What I made, by Sharon

Since 2019 the  Richmond Knitters have select a pattern or a theme, and those of use who feel like it, knit it. This year we chose Wool and Honey , a jumper I first saw in Bendigo a long time ago. I loved it from when i first saw it, but it's garter stitch in the round, which is a hard no from me. It also runs the seam down the back, with a visible jog. To prevent this, and also because I was knitting with hand-dyed yarn,  I alternated skeins until the split for the underarms, and then knit it flat. There are aspects of this jumper than I'm doubtful about, most of which are not Andrea Mowry's fault: The sizing. i made the small, which is my usual size in Andrea Mowry's patterns. I spent a lot of time deciding between the small and the extra small. When I split for the sleeves, I added an extra ten stitches to each sleeve from the body stitches. The seaming. i don't mind the act of seaming, but I really struggled to make these seams nice, and, despite redoing them, t...

 I had a really great weekend, and was too tired to write a post about it! We celebrated Leon's birthday, and went out for Sri Lankan food and then saw Hades Town. Excellent. The reading has been up and down. I read (and finished in three days)  T heory and Practice , an excellent coming of age (and lots of other things too) book set in my home suburb. Loved it. Now I'm reading a NetGalley review book  Rumoured by Kelly Mancaruso,   I love a face cover. Unfortunately the book itself is a bit all over the place - half way through it went form third person narration to first person, and then back. I think  it's meant to be edgy, but it just feels weird. So far the "twists" are more like slow bends, and I don't really care what happens to anyone, because I'm too aware of the form - in between the narration there are tweets and article and interviews. Unfortunate these tend to repeat what we already know, so it's a bit tedious. Next up is  Odin's Spear...

 It started with me asking Sonia if she was willing to share the files for the Richmond Knitters logo she designed years ago. Being a generous person, she said yes, and I got some stickers made. Also a t-shirt or two. Then I found out that Stickermule will make quality stickers out of anything, including crappy photos. They magically clean them up, and even shape them. THEN i found out that they make sample packs of 10 stickers. I may have lots my mind a little. I'm sticking stickers everywhere. I'm handing them out to friends. the only thing that is slowing me down is that the free postage takes a month or so, so i made a rule that I can only have one set of stickers in transit at a time. Unless they have a good special, then it's all on for young and old. This is not a sponsored post, I'm just sharing my latest obsession!

 Yep, it's looking a lot like last week.   I'm still reading the NetGalley Review book -  The Last Apartment in Istanbul  by Defne Suman.  It normally wouldn't take me over a week to read a 400 page book. This is a good book - it's well written, and covers interesting topics, including life in an apartment building in Istanbul during COVID lockdowns, the persecution of Greeks in Turkey, gentrification  and mental health. Unfortunate I'm finding it a bit of a slog, it feels like it goes over the same information repeatedly. I've nearly finished, and then I'll read  T heory and Practice , by Michelle de Kretser, as planned.  I'm still knitting  Wool & Honey,  just the end of the second sleeve to go.  Excuse the terrible photo. I took them this morning, just after I discovered that Tarragon had peed himself in his sleep, on the couch. I wanted to get the photos done and get out for a run before work, but first I had to clean u...

The annual Handknitter's Guild Market, which we all call the Coburg Craft Market renamed themselves Melbourne Fibre Fest a couple of weeks out from the event. This did not change the wonderful market, which has all my favourites and  particularly Ixchel, who no longer vends at Bendigo. Becasue the market is only a month out from Bendigo, I went with the intention of not buying any yarn, and I succeeded! I bought two beautiful braids of yarn from Ixchel: And 500 grams (a jumpers worth) of this amazing blue and green Australian fibre from Ethereal Medusa who are a collaboration between Melbourne City Dyeworks and Cat and Sparrow. I also bought some more Chiaogoo  needles - even as a monogamous knitter it is sometimes good to have two sets of needles in the same size. Kerryn who is a core trivia member came along, as did about 10 of the Richmond Knitters. we went out to lunch afterwards, admired each other's purchases and did some knitting. By co-incidence, it was World Wide Knit...

  W elcome to part 24 in a series of non-fiction book reviews, originally based on the idea that the books I request tell you everything you need to know about me. I have, after so many chapters of this series, realised that all these posts say about me is that 24 , this was just a place to put these reviews, but now I can see how broad my non-fiction reading is, and how many interesting, good (and sometimes not-so-good) books and topics I've had a chance to explore. Despite being CFBC sometimes I like to take a look at children's books and what's out there - today we have meditative cats, Black hair and premature babies. What George Thinks When He Sits Still by Caroline Bell Have you ever wondered what a cat is thinking? In this tender, beautifully illustrated picture book, readers follow George—a dreamy, thoughtful cat—as he rests in sunbeams, watches the world pass by, and reflects on quiet moments. The story begins from an outside perspective, then gently shifts into Ge...