In June of 2017 the Wonder Woman movie hit theaters. Geeks were happy. Not long after, the Wonder Woman Wrap designed by Carissa Browning appeared on Ravelry.com. Geek knitters were happy. It quickly became one of the year’s most popular patterns. Like many others, I could not wait to make one.
Spinning Silver is Naomi Novik’s follow-up to Uprooted, a book that I read last summer and loved. It’s easy to say that I loved this book, too. Rather than one heroine, it has three.
Spinning Silver takes place in Lithvas, a small country beset by ever worsening winters, the type that linger long into spring and ruin crops. They aren’t natural winters, either. The cold is caused by the Staryk (strange ice-people). The Staryk use the cold to enter Lithvas from their world and raid it for its gold. Everyone fears them and it seems that nothing can be done to halt their advance.
There has been a recent trend of rebooting ’80s and ’90s cartoons. A standout reboot, at least for me, is the 2017 reboot of DuckTales.
DuckTales was high on my list of after-school viewing, but even higher for my brother. He’s a big fan of Scrooge McDuck. In the run-up to the reboot there was a graphic novel origin story for Scrooge, The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, that I knew would be a great gift for him.
There are plenty of movies that are based on books. Sometimes they change a lot of things, sometimes only a few. Sometimes the project works, sometimes it doesn’t. Clueless is an example of a movie that was successful in adapting it’s source material, Emma by Jane Austen. There was a major setting change from Regency England to 1990’s Beverly Hills, but a surprising amount kept true to the original novel.
Any day that you can wear a costume to work is a good day. I’m lucky enough to work somewhere that occasionally encourages it. This year we had a mini Harry Potter festival. So, it was suggested that the staff dress up for “Wizard Wednesday”.
I already had a basic Hogwarts student cosplay. But, I wanted something a little bit more interesting. I decided to do a Ravenclaw Quidditch outfit. I only had about seven weeks to get the whole thing together and wanted to spend as little money as possible. This meant that I had to push all of my costume making skills to their limits.
Uprooted by Naomi Novik is a book that fully drew me in. I was at work and could only think of getting home to keep reading. It takes place in that long ago time where fantasy stories like to live. In a valley put upon by a malevolent power called the Wood. A force that comes from the forest to steal or kill people and livestock, sometimes it swallows a whole village.
Now that’s summer’s here, it’s time to break out the canvas sneakers. I spiced mine up with a little fan art makeover. My friend liked them so much that she asked me to make her a pair. If you like them, too, here’s exactly how I made mine.
Here’s what you need:
I love mystery stories, despite being a terrible detective myself. One of my favorite series (as in pre-order months in advance) is the Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley. They have so many things that appeal to mystery lovers: an English countryside setting, a past-its-prime estate, a loyal sidekick. What it has that others don’t is a heroine unmatched in cleverness and sass, Flavia de Luce.
“When I was your age, television was called books,” the grandfather from The Princess Bride movie tells his grandson. Television and movies often start out as books, and The Princess Bride is no exception. It was based on the 1973 book The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure: the “Good Parts” Version and was written by William Goldman. William Goldman also wrote the screenplay for the movie, which makes for an interesting comparison between the two.