What I made, by Sharon

 Today I have three finished items that are gifts, so, while I wrote about them while knitting them, I haven't had the opportunity to show you them on their intended recipients. First up is the Swancho that I knit for Kris, so that Kris, Nat, Katie and I can all match. She looks so cute it it! Then there is the Albizia cardigan for my mother. Practical and pretty, this was a (rather lengthy) very satisfying knitting adventure. It's made out of Holst Garn Supersoft, and while it washes up reasonably soft, i actually ended up with a cut on my tensioning finger from the yarn rubbing on my skin. I'm really pleased with how it fits her , and I think she is too. Then we have a charity jumper and hat, which I knit to try to minimise some of my every growing leftovers. here it is modelled by a bear. Hopefully the bear is smaller than a 9 month old. Also a  bonus pair of socks for my father, because he likes fun socks and complained that I haven't knit him socks for a while, wh...

 So, I did DNF    The Emergency ,  because I hated it. It was kind of wooden, and not very interesting. I got  Scary Monsters by Michelle de Kretser  from the library and started it. It's a book in two parts which can be read in either order - I remember when it was originally published the paper copies had one part starting on one side of the book - or turn it over and the other part starts from the other side of the book. The first half was very good - I am going through a bit of literary fiction by women stage. Anyway, just before we went away I found out that  Empire of the Dawn  the final volume of Jay Kristoff's E mpire of the Vampire series has come out that very day. Unusually for me, at the end of part one of Scary Monsters I set it aside and starting this amazing 800 page epic finale to this brilliant series. I am loving it - vampires, quests, endless dark, battles, love and so many emotions! After I finish this I'll go back to Scary Mo...

 This weekend we headed up to Marysville to hang out with my parents and run the 10 km in the Marysville Marathon festival. I did the half last year, but this year training did not go to plan, so the 10km it was! we did all our favourite things including walking up to the falls and getting a selfie.  Getting harassed by King parrots parrots. It was my mother's birthday last week, so I finally gave her the cardigan I made for her- and promptly forgot to take photos! Hopefully she'll wear it when I see her this week. It was  a very satisfactory weekend. the run started cold and a little damp, but was cool and delightful. Same falls, different day: We got home mid afternoon, which, after also being away last week was a bit of a relief. I've cleaned the bathroom, hung the washing and now I'm going to flop onto the couch and read the very excellent book I started on the weekend. If you come back on Wednesday, I'll tell you about that, and about what I knit this weekend t...

Last week I said I was going to read   The Emergency  by George Packer,  but we were going away for the weekend  and I didn't want to read dystopian fiction. One of my travelling companions was Bee and she is the romance queen (funny story - Bee didn't read fiction for a good long while and then she fell in love with romance. Now she reads more than anyone I know We have different tastes - she loves first person dual POV, I don't.) So I requested  Silver Sky by Taylor Gray  from NetGalley. It was perfect! Well written, lovable characters, third person. It's the second in a related series and I loved it so much I've bought the first one. (I think its on KU for those of you who subscribe).  Now I've gone back to The Emergency . I'm having mixed feelings - there is a lot of exposition and I'm not finding the main character at all sympathetic. Additionally, things just sort of happen and I can't see why - although that might be because our main chara...

 As has been our tradition for three years now, we spent cup weekend (which is Saturday to Tuesday, for you non-Australians) camping on Dick and Carly's bush block near Pomonal. I only took one photo because I finally got a phone plan that works even in the country and it turns out I don't really want my phone to work in the country, so I had it off for most of the weekend!   The rest of the photos here are stolen from Leon, who also didn't take many. We did all our favourite things- we went on two runs, a little bushwalk and even swam in a lake. We sat around a fire and bullshitted with out mates. Bee and I had a reading circle - which consisted of us sitting and reading.  We got to see how the bush is recovering after catastrophic fires over the last couple of years. We saw all out favourite animals, including loads of kangaroos, yellow tailed black cockatoos, gangang cockatoos and this wallaby with a joey.  We had a ripper of a time.  This is the last ye...

  It's not secret that I'm obsessed with knitting bags. I've managed to limit myself to Joji & Co bags, becasue they are so good. I last posted about buying Joji bags in Jul y , but somehow a new envelope bag made it's way to my house (it's a  better colour in real life!)  it's to replace the previous one , which I had used a lot and also was always a bit too lipstick red, and not quite the right shade of pink I was hoping for. Weirdly, I seem to replace these every two years. At Bendigo this year, Nat brought out her Thread and Maple Needle Binder. I was obsessed! It's funny, because I don't really need any storage - I have a Joji needle binder  in beautiful brown from 2020 and a DPN holder from 2021 in human skin pink.   So, I've been resisting, although I always knew I was going to give in at some point!  Last week I was having a very bad day, and also I got a pay rise, and I gave in and put an order in. I started with the notions page: And so...