Project: Holiday Sanity Scrapghan

My Holiday Sanity plan: crochet granny squares, ideally during my city bus commute, while listening to podcasts.  

Granny squares

Yarn is Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece, which I've been building quite a stash of over the past couple of years (YarnStory in Honolulu has an ever-changing array of colors). My yarn acquisition habit has been to buy single skeins and only occasionally quantities for projects larger than a hat. In this case, that works just fine. I did buy an additional 3 skeins of white for another granny square blanket (and I'll post progress on that later), and had enough left over so that I split one of the skeins into 3 smaller skeins, and used them for dye experiments that I think could work with these colors (will also post progress on that later).  

This is a nice soothing project for me, just the ticket while I'm on the city bus on my way to or from work. It's simple enough so I can pay attention to a podcast. CraftLit is currently doing Age of Innocence, which I haaaaated the first time I read it. I was a teenager, I thought all the characters were horrible people, and I wanted to kick every single one of them in the shins. 20-ish years later, I'm glad I gave it another go. Heather Ordover really knows how to enrich the experience with background information and Literary Links of Interest that explain things like Parma violets and camphor, and Brenda Dayne is a sublime reader (you really can hear it when she arches an eyebrow sardonically). 

Granny square inspired by a textile print

A big part of the joy of doing a granny scrapghan is that I don't have to think about too much besides what color I want to use next. I'm thinking a little bit about how the squares will work together in the end, but since part of the point is to have a cheerful riot of color, I don't think too hard. This isn't to say that I don't think - there are squares where I've ripped back because a color wasn't working, and there are squares like the one above, where I was thinking specifically about something. In this case, an 18th century textile print: 

Waistcoat, French. circa 1770 - 90, cotton fabric (India?). In the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

The shades of green and gold, with the pink, red, and blues - reminds me of my childhood (my parents had some very bohemian/hippie friends who had traveled/lived in India, Turkey, Tibet, etc. and Mom did a lot of traveling in Asia and the Middle East during the 60's). Recently, I moved some furniture I had stored at my parents house into where I'm living now, and that includes a rattan loveseat with a riotous mix of pillows in stripes, paisley, ikat (-ish - I don't think it's a genuine ikat weave), and embroidered fabrics. This scrapghan might fit right in.  

Ravelry project: Holiday Sanity Scrapghan

Coffee Isn't For Crying Into

Yesterday I picked up a 6-cup Chemex coffee maker at Roberta Oaks in downtown Honolulu (I've been looking for one for a while, I think RO may be the only store in Honolulu selling the smaller sizes) . So of course I crocheted a coaster for it last night, and then brewed my morning coffee with it today.

Good morning!

The coaster is still a bit wobbly (needs a good blocking) and worked up quickly enough that I think I'll make another. It's a fairly common motif - I got this pattern out of a vintage Mon Tricot booklet, but the pattern instructions are frustratingly vague in a couple of spots, so I wouldn't recommend it. Yarn is Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece, purchased at YarnStory in Honolulu. [Edited to add: found one! Free pattern on the Scrap Yarn Crochet blog: Granny's Garden Hexagon Crochet Pattern. I haven't tried it yet, but a read-through of it did confirm that it clearly explains the spots I had trouble with.]

The Chemex makes a nice pot of coffee, although I think I'm going to have to play with how quickly I pour the hot water in. 

My morning was also full of seeing tweets and photos and posts about Vogue Knitting LIVE! in Chicago. I really wanted to be there with Shannon and Andi, so I put my big girl boots on and wrote a guest post at Cooperative Press about a few of my favorite things instead of getting sad and crying into my coffee.  

Bride of Death | On My Bookshelf

This book review was first published on my Goodreads page. I received the Kindle version of this book as a backer of the Bride of Death Kickstarter. 

Bride of Death by Tim Pratt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When reading a series that follows a protagonist over the course of several adventures/years, there seems to be a tendency for things to get ridiculous - a character who started out as a scrappy underdog becomes incredibly powerful and successful by book 3, for example, or by book 5, the thoughtful, questioning protagonist with realistic reservations about certain lifestyle choices has thrown all thought and question out the window, but who cares, the books are selling so well the publisher seems to think proofreaders are no longer necessary (...wasn't so-and-so's hair black in the last book? When did he become a blond?), etc.

The Marla Mason series has been refreshingly different. I did start thinking "is this where it gets ridiculous?" around book 5 - and it could have, very easily - but instead, in reading Bride of Death, I felt like I'd been given a peek at where it could have gone, and then given a story that took me back to why I started reading the series in the first place. Marla is growing and changing in realistic ways (and unrealistic - hey, it's a series about sorcerers), and there's a pleasant balance between that change and her recognizable, familiar self. It also feels like Tim Pratt is really hitting a stride as a writer, and that in itself makes this book enjoyable.

This series has continued because the author and the existing reader base wanted it to, and the results have exceeded my expectations. There's something special about being able to keep reading a story because an author really wants to keep writing it.

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Grounded (The Seven #1) | On My Bookshelf

This review was originally published on my Goodreads page . I purchased the Kindle version of this book during the pre-orders.

Grounded by Heather Ordover
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I knit, so let's go straight to the important bit: yes, there's knitting in this book, and it's realistic, fitting in with the storyline nicely, while not requiring any special knowledge on the part of the reader (if you knit, however, you'll likely spot at least one inside joke).

Even if there weren't any knitting in it, I'd still enjoy reading it. The characters have actual character, the storyline is well-paced, and I have a special appreciation for YA that hasn't been dumbed down.

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Casting on: Hot in Norway

Rhinebeck is this weekend! I'm not going!  

Instead of crying into my teacup, I've cast on for my "not going to Rhinebeck" sweater. While I have other projects going on, it's mostly work related and involves a fair amount of stopping and starting and thinking and tracking etc., and even the House Clogs I'm knitting require keeping track of shaping rows. That's just too much for me at the end of the day, when I want something soothing, meditative, and hard to screw up. Last year around this time, my attempt at that was a scarf knit in mistake rib, which I managed to repeatedly mess up by making mistakes in mistake rib (basically I'd start knitting ribbing "correctly"). This year? This year it's big blocks of garter stitch for an oversized, baggy sweater, a modification of the Skappelgenseren that reportedly took Norway by storm in 2012. Instead of the fingering-weight yarns called for, I'm using a single strand of worsted weight, Berroco Remix that I originally bought in 2011 to knit a Beatnik with. I got three sleeves and a hem in and then it hibernated - in order to fit me, I'd have to modify the armscye and sleeves, something I just wasn't up for. The gauge is close to the recipe, but the fabric is a bit denser, so there's a nice nubbly texture. I think it will be very much a tropical version of the Skappelgenseren, and useful for me if it does manage to cool off here by December. 

Other modifications: slipping the first stitch of each row, to help firm up the sides (it's drapey enough to need structure from the seams), and I added 6 stitches to the front and back. I'll likely adjust the sleeve stitch count as well.