Linky Wednesday - the one with the Delectable Collectable Spoilers

I seem to have a few books about 30 year old sad girls in my eye and ear reading. It's a genre I enjoy, but I don't need them in both formats! So, I've just finished NetGalley review book Isn’t It Nice We Both Hate the Same Things by Jessica Seaborn, about a mid-30s divorcee and her search for meaning, or at least friends! I have mixed feelings about this one, you can read my full review here. Next up is Horse by Geraldine Brooks.

In audio I finished the witchy, magical The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland by Rachael Herron and am about to start Cammy Sitting Shiva by Cary Gitter another story about lost 30-year-old.

I've got a bit of a focus on the audio books at the moment. I requested a book from NetGalley, didn't hear back. Requested another, still no response. Requested a third and then all three came through! I'm quite pleased though, since I am quite focussed on the knitting, and often listen to books while I knit.

The knitting focus goes like this. I love to set an unnecessary deadline. I am doing Stephen West's mystery sockalong .This first week there was a LOT of knitting. We knit the entire leg, in a variety of interesting patterns. For me, with my size 36 feet, the leg is at least a third of the sock, so I imagine there will be less knitting over the next three weeks.

They really are that bright!

I'm also racing to finish my Luminos Tee. It's a summer top and it's not even spring here, but Anna, one of my knitting friends is also a published pattern designer. She asked if anyone wanted to test a shawl she is publishing in a magazine. So I would love to get this top finished before starting the shawl.

There is no actual reason I can't put the top aside while I do the shawl, but I really like finishing things.

Speaking of finishing things, I did some maths on the yarn I spun, and it's not going to have nearly enough yardage. Luckily I have plenty of fibre, so I'm going to spin up an extra 300 grams and I should have enough.

And that's my week in reading, knitting and spinning.

To read my all my book reviews, and to see everything I knit, you can find me on Ravelry as Sharondoubleknit and on GoodReads as Sharondblk. I'm on BlueSky as Sharondblk.

I'm joining in with Kat from As Kat Knits for Unravelled Wednesday, Kat from the Bookdate for It's Monday, What Are You Reading and 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.

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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...

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...

What I made, by Sharon

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