Teapots & Teasers

So, I've been finishing up my projects rather late at night this week and so I've been too sleepy to blog about them. Therefore, I'm going to do a mega project blog tonight before bedtime. Sunday I made another hair clip.
Monday and Tuesday were devoted to finishing the green fingerless gloves for Dylan. I ended up not making a third glove. He didn't seem to mind the wonky one, but he's got an open invitation to swap it out for a new one anytime he likes. Apparently, he has bigger fingers than I do, which came as a shock to me. I always think that I've got pretty big fingers. The thumb and the pinkey were especially tight, but he squeezed into them. If I make more I'll have to remember to add an extra stitch on all the fingers.
Tuesday I made this month's project for Kitchen Sink Dyeworks' Badass Women's Yarn Club. This month's Badass is Lane Turbeville who works with Pathways, a United Way organization that focuses on homeless women and children. This is a super awesome program. If you want to know more about Lane and the work she does you can read about her on the KSD site or go to the Pathways site.
I love this month's yarn color! Seafoam greens and blues are some of my favorites. I'm also excited because I got to use the awesome buttons I got at the Bottletree Holiday Craft Fair. Luckily, Mercedes kept up with the name of the craftsman who made the buttons because I've lost his card. Bad Sara! I also got one of his super awesome hair clips at the fair. I really love it because I've got a mess of hair and I'm always looking for something to put in it!

Today I decided to return to my first love - jewelry. I made these simple, but adorable teapot earrings. The teapot charms are hollow stamped brass so they're very light. I've been getting more and more interested in the steampunk movement especially the costuming and the literature. Gail Carriger and George Mann are two of my favorite steampunk authors. Gail posts lots of fabulous steampunk links on her twitter feed. Especially those relating to tea and parasols. Back in November I made this hair piece inspired by the Order of the Brass Octopus from Gail's Parasol Protectorate series.
Threadbanger helped me a bunch with my first attempt at a steampunk costume, which I wore to DragonCon 2010. Flickr and Livejournal both have some great steampunk fashion ideas too. My bustle was a little out of control, but it was the first one I'd ever made. I'm debating making another actual bustle for next year or just going with a ruffled bustle on a new skirt. The skirts I made for this year were taken from deconstructed prom dresses I got at the thrift store. I'm pretty proud of all the gathering I did. this was my first project on my new sewing machine too!

Steampunk

So, I thought I'd jump in on the Bookkeeper's Steampunk Challenge and try to find more steampunk books to read myself and share some recommendations of my own.

With that in mind, here is a short review I wrote back in July on the Little Professor page

The Affinity Bridge by George Mann

I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but this book is BRILLIANT! The female character is sympathetic, the male character is flawed, but in an understandable way. There are shades of Alan Moore's "From Hell" lurking about creating dark, atmospheric pockets. The zombies are spine chilling and extraordinarily well conceived. I cannot wait for the next book. Literally. I can't wait. I may explode. (In point of fact, I special ordered it from England as it was released there over six months before it came out in the US). It could happen. So, just wanted to point all that out. I'll try to be sane again now.

The book centers around Sir Maurice Newbury, and investigator for the Crown, and his new assistant, Miss Veronica Hobbes. There are automatons, dirigibles, and even zombies! An horrific dirigible crash along with several other well protected incidents have started to throw doubt on the reliability of the automatons. After all, who wants a clockwork butler that might strangle your guests at any moment? Sir Maurice and his unexpectedly feminine assistant have to get to the bottom of the mystery before any more tragedies occur.