What I made, by Sharon

It's the end of the year post, where I assess what I have knit and read in the last year, where my stash is at, and with my goals and plans are for 2022! I read 113 books in 2022. Since I read for pleasure it doesn't actually matter to me whether I read 113 or 3 books. I did choose not to finish 13 books this year, which is an unusually high number for me. I wished I'd DNFd a couple more (Lincoln Highway and The Far Pavilions, I'm looking at you). When I looked at my read books I noticed that there was very little sci-fi or fantasy. These are two of my favourite genres, but I have to go looking for those books, so I'm going to make more of an effort to ready fantasy and sci-fi in 2022. Other than that, I'm sure I will go on reading and listening to all sorts of books. My main knitting resolution was to knit less socks, because I have enough. I did manage to limit it to 9 - three pairs of felted slippers, two pairs of knee highs, two pairs for Leon and a pair eac...

The Boxing Day test started on Boxing Day (the 26th). It could have gone for 5 days, but due to the abysmal playing of the English cricket team it went for two and a half!  I was halfway through splitting for the sleeves on the jumper I'm knitting for Leon, and it was all over. This has seriously impacted my annual tradition of sitting and knitting for a fairly intense period of time. Instead I'm at home, doing fibre prep. This week I read my last NetGalley  review book for the year Truth and Other Lies  by Maggie Smith. It's the story of a young journalist who moves back to her home town has an adventure and makes peace with her past. It's well paced, well written and a hopeful novel to end the year on. I'm listening to Maggie O'Farell's I am, I am, I am - 17 brushes with death . The central conceit is a bit far-fetched - some of the "brushes with death" are just every day occurrences,  but it is an interesting, well written memoir of a sort, if ...

I was about to cast on a Baby Surprise Jacket for charity, when someone pointed out Joji Locatelli's first published pattern, a free baby cardigan .    Not gonna lie, mine does not look great - in fact, I would say it's downright amateurish. It looks like I tried hard, and it's definitly a wearable garment, but the neckline is weird and pulls i, and I think the striping would have looked better on a BSJ. Still, it's done - now onwards to better things. 

 I bought a Kindle Oasis in August 2020 and I never really loved it. But two things have happened recently - there was a system update that seems to help the battery life, and you can now have the book cover you are reading as the lock screen. Love it. I also bought a new cover this week, so now I'm quite happy with my device. I'm reading a NetGalley review book called Would I Lie to You. No spoilers, but the answer is yes. Faiza, the main character lies to everyone about everything. She's been lying to her husband about money for the last six years, and she lies to her parents, her friends, her workmates. She lies about everything all the time, mainly to protect her expensive lifestyle. She lies to protect her lies. Her friends are all horrible people and she is a ridiculously fickle and a bad judge of character. As someone who went to an expensive private school without rich parents, I don't have a lot of sympathy for her. I'm reading on to see how it gets resol...

It was my birthday on Friday and on the way home I stopped at the op-shop that has good craft stuff. Not for anything in particular, but just to see what they had. And I scored 500 grams of what looks exactly like Bendigo Woollen Mills Readyspin in two different colours!  I'm going to card these up together with some grey I have and spin a jumper for Leon - possible Andrea Mowry's Birch Pullover .  Of course, first i have to finish preparing the fleece for his winter set, which would go quicker if I worked on it. Let's see if I can get that done over the Christmas break....  

On Wednesday I (finally!) finished the cardigan I've been working on for the last month. It was fine, but at the end it just felt like it took forever, Probably because I knit something else, and was preparing fleece and embroidering. When you don't focus on one thing it takes longer to finish it. Surprise. Anyway, when I was finishing up I realised that all the yarn in this was "free". The background colour was taken from my Boxy and dyed, and then the pink was destashed from two different people. I bought the buttons on-line during one of the lockdowns, and fell in love with them. I'm really happy with how they look on this cardigan. Now that it's finished I'm happy with pretty much everything about this cardigan. I used tubular cast-offs throughout, and it does give a very nice finish, although I think it made the neckline a little small, but it's fine, especially with the top button open. It's a very wearable cardigan, perfect for these warm su...

Even though this cardigan has felt unbearably slow, since last week  I have finished the second sleeve, and done the button and neck bands. Now I just have 6 more buttons to sew on and we're done! Come back on Friday for blocked photos of this striped beauty. I'm currently reading The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towes. I was really looking forward to this book - to the point where I pre-ordered it. My pre-order got cancelled and the publish date pushed back, which does not surprise me, because this book is a hot mess. There are at least 8 characters that we get point of view chapters from, some in first person, some in third. it skips from person to person, from plot to plot with not a care in the word for convention. The least annoying thing is the lack of quotation marks, but it's pretty pretentious. I'm persevering because I kind of want to find out what happens to Emmett, but it's a bit of a slog. Good cover though. I'm also reading another embroidery book I g...