What I made, by Sharon

 Yep, it's looking a lot like last week.   I'm still reading the NetGalley Review book -  The Last Apartment in Istanbul  by Defne Suman.  It normally wouldn't take me over a week to read a 400 page book. This is a good book - it's well written, and covers interesting topics, including life in an apartment building in Istanbul during COVID lockdowns, the persecution of Greeks in Turkey, gentrification  and mental health. Unfortunate I'm finding it a bit of a slog, it feels like it goes over the same information repeatedly. I've nearly finished, and then I'll read  T heory and Practice , by Michelle de Kretser, as planned.  I'm still knitting  Wool & Honey,  just the end of the second sleeve to go.  Excuse the terrible photo. I took them this morning, just after I discovered that Tarragon had peed himself in his sleep, on the couch. I wanted to get the photos done and get out for a run before work, but first I had to clean u...

The annual Handknitter's Guild Market, which we all call the Coburg Craft Market renamed themselves Melbourne Fibre Fest a couple of weeks out from the event. This did not change the wonderful market, which has all my favourites and  particularly Ixchel, who no longer vends at Bendigo. Becasue the market is only a month out from Bendigo, I went with the intention of not buying any yarn, and I succeeded! I bought two beautiful braids of yarn from Ixchel: And 500 grams (a jumpers worth) of this amazing blue and green Australian fibre from Ethereal Medusa who are a collaboration between Melbourne City Dyeworks and Cat and Sparrow. I also bought some more Chiaogoo  needles - even as a monogamous knitter it is sometimes good to have two sets of needles in the same size. Kerryn who is a core trivia member came along, as did about 10 of the Richmond Knitters. we went out to lunch afterwards, admired each other's purchases and did some knitting. By co-incidence, it was World Wide Knit...

  W elcome to part 24 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 24 , 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. Despite being CFBC sometimes I like to take a look at children's books and what's out there - today we have meditative cats, Black hair and premature babies. What George Thinks When He Sits Still by Caroline Bell Have you ever wondered what a cat is thinking? In this tender, beautifully illustrated picture book, readers follow George—a dreamy, thoughtful cat—as he rests in sunbeams, watches the world pass by, and reflects on quiet moments. The story begins from an outside perspective, then gently shifts into Ge...

I'm still listening to  Pearly Gates  by Bonnie Solomon . It's quite fabulous, it's just I didn't have any time to listen (or spin) over the weekend, even though it was a three day weekend. I didn't even have time to write a weekending post about it! It was a good time. I spent time with friends  And saw both mine and Leon's parents. We went to a gig on Saturday night. B ecause of all the hanging out and driving I got a lot of knitting done, and am now on the sleeve of my jumper. As mentioned last week I've been knitting the Beehive shawl while sitting on the couch. We've been listening to   Anathem by Neal Stephenson  for rather a long time. It's a fantastic book, and quite long, so I'm really enjoying that.After we (eventually) finish Anathem we'll listen o the new John Scalzi book, When the Moon Hits Your Eye .  Over the weekend I finished  The Stories We Tell  by Charlene Carr , a delightful final instalment in that trilogy. then I said ...

 I bought a kg of "wool" last time I was at Bendigo Woollen Mills. After If finished my last project, I decided to do a sample spin. I made fauxlags and using longdraw spun up 50 grams. I plied it on Monday night, and got about a ten ply - 78 metres for 50 grams. Meanwhile - Leon and I drink a lot of tea, both black and herbal. We have a lovely, traditional tea pot with a very nice cosy. For a while we've been discussing the problem of washing the pot - we don't want out black tea with breakfast to taste of last night's camomile, yet it does. I have a glass tea maker, and we've been using that for herbal tea, which solves the problem of cross flavouring. But it didn't have a cosy, which means the tea gets cold.  You can see where this is going, right? Beautiful handspun tea cosy. I used this pattern , but flipped it around, because my tea maker has an insulated lid, but looses heat through the bottom. Or it did - now the bottom is covered! I'm so happ...

Elise said to me that she might go to Cairns, in tropical  North Queensland to visit her 10 YO cousin, who is from America and is currently doing her compulsory country work stint. I might go with her, it would be lovely to spend a week in the sun near the end of winter. By coincidence I'm reading  Moonlight and Dust by Jasmin McGaughey  a rather good YA fantasy set in Cairns!  It's a review book - the number of outstanding review books I have was starting make me feel uneasy. Next up is either my next review book  The Last Apartment in Istanbul by Defne Suman  or the Kobo Plus final book in the romance trilogy.   The Stories We Tell by Charlene Carr . I'll get to both of them in one order or the other. In audio I finished    Hello Universe, It's Me: How I scheduled a breakdown and manifested a new life  by Deepika Sandhu , which is meant to be the story of how Deepika became a new and better person, but it's like when your hot mess...

 W elcome to part 23 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 have eclectic taste and endless curiosity.   I can't believe I'm up to part 23, 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 we have two books about clothing and one about meditating. Custom Sneakers: Everything You Need to Personalize Your Kicks by Trasfi Kenza The long-awaited guide to upcycling your sneakers into unique kicks by French artist and TikTok star Kenza Trasfi (@knz.tv)! Packed with fresh designs for 5 iconic sneakers, easy step-by-step instructions, photos by Alexi Pav, a technique F.A.Q., and bonus inspo you to feed your i...

 Things looked like they were back on track after reading the wrong book last week. I read (and loved)  S arah Painter's  The Gilded Nest . But then  I am started  The Divorcetante , for   Netgalley and I hated it. The writing was fine, but I hated the plot. I stopped 20 percent it, which I dislikedoing for review books, because what if it gets a whole lot better. I only left a review on NetGalley, and moved on.  I'm going to cancel Kobo Plus after this month, and focus on review books, library books and the dozen books that are on my Kobo, some of which I brought with me when I switched from Kindle nearly a year ago. So, for the next two weeks it's going to be Kobo plus all the time. I'm halfway through  Solomon's Seal by Skyla Dawn Cameron . It's a ludicrous romp of a sci-fi adventure novel, and is giving me very strong Matthew Riley vibes, but with a single mother as our kick-arse hero. It's the first of a series of (so far) six books, and it...

  On Friday night we hosted my parents for Shabbat dinner, and I finally remembered to get a photo! And here's my mother, with sitting on her lap. Saturday was gloriously quiet. We slept in and lay around reading and then cleaned the house. I went to practice time at Pole and then the supermarket. It really was a blissfully quiet day! I did finish plying my latest spinning project. It's Australian Polworth and I got 800 metres from 200 grams, so it's a light fingering. It puffed up a lot on finishing, and I am so looking forward to knitting with it. I'm going to make The Beeswax Shawl  for the Richmond Knitters Bendigo knit-a-long. I'm obsessed with how pretty it is, and don't even want to put it away, I just want to leave it on the coffee table and admire it. Sunday was another gloriously slow start. I did start my next spinning project, sampling some long draw. More on that when i work out what I am doing! d then we went down the road to see Lulu. I'd call...

I said last week I was going to read book nine of the Crow Investigation Series, and then promptly went to Kobo plus and borrowed book eight. At about 25 percent through I was thinking 'this is very similar to the last book" and then something really distinctive happened and I realised what I had done. It was probably a good idea, since I clearly didn't remember anything! So this week I'm reading S arah Painter's  The Gilded Nest .  Then  I am going to read  The Divorcetante , a  Netgalley review book that looks like rom-com. I've been spinning a bit, which is a great time to listen to audiobooks. I'm currently plying these singles and they are looking so pretty. I've also got a very large and very boring task at work (archiving the last 15 years worth of files) which is dull enough that I can listen to an audio-book while I work. this week I've been enjoying  The Winning Formula by Cara Veloce,  a very fun rom-com (free on Audible Plus, bonus!). I ...

 We had a fabulous week and weekend, finishing the 23 pubs that made up this year's Pint of Origin. We had a variety of friends join us for different days, and I failed to take any pictures of any of them!  After every six venues you get a bonus - sometimes it's a beer, one time it was pizza! There are not a lot of exciting stories form this year - we had a pot of two of generally very good beer at each venue, enjoyed the company of our mates and moved on. The only odd thing was that I couldn't get dessert. I love dessert, but everywhere we went the kitchen was closed, or on one mysterious occasion there were 5 people behind the bar, they served us beer and then turned away and wouldn't talk to me. The QR code menu suggested they were not serving food but it was 7.30 PM. No dessert for me!  Despite this minor issue there were no hangovers, few late nights, and  lots of moderate day drinking. Perfection! Now that we are back from holidays, and Pint of Origin is over, ...

When I'm at home I wear comfy clothes. Trackies or Pyjama pants, ugg boots and a comfy jumper. No bra, no glasses and no rings. I am very particular about my comfy jumper. It has to be loose and warm and just right. For the last few years it has been the Treetops jumper . I don't know when this became my go-to jumper, but it's looking rather tired. When I saw Blanko - the day it was released - I queued it immediately. Something about the shape of it just looked so snuggly and comfortable. I bought yarn when we were in Adelaide , and decided it was the perfect pattern to knit on our recent Sri Lanka trip. I was right about that! It was quite mindless, just kilometres of grey stocking stitch in the round. No shaping, no variations. Here's a pic from the second last day.  By the time we got on the plane I was most of the way down the second arm. On the plane I got sick. I didn't read, or knit I just sat as still as humanly possible and waited for it to be over. Additi...