What I made, by Sharon

  On Thursday (I know that's not the weekend, but I'm counting it) we went to see Pirates of Penzance with Elise and Leon. When we were young Elise played Ruth in Pirates, and it's been a favourite of ours ever since. On Friday we went to Brimbank Park to run the MVP Backyard Ultra. It's a race format where you run 6.7 kms every hour until you stop. This year I made 5 loops (33.5kms) and Leon a massive 12 (about 80kms). We set up a base camp and Kris, Katie, Skip and Bee crewed for us. We started running at 7pm, and I finished at midnight. Leon ran on through dawn, while we sat in a marque in a park. Wild Friday night! We got home around 8am, I had a much needed shower and a nap. Skip made a video about the run, starring Leon and me.  I finished the hat for Leon's winter set and, because it was cold, ended up wearing it all night. It's a good hat! If you watch the video I'm wearing it during the second half.  I was wrecked on Saturday - from the running and ...

and hello LOSY V. My LOSY stash entries are all the L eft O ver S ock Y arn I have at the beginning of the entry. This then becomes inaccurate over time, since it gets added to through leftovers, little gifts from friends and just random accounting errors. This week I made a charity hat and officially finished all the yarn in LOSY  IV . When I started this entry in February 2022 I had 850 grams of yarn. I've knit 17 projects from it and used up all 850 grams.... and now I have 736grams for the beginning of the LOSY V entry!  So much potential! I would like to get this big bag of yarn small fast, so I think I'll make a jumper and booties to match the hat I just finished. Then we'll see because there are so many things I want to knit, and I'm having so much fun.   This does take my stashcount to  18616 over 33 number of entries.It's been hovering around 17 km for a while now, so that's not too bad.

This week I'm both eye and ear reading review books. That doesn't happen often, but I was browsing NetGalley and saw the audio of    Little One by Olivia Muenter . It's very good, a little bit of tension, and lot of relationship stuff and a cult too! The narrator is perfect for this audio book too.   I'm eye reading  The Encore by Juliet Izon . I'm half way through and it's taken a turn in both plot and tone. It was (like Little One) being told over two time periods, but now it's back to one, which is an unusual way for things to be written. I've certainly enjoyed this story of families and hard decisions so far, and am looking forward to seeing what the second half brings. Next up depends on a few things. I've pre-ordered the next (and final!) Crow Investigations book by Sarah Painter  The Crow Moon.  That's coming in the next couple of days. My hold for  Writers & Lovers by Lily King i s meant to come through on the 7th, but I've had t...

 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...