What I made, by Sharon

 Sometimes I like things that are fancee, just for the sake of fancyness. For my birthday Leon got me the Thread and Maple needle binder. The binder itself has room for bits and pieces, DPNs and a holder for other pages. I had already bought myself the notions page. I'm obsessed with this page, because it holds all my notions, but mainly because I cut up a piece of magnetic metal, slid it into the pocket and viola, finally a portable solution to chart tracking. For my birthday, I bought myself the Chiagoo needle tip page and then cables page, as well as the notions pouch: Most of my DPNs fit in the pockets of the binder, but I had some left over. I was debating buying the small DPN page, or the large DPN page when Katie messaged me to ask if I could use this: Yes please. So serendipitous.  I am finding this setup very convenient, as well as feeling fancy. When I need something, or to put something away I can grab the whole package. My knitting stuff lives in the study, which ...

Monday was a public holiday, so we had the day off. Then Tuesday I worked from home because it was mant to be 45 degrees at 4pm when I usually leave work, and then I went in on Wednesday because I don't like to work from home all the time. So now I really have no idea what day of the week it is, except that I'm writing this post so it must be Wednesday! I had a quiet long weekend - I said no to a number of social invitations, and saved myself for running and enjoying my new couch . It gave me plenty of reading time - I finished  Traitor's Blade , loved it. I'm so glad it's the start of a quartet and I get to spend more time in that world. Then I finished a NetGalley review copy of  The Duke's Secret  by Sue Williams .   It started well, but I really didn't enjoy the second half. It's dual time period historic fiction about the Duke of Wellington, his housemaid / mistress and then one of their descendants. Both timelines are in present tense, and some of ...

  W elcome to part 29 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  this was just a place to put these reviews! 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. Today we are going truly diverse, with Leonard Cohen, lipstick and menopause.  The World of Leonard Cohen by David R. Shumway  (publishing 29 January 2026) Leonard Cohen's artistic career is unique. Most poets and novelists do not become rock stars. No other rock star's career peaked in their eighth decade as Leonard Cohen's did. Cohen's popularity is still growing five years after his death. In The World of Leonard Cohen, a team of international scholars and writers explore the various dimensions of the artis...

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...

 Today is the first really hot day we've had (predicted 41 degrees). I'm glad I finished Leon's Moby jumper and am just working on Colour Craving, and even that is quite warm to manage in these conditions. I've made good progress since it became the only thing I'm working on. It's at that stage that is hard to take photos of: It's much more suitable weather for reading than knitting, but I never let that slow me down!  I'm reading Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner. It's about a deeply unpleasant (or at least deeply flawed) family and the perils of growing up rich. The family reminds me of some people I grew up in proximity to, and it's told with the tone of 'did you know what happened to the <insert family name here>'. I'm enjoying it. After this I'm not sure, I might read  Dry Spells , a book set in India that is the oldest on my Kobo. And it has a lovely cover: I'm listening to the NetGalley review book  ...

 After we got back from camping (on Tuesday) I had a very relaxing time, with lots of friends and fibre. On Wednesday (New Years Eve) we had our traditional, quiet friend get together at Skip and Bees. I was home and asleep before midnight. I dyed yarn for the secret test knit I'm about to embark on for Sanna and Co I did quite a bit of spinning and am only a couple of sessions away from being finished with the singles on this project. We hosted my parents for Friday night dinner, and I watched Heated Rivalry with friends. Leaon and I ran 20kms yesterday, and it felt surprisingly good. I didn't do some of the things I planned to do, like sorting and refolding all my woollens, but it was such a relaxing and indulgent time that I forgive myself. This week normal programming resumes, back to work and knit night on Monday and the Pole studio reopens on Tuesday. 

Happy 2026! In 2025 I joined a reading challenge  for the first time. Partway through the year I wandered off from it. I didn't enjoy structuring my reading that way. I went back to my usual method - read all the NetGalley review books, and then grab something that somehow found it's way onto my Kobo. According to my (not entirely reliable) records I reviewed 84 books for NetGalley this year, of a total of 121 books. That seems high, but I did listen and well as eye read on NetGalley. I discovered some new to me authors, including Lily King and  Taylor Gray, and read lots of delicious fantasy, sci-fi, romance and plain ordinary fiction. We had some fun holidays, including Sri Lanka, Queensland , hiking twice once by the mountains and once by the sea, Bendigo twice (once for knitting and once for beer) two running weekends (Marysville and Warburton)  Sydney and Adelaide  in one trip,   I knit 19,490 meters of yarn over 40 projects. Only 9 were for charity, w...