What I made, by Sharon

Last week I said the reading was "back on point" whatever that means! In fact, as I read further through Shari Lowe's Just One More Day I felt it was decidedly average. Not bad, just not  good. With no pressing review books I went through my e-reader to work out what to read next. I found  Traitor's Blade (Greatcoats, #1) by Sebastien de Castell , the oldest book on my e-reader and am loving it. I don't know what took me so long. High fantasy, lots of sword fights, a slightly sarcastic narrator? Yes to all of that!  Next up is  The Duke's Secret by Sue Williams , Australian historic fiction which sounds quite fun. I'm listening to  The Names by Florence Knapp . It is so powerful and full on and I highly recommend, even if my heart has broken at least three times already.  In knitting I made a little pair of toddler socks for charity to use up some left over yarn. I'm also knitting a secret test knit jumper, so next week I guess I won't have any ...

 I recently realised I don't have a lot of summer knits, so I'm working to rectify that. I started with   Bladlilje / Lily Leaf pattern by Lene Tøsti , a sleeveless cotton top I knit with some slubby cotton I found at an op-shop . I cast it on last Saturday and, somewhat to my surprise I had a finished top by Thursday.  Cute lace detailing, actual shaping instead of the more common recent boxy silhouettes and bright pink yarn. Bliss. This weekend was warm, and we went to high tea in the Yarra Valley. It was the perfect opportunity to wear this top, and to get photos is front of an historic hedge. I have enough yarn in an equally aggressive blue to make  the Bongo  top, and I'm looking forward to that. 

 the Vagina shawl. Possibly because of this picture from Stephen West's pattern: (c) Stephen West Possibly because this was his third mystery shawl and the previous two were quite normal, and then he dragged a whole lot of mystery knitters into this! I knit this in the lariest colours possible, purple and orange and green. Not a natural combination, but I love it. The yarns all have a story. The purple I bought in Sydney for the Stephen West MKAL that I didn't finish because some people thought it  looked like a German hate symbol.  The dark green is Socks that Rock that Katherine destashed. Socks that Rock is my favourite sock yarn ever and I was so pleased to be able to knit with it again. The orange is a beautifully round yarn, dyed by Stranded in Oz, and I got to buy it directly from her at last years SA Fibre Feast.  The knitting itself was quite the pleasure, it's really just garter stitch, a couple of short rows and some yarnovers. Stephen's photos are really...

 Last week I said I was going to read   Dry Spells by Archana Maniar  , but before I started it I got an email from the Romance Read of the Month Club.  They offer a free romance book each month, and also email when their authors have new releases. It's not spammy at all (and this isn't sponsored, but I recommend them). This month they offered  Sinful Duty (The Dufort Dynasty, #1) by Juliette N. Banks  and I decided that a sexy billionaire romance might be a good idea. I enjoyed it.  Three days later I started  Dry Spells  and I just couldn't get into it. So, after digitally carrying it around for two years, I've deleted it and moved on. I've just started a NetGalley review copy of  Just One More Day by Shari Low  and so far it is reading as good, solid women's fiction. In audio I've just finished   Always Carry Salt: A Memoir of Preserving Language and Culture  by Samantha Ellis .  It was a random request on N...

 On Friday we got a new couch or rather a whole new lounge suite.  I was very excited, the old one was 10 years old, we had three cats for that whole time and Tarragon peed on the couch every night at the end. So having a sofa that is clean and hygienic makes me really happy. We went to my parents for dinner on Friday night - happily after the weather had cooled down a little bit from the high on Friday of a ridiculous 43 degrees. On Saturday I did nothing but craft and lie on the sofa reading. Sometimes I did both at the same time. On Sunday we ran to Black Rock - 17 kilometres straight into a headwind the whole time, which was brutal and fun at the same time. And then we went home and lounged some more. We went to the park and photographed my finished Colour Craving shawl and Leon's Moby jumper. My favourite was Leon posing like Stephen West! I finished a skein of yarn, which will eventually be half of a   Night Lights pattern by Andrea Mowry . It was a joy to ha...

I know I'm not posting this on Friday - I had it all written and ready to go and then Friday was 43 degrees and Leon did not fancy standing in the sun to get photos! When we did our photo shoot, inspired by the other item we were shooting we decided to take photos that mimicked Petite Knits original photos (which you can see here ). I'm not sure what made me decide to knit  Moby by PetiteKnit  for Leon. Maybe because Nikhil, one of my Richmond Knitter friends knit himself one and it looked great? Maybe because I bought this yarn from  Aveley Finnsheep  for a cardigan for me, and then I bought different yarn for that cardigan, so I had 1200 metres of beautiful grey yarn just waiting to be used? Maybe because it has been (just) over a year since Leon had a new jumper? Perhaps I just felt like knitting cables? I felt like Leon didn't have enough cabled jumpers, but it turns out I knit him cables in both 2021 and 2022. Ooops. Anyway, for whatever reason I decided to knit...