What I made, by Sharon

  A while ago, to protect my hands, back and shoulders, I made a rule. One 30 minutes of spinning at a time. this has serves me well. I think having a time cap actually encourages me to get that half hour in. Inspired and encouraged by Sonia I signed up for a one week spinning retreat. I am very excited that i get to spend an entire week just crafting.  And then I realised that I haven't  spun for more than half an hour in a day since I can't remember when. I did mention to my physio that I tend to run into trouble if I spin too much. Last time I mentioned spinning he thought about bike based exercise classes. this time her got it and gave me some strengthening pre-hab that seems to be helping.   While I haven't actually ended up spinning for more than half an hour a day, I have been spinning almost every day. Amazing how quickly the spinning gets done when I actually sit down and spin! I've finished three bobbins of 125 grams per bobbin and just have one more t...

This week I finished, and loved    I Love the Whole World!* by Victoria Hannan . It's the story of a middle aged woman from Melbourne who wins a trip to Las Vegas and starts rediscovering herself.  I  also started listening to  Don't Stop * by Bonnie Friedman , which I put on hold, because they were both set in 2000 and featured women in their early 40s. But I found the audiobook quite annoying, partly because the narrator makes every man sound creepy. I'll try it again, but I don't feel confident I'll get through it.  Now I'm reading  Tapeworm * by A.P. Thayer . I don't normally read a lot of horror, but this is my year for it! My next book, by NetGalley review order is  Thoughts Be Bloody * by Auden Patrick  which is also a horror. I'll probably pop  Never Lasting*  An 831 Stories Romance by Angela Bourassa  in between for a romance break between all that horror! In knitting I've made progress on my  Alpine Bloom Dress ....

W elcome to part 33 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, but now 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. This instalment we have popular psychology, linotype machines and reality TV. All books were provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Reality TV For Snobs Turn skeptics into fans and fans into scholars with this smart, entertaining guide to 20 influential reality shows, from The Real World to The Traitors . Much like reality itself, reality TV has one main There’s just too much of it. Whether you’re a devoted fan who wants to share your passion, a specialist who doesn’t have time to watch every show, or a ske...

  After I finished  Preaching to the Choir * a really enjoyable horror novella by Adrian Tchaikovsky  I realised I had time to fit ion a non-review book, before proceeding to  I Love the Whole World!* by Victoria Hannan . I went to the library app to see what I might like to read. And there, waiting for me was a notification saying that I had 11 days left to read John of John . This is the Read With Us  September book. Read With Us is an online bookclub, run by many of the same people who participate in Unravelled Wednesday. i don't really participate, but I was inspired to request this book from the library. I had but a reservation on it when they first announced it, but had been told it would come my way by March 2027. And yet, here it was! I'm enjoying it, but it's not a light read and it's not a book to skip quickly through. The writing must be savoured and relished. I am racing through Hell Bent    the second in the Ninth House trilogy. It's a boo...

 My 83 year old mother fell over on the street the other day. She put down her left hand (she's left handed) and fractured a bone in it. While it could have been worse, it's  not great, particularly since she is very left handed. She can't go to her gym classes, or swim, which are her main sources of exercise, so, for the first time in her life she's seeing a personal trainer. She's irrepressible and I love it.     Anyway, it's winter and it's cold and she can't wear a glove over the brace she has to wear, so she asked me to make her a mitten. Just one. I tried to suggest I make her a pair, but she said she was happy wearing mismatched mitts. I was going to make her two anyway, and then i realised that was because I would hate wearing an odd pair. So I did as requested. One large simple mitten that goes over a wrist brace. I know because I tested it on my old brace. Hopefully she won't need to wear either the brace or the mitten for too long. And the...

I finished the  Primervera socks I started for something small and convenient to carry around at Bendigo. Every Christmas, our good friend Dani of HalfBaked HandDyed fame dyes the Richmond Knitter's a special self stripping, riffing of the Christmas theme. this one has twelve different coloured stripes, for the twelve days of Christmas. I stole Sonia's photo, because it was better than mine: Stunning. I have come to the realisation that I don't like wearing plain, stocking stitch socks. They sag, and don't grip my legs well. The patterning on this sock is basically a 7 x 4 rib, with some extra fancy stuff thrown in every 6th row. They are so comfortable! The heel also called for a style I've recently adopted - adding one or two garter stitches to the edge of the heel flap. For some reason if I just slip the edges of my heel flaps it never ends up as neat as I would like, but this technique makes picking up those stiches easy and very neat. Even with this modifica...