What I Read in November 2009
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
Moribito II: Guardian of the Darkness by Nahoko Uehashi
Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella
Frostbitten by Kelley Armstrong
The Blythes are Quoted by L.M. Montgomery
The White Garden by Stephanie Barron
Knit The Season by Kate Jacobs
Knit Two by Kate Jacobs
Never Learn Anything From History by Kate Beaton
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
The Lost Art of Gratitude by Alexander McCall Smith
An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon
Ironside by Holly Black (reread)
I had deep things to say about a couple of these titles but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten my pearls of wisdom. I know; such a terrible loss. So the short form:
Leviathan: Utterly brilliant, and the first of a trilogy, which I did not know, and was left on a nasty cliffhanger at the end. Argh!
The Blythes Are Quoted: Definitely not The Road to Yesterday, the book cobbled together from bits of this, Montgomery’s last manuscript. This was sensitive, painful, and an interesting balance between Montgomery’s usual themes and storylines and unexpected ones.
Twenties Girl: I wasn’t impressed with the last couple of Kinsellas I read (the latter half of the Shopaholic series), so this was a very pleasant surprise. It had a plot! And characters I didn’t find completely vapid!
Knit the Season: Jacobs is getting more mileage out of Georgia now that she’s dead than she did when she was alive. This felt flat and kind of forced. Knit Two was a decent read, though not as good as the first in the series.
Never Learn Anything From History: Kate Beaton is a brilliant Canadian artist and humourist who produces history-based comic strips. Here, lose yourself in her website and her journal (the comic up at the time of writing is Sexy Tudors, which is a scream.) Chortle as you will. The Brontës shirt will be mine; oh yes, it will be mine. (And here’s the link to the original Dude Watchin’ with the Brontës comic because, well, just because.)
Redeemed?
Well, someone on a spinning e-list I subscribe to said that 4-6 oz of fibre spins enough for a pair of socks or mittens, an adult hat, or a scarf, while 8 oz is good for a small kerchief kind of shawl. I’m feeling a bit better about possibly needing to spin up another two ounces to make a total of eight for my goddaughter’s wrap.
I need to knit it up quickly so I can find out how much more I might need to spin and knit onto the end of the wrap, as well as to have the use of Ceri’s blocking wires before she leaves for Christmas in Halifax.
HRH’s call for snow to fall this weekend just barely squeaked under the wire. I know he was aiming for Saturday, but the rain we got last evening turned to snow late last night, and it’s still snowing now. We have definite sticking to the ground happening.
Sigh
Great all-day co-coven workshop yesterday, despite three people missing due to illness, work schedules, or unavoidable extracurricular responsibilities. Today? Hello, full-blown cold and fibro flare-up. I can’t even lie down without the body hurting, but I don’t have the energy to do much while upright. HRH took the boy to monthly playgroup, thank goodness, although he really didn’t want to. I know he’ll enjoy himself once he gets there.
This afternoon is the group cello class, and then tonight is the monthly steampunquian RPG. I know everyone will understand tonight if I just kind of sit there and listen. The cello class is what’s going to be the challenge, but I also know that once I’m there and in the middle of it adrenaline will carry me. It will take a day or two to recover from the weekend, though.
My LYS e-mailed me yesterday to tell me that the winter issue of Spin-Off had arrived, even though I hadn’t asked them to put one aside for me. I love them. When I was last in to place that big order for fibre and a bobbin, MA said that I could come in and use the store’s drum carder any time I wanted to mess about with it. I suspect she’s figured out that I am easily sucked in by new toys if casually left alone with them and allowed to talk myself into acquiring them. (I have neither the space or the money for a drum carder, or the need for it right now. Nobody worry.)
I officially finished the first skein of yarn on my goddaughter’s wrap yesterday, and wound the second into a centre-pull ball and joined it to the WIP. I’ll knit up what I’ve got then wash and block it to see how big it is, but I suspect that due to the weight of the yarn it won’t open up as much as I want it to. Which means, of course, that I will have to acquire and spin up another two ounces. Despite having swatched with the yarn and the needle size I’m using, I think I should have gone up a needle size to account for the alarming amount of blooming the yarn is doing while being knit. Six (or what might possibly become eight) ounces for a shoulder capelet/wrap/hood really seems like too much. I should have spun it finer, or perhaps the test yarn I made was plied more tightly. Handspun yarn blooms sneakily as you knit, even after you’ve set the twist and thwacked it. Oh well; lesson learned. It’s a learning curve, right?
I need more Tylenol.
List of Things Accomplished on a Friday
schedule set in stone and released
reminders sent out
ritual polished
(and retyped)
final research completed
which enabled
workshop lecture notes to be fully written out
incenses blended: one, two, three
grocery list made
laundry done
two loaves of bread made
(now awaiting eggs and more flour
to attain cinnamon bun dough
that shall rise overnight in the dark chill of
the fridge)
cello played (though I practiced
none of my assigned work)
various small things
looked up, followed through,
checked, and confirmed
to unwind,
I spun bamboo (for the first time)
not as pleasant an experience
as it ought to have been
dinner (homemade pizza) was
a trial
(not the pizza, the dining experience)
I would be looking forward to this weekend
so much more
if every single waking moment wasn’t scheduled
and it’s not even December yet.
Purple Mohair Update
Well, this is nice. I was worried that the mohair would get stiff when spun and plied this tightly, but I am pleased to be wrong. It’s not silk, or even Corriedale, but it’s not awful. It feels very sturdy, and it looks quite good. I don’t think I’d spin an entire project of sock yarn out of this (or rather, I don’t think I’d want to wear a sock made completely out of this yarn) but I’d probably wear a sock knit from yarn made of this plied with something else. So for what it’s worth: 0.2 oz/5 grams of hand-dyed 70% mohair/30% merino, chain-plied into light fingering weight yarn (that’s the orifice threading hook I made for myself this morning above the yarn):
For those who were interested in how the colour split in the dyeing process, yielding the pale purple, hints of blue, and touches of pink, here you go: this is what the variations look like spun up and chain-plied:
I have got to start remembering to throw the penny into the pictures for size comparison again.
