Linky Wednesday - the one with the (bookish) ups and downs

Things looked like they were back on track after reading the wrong book last week. I read (and loved) Sarah 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's always nice to discover a new series.

I'm currently listening to a NetGalley review copy of The South by Tash Aw. It's very atmospheric, with the perfect narrator. I've only got a couple of hours to go - as I mentioned last week, I'm spending my work days filing, so I suspect I'll get it finished today. Then it's Hello Universe, It's Me: How I scheduled a breakdown and manifested a new life by Deepika Sandhu, which sounds a bit like a self-help biography. I'm in the mood to switch genres, so let's see how that goes.

Unsurprisingly I'm still knitting my Wool and Honey jumper:

I'm 35 rounds from splitting at the underarms, but they are long rounds. And it's garter stitch in the round, which means that every second round is purled. Gross. As soon as I split I'm knitting the rest of this flat. Garter stitch with purling offends me.

And that's my week. I'm joining in with Kat from As Kat Knits for Unravelled Wednesday and Kat from the Bookdate for It's Monday, What Are You Reading. This week I'm also linking up with Sam from Taking on a World of Words for WWW Wednesday where we talk about what we are currently reading, what we have just finished and what we are going to read next.

Linky Wednesday - the one with the pause

In meditation it's said that the pause between the in breath and the out breath is a gap, a space to rest. Well, I'm in that in-between space for reading, listening and knitting. This is a random photo of a highlight of my week - I filled up my lolly jar. These are just supermarket party mix. During the lockdowns, we sources a great pick-and-mix delivery service, but at some point they started sending from the UK, which is a bit silly. Rachey messaged me a new one she found, and I impulsed purchased a kilo of mixed lollies, and then she sent me a link to the biggest lolly shop in Melbourne, which also delivers sweets by the kilogram, so i think I'm sorted for the rest of the year! In reading I've just finished The Beckoning Lady by Margery Allingham . It's the second last book in the Summer of Mystery, and I have to admit, having now read nine Margery Allingham books, that they are OK. I wouldn't have read them if they were not connected to this club, but on...

Geogradiant MKAL Part 1 - that was unexpected (spoilers)

Stephen West released the first MKAL clue on Thursday night. I started knitting it without looking at spoilers. When I got up on Friday he had sent through an "alternative" clue one. I then went and had a look at the spoiler thread to try to work out what was going on. Which was that some people thought the pattern looked like a "German hate symbol". I knit on anyway, since I was half-way through. Then he took down the original clue, replacing it with a mitred square in garter stitch. The Ravelry forums and Instagram are a complete shit-show, even though Rav is being moderated. It's been a bit disheartening, having something that is usually quite light and fun weighed down with all this. I admire Stephen's quick and sensitive response to this drama. I also feel that anything can look like anything if you squint. To me this looks like a Celtic knot. I think mine is pretty, and I'll knit on through all crises.

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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