What I made, by Sharon

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Linky Wednesday - the one where the reading is back on point

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...

Weekending - one where we stayed close to home

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...

FO Friday - a Moby for Leon

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...

Linky Wednesday - the one where summer hits hard

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 ...

What I did with the rest of my holidays

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.

End of year wrap up - 2025

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...