What I made, by Sharon

I was going to write a post yesterday when we got back from hiking, but walking four days with packs and then driving back (including a 50 minute delay coming back over the Westgate bridge) left me knackered. The hike was fantastic - mountains, dispersed camping, a variety of weather - on the first morning we had ice in our water bottles. In December! By the third day we had both sunburned the backs of our knees. There was one hairy afternoon where we took a route we knew was not marked, but that two websites and a park ranger told us was fine to do 'just follow the ridgeline' and we ended up bush bashing for a couple of hours. frightening, but then we got back on the well worn path.  I didn't do as much reading or knitting as I often do on hiking trips, maybe because we had more light, maybe because I was finding my book hard work. All That I Am by Anna Funder  has two first person POV. Ruth is living in Sydney in 1999 and remembering what was happening in 1933 Germany an...

  This week I read two very different NetGalley review books. I loved  Detour (Detour, #1) by Jeff Rake , a near future sci-fi about a trip to Titan. I did not love  Starling Nights by Merit Niemeitz  an urban fantasy about energy vampires and instalove. I didn't actually finish it. Now I'm reading  All That I Am by Anna Funder , a book that I had on my Kindle before I even had a Kobo.  In audio I'm listening to a NetGalley review copy of  Bad Asians by Lillian Li . I've had ups and downs with it, some parts I found really tedious, but now it seems to have settled into a more interesting section. Next up is a NetGalley sports romance called  Rooting Interest by Cat Disabato  . If you are Australian you too might be sniggering at that title. It's from a new press called 831 Stories. After I requested it I read about the drama associated. All their covers look like this:  In spinning I started a new spin out of some pretty Ixchel fibr...

 I had a great weekend, although it reminds me of the old joke about needing a holiday to recover!  On Friday night my parents hosted a dinner to celebrate my birthday and Chanukah. We had some drinks with dinner, and then at ten o'clock all went back to Kris and Katie's place to hang out.  Saturday I went to my last dance class for the year. The Pole studio is closed until the 6th of January, which is 17 days. When I did CrossFit it was closed for one day. We used the go do a workout on Christmas mornings. Anyway, I'll keep myself busy with other fitness activities, which brings us to Sunday. We though we should visit Leon's parents in Ballarat and, since Kris has gone away without her car, we drove, instead of our usual train. This meant we could stop and Lerderderg on the way and go for a trail run - although the middle part was steep and rocky, so it was more of a power hike. It was, as always, so nice to be out in nature, whatever speed we were moving at! By the ti...

  W elcome to part 28 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. Today I am focussed on food - with books about snacks, mac and cheese and an audiobook about whiskey.  The Epic History of Macaroni and Cheese: From Ancient Rome to Modern America by Karima Moyer-Nocchi  (expected publication 3 February 2026) This book is detailed and methodical, beginning at the beginning - the Middle Ages in what would become Italy. it places it's history of mac and cheese is a much, much broader context, acknowledging the important role food history has, and showing how the history o...

To celebrate we ran hill sprints. OK, it wasn't specifically to celebrate, it was what was programmed, but I do love hill sprints. Later we are going out for dinner, and I wouldn't be surprised if I got a present or two from Thread and Maple. If no-one gives it to me for my birthday I'm going to treat myself to a Kobo remote, so I can read without even moving my arms! This week I've been finishing off Kobo Plus books, prior to my subscription finishing and I'm deep in women's fiction / romance land. I finished  Reclaimed Baggage by Katie O'Rourk e which was very good, and now I'm reading  Delayed Intention by Barbara Rachel . It's a romance I'm not sure the plot makes any sense, and they spend a lot of time talking about their feelings and how they are unable to love or somesuch. Needless to say, I'm not loving it, and I might give it a rare DNF. It's frustrating, because it's nearly a good book. Next up I return to the review books ...

  The weekend kicked off with us hosting shabbat dinner for may parents. I feel like its important to take photos, because we won't be doing this forever, but i generally forget! Saturday we slept in, I went to a dance class and then it was time to get ready for the annual Richmond Knitters Christmas Party (f or previous years see  2024 ,   2023 ,  2022 ,  2021 ,   2020 ,  2019 ,  2018 ,  2017 . Longstanding traditions where upheld, including me taking terrible photos! there were 28 of us this year, which is a new high! Ornaments were exchanged, and the quality of them is so high! This is a talented group of people and each year we seem to level up. Dani dyed us a Christmas yarn, this one with speckles! I can't wait to knit it up. I did come home with rather a lot of goodies. Sunday morning we went for a run, and then relaxed for a bit. I finished plying the yarn for Leon's winter set. Then we headed to the Windsor Castle hotel for a dri...

 I finished  Backlit . Since I am currently obsessed with Easter egg pastels (or V summer drinks, if you prefer) you can imagine how much I love it.  I did do a little bit of colour management on the body, to prevent the bottom colourwork ending up not contrast enough.  It's a really practical garment for this time of year, really wearable for warmish days and nights with a tiny bit of chill to them.  The pattern is only available in a book called Knit Happy with Self Striping Yarns by Stephanie Lotven. I've knit her patterns before. She's a good designer. I bought an ecopy of the book on Amazon a few years ago. I couldn't print the pattern. The charts were light green on dark green. I ended up using the clip to to copy them into a word doc and print them. it was all a bit unpleasant. I think Stephanie is releasing these as individual patterns, so if you are thinking about knitting this delightful top, I would wait until it comes out in a better format. Despit...

 Sometimes I struggle with naming these Wednesday posts. At the beginning of 2024 I tried numbering them (1/24, 2/25 etc) I was considering trying that again, but when I went to look for those posts, I discovered that I like all my posts with the silly, best I can find a theme titles. This week I finished  The Bone Harp  by Victoria Goddard ,  and started    Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall .  All my friends have read this romance, and when I found it in Kobo Plus I was quite pleased. I'm enjoying the book, which is also a nice change. Next up is another Kobo Plus book (I've only got another two weeks on my current subscription, and then I'm going to catch up with my NetGalley books).  I've got a few to choose from, mostly romance and women's fiction. I'll decide when I get there. In audio I finished The  Heir Apparent  by Rebecca Armitage  (well read but told in a really repetitious way). I decided that, since I don't seem to be e...

I may have mentioned that Richmond Knitters has chosen the Celeste Sweater by Petit Knits  for our annual Bendigo Sheep show knitalong. I've decided to knit the 8 ply jumper in 4 ply, because I get more wear out of my lighter jumpers. i decided I wanted to make it on easter egg colours. i was sitting on my balcony, pretending to meditate when a tram went past with an ad on the side that summed up the colours I wanted. I didn't grab my phone before the tram had moved on, but i did a google and found the ad: Last week Katie gave me some left over Bendigo yarn in white, and I dyed it up for this project: I'm nor sure if I'm going to go with the four colours above, or sub out one of them for the mint leftovers of the top I just finished. I know the photo if would have looked nicer if I had skeined up the mint, but i certainly don't have time for that!  I'm so chuffed how the colours came out. Here they are with the background colour: Sometimes my dying results can ...

 Every so often I like to pull out the polymer clay. The run up to Christmas is a really fun time for this. I don't decorate (or celebrate Christmas, except in the most secular of ways) but I'll take any excuse to craft! This year I received some 'cookie cutters' which I thought would make perfect ornaments, and rather large earrings. I'm chuffed with how well they work with polymer clay. This is something I was trying with a layer of white over a base of transparent I love these trees - the one s with pink and purple will be earrings for Kris, the rest gifts: I think these gingerbread men look psychotic, but everyone I've shown them to thinks they are cute: And now I'm all polymered out! this weekend I'm going down a different path and am going to dye some yarn.

  Summer has been slow to arrive, but today it is 28 degrees and sunny, and after I finish work I'm going to sit in the sun and read. I'm currently reading  The Bone Harp by Victoria Goddard  , and although I usually find her books quite compelling, I'm finding it hard to keep focussed on this one. I also didn't love my previous read  How to Date Your Dragon  by Molly Harper  which was paranormal shifters. Maybe I need a break from fantasy. I might read  Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall  next. It's available on Kobo Plus, and all my friends read and loved it. I want to have finished my audiobook first  The Heir Apparent  by Rebecca Armitage , which I thought was going to be romance and while it has quite a bit of romance, it's also got quite a lot of family drama. I'm enjoying it, but don't want to eye-reading and earreading books on similar themes. they might not even be that similar, I'm not much of a blub reader, I'm knitting away on...

 I wear shawls all year round, but Elise wears them more like scarves, to stay warm in winter. Still, I was thrilled when she asked me for a new shawl in purple. I bought the yarn in Bendigo and even more thrilled when Joji announced a one skein mystery shawl knitalong.  The MKAL was a lot of fun. Her Ravelry boards are very active, with a lot of chatter (also some people whinging because the mystery shawl has some repeated elements. Unlike another recently finished MKAL, this one hangs together as a finished object. it was a lot of fun to knit. Simple, but just interesting enough keep me going. The weather is going to be quite crap this weekend, so i might give it to Elise now, rather than waiting until autumn. If I do, I'll try to get photos and I'll update this post. if not, I'll get photos next winter! 

 I really couldn't find anything the link my activities this week! After I finished    Empire of the Dawn  I went back and finished    Scary Monsters  by Michelle de Kretser . It felt good to tick it off the list, but that's all I can say about the second half of that book. Then I decided it was time for something lighter, so I read  Autumn Falls  t he first in the romance series I started a couple of weeks ago and  An Occupation of Angels , a Lavie Tidhar book about angels in the cold war. It's even weirder than that sounds! Now I'm reading  How to Date Your Dragon by Molly Harper  a paranormal fantasy included in both Kobo Plus (which I have rejoined) and Audible Plus. I only started it yesterday, but so far it's fun. I'm listening to a NetGalley review copy of    The Heir Apparent by Rebecca Armitage.   Princesses! Royal succession! Family drama! It also has the most perfect narrator. I am enjoying it. In craf...