Wednesdays are for reading (Beauty and the Moustache)

Katie came across this book somewhere (I really should ask here where) and put it on Instagram. Knitting, romance and free? Yes please. This is the fourth book in the Knitting in the City series, and the prequel to the Winston Brothers series. Normally I would not read a series out of order, but it was listed as a standalone, so I “bought” it.

And I loved it. This might be best romance book I have ever read. The characters are delightful, the love feels real and the process of getting there feels believable. And she cuts out of the sex scenes, which is the way I like it - close the door, I know what they are doing in there, I don't need a blow by blow description thank you very much.
While story is told is told in first person from the point of view of Ashley the main character, there is a whole cast of supporting characters – a knitting group of friends, and her brothers, and the landscape itself, that give the book vibrancy and texture.
While there is some mention of knitting, which made me smile, knitting is not the focus of the book - in fact, I never found out what Ashley was knitting. I did keep wondering though.

My only regret is that I didn’t start at the beginning of the series. True, the book makes sense by itself, but you meet Ashley’s friends and their partners, who are the subject of the previous books. The moment I finished this book I bought the first in the series, and I’m so excited that there are loads of books by Penny Reid for me to catch up on - 7 Knitting in the City Books, and 6 Winston Brothers - to be both excited and exact!

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Unravelled wednesday and WAYRN - the one where I prepare

We are heading off for some camping and hiking and general R&R on Friday, so I'm currently in planning and preparing mode. Of course that mainly means deciding what to knit - I'm going to make the Old Romance cardigan by Joji Locatelli. The yarn is wound and I'm ready to go. I completed Leon's Winter Set (2023) just in time, and it's currently blocking. I'm reading Georgette Hayer's Fredrica , which I am enjoying very much. Regency romance is so sweet and, unlike current romance offerings, I know it won't suddenly tumble into gynaecological territory! For unexplained reasons, NetGalley is offering some Georgette Heyer books at the moment - (maybe it's re-release?) and I'm taking this opportunity to read a few more of them And that's my week in knitting and reading. To read my all my book reviews, and to see everything I knit, you can find me on Ravelry as Sharondoublekni t and on GoodReads as Sharondblk . I'm joining in with Kat ...

Yarnalong - the one with the final bit of transport

Remember how I took every form of transport known to man a fortnight ago? Well, I was missing just one thing, suburban trains. But today I got to remedy that, knitting my way to Dandenong for work. Yay? My Char jumper has been knitting up ridiculously fast. It's easy, pleasant and a well written pattern. I'm reading Rachael Herron's latest book The Ones Who Matter Most . It's a good read so far, family centered fiction, easy to read but still emotionally challenging. I'm listening to Evelyn Waugh's Men At Arms . I'm enjoying it, I didn't really know what to expect, but some of it reminds me of Catch 22, in that it catalogues the absurdities of war and bureaucracy. The narrator has the perfect upper crust English accent and I'm very pleased it's the first of a trilogy. And that's another week of reading, knitting and catching trains everywhere for me. Do pop along to Ginny's blog to see what she and the rest of the yarnalong ...

Why Andrea Mowry, why? (A rant and a rather nice finished object)

As mentioned, prior to our hiking trip I suddenly, and rather randomly, decided to knit Andrea Morwy's Traveler Shell . It's basically an open fronted rectangle in a knit purl pattern. The pattern is FOURTEEN pages long. Why is the pattern 14 pages long? Because, instead of explaining the ten row repeat and then putting the shaping on top of that (e.g. decrease while continuing to knit in pattern), she writes out the entire ten row knit purl sequence every time something changes. Additionally, most of the time she starts with even number being the right side and wrong numbers being the right side,which is just plain odd. It's confusing and it's like she wants to keep you looking at the pattern for every row, rathe than following the very intuitive stitch pattern, which I had memorised after one repeat. The instructions for the band just say 'pick up x number of stitches'. No ratios, no acjnowledgement that different bits of the band have different ratios. Afte...

What I made, by Sharon

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