Unravelled Wednesday - the one where Willow is a solo cat

Tarragon and Willow didn't interact much, but since he died last Friday she has become even more interactive with us. She's sitting on the couch, which she never did before, and helping with everything. Here she is helping my newly finished cardigan for my mother to dry:

Now I'm knitting a quick charity jumper from leftovers. I love using up leftovers.

This weekend we're going car camping, and I'm going to cast on a pair of socks for my dad to knit while we sit around a campfire.

In reading, I finished Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson. It was fine, I guess. Loads of characters, lots of unnecessary details and an unsatisfying ending.

Now I'm reading a NetGalley review copy of The White Octopus Hotel by Alexandra Bell. I'm loving it, even though it is time travel. It's also full of magic, so in my mind its more fantasy than time travel and for some reason I can deal with that! I'm about a third of the way through and looking forward to seeing what happens. Octopuses (octopods?) are a bit of an theme right now, because Leon and I are listening to Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Ruin , which features octopuses.

Next up is a another NetGalley book The Emergency by George Packer, in case I wanted to add some dystopian fiction to the dystopia we are experiencing! That's my last NetGalley book for the year unless (as seems likely) I request some more.

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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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...

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.

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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