childhood bedroom lying on my bed reading, there is certainly more to a book than just the story inside.

Over the last week I've had two lovely finishes, both gifts so I cannot share just yet but I can share the starting photo of one. The start of each year is busy for me as many of my friends and family members have early birthdays, and of course Easter will be early this year too, although I only stitch for exchanges at Easter.

It's an exciting week for us as not only is it Hubby's last full week at work, he retires next Tuesday, but his sister is over from America. That said he's on holiday Thursday as we're all going out for afternoon tea, so this will be a short working week - life will be very different, we are both very excited.

I hope you've all had a productive January with all your crafting.