What I made, by Sharon

  It's been quite the week for going out, which may have slowed the reading down a little, but not the knitting. The other thing that has been good for knitting and not good for reading is that I'm listening to Yesteryear . It feels like everyone has read it already, and it's a pretty interesting book. I'm not sure if it's a thriller or something else. It's about womanhood and family and social media and so many other things. There is definitly a mystery here, and I'm looking forward to finding out what is going on.  I am desultorily reading    The Tea Planter's Secret (The Ceylon Series #2) by Clare Flynn , the second in a historical romance series set in Ceylon.  It's as expected - rather dramatic and quite fun, but I just keep doing other things instead of reading it. Next up is also a NetGalley book - Over To You by Georgie Tunny , which I think is about newsreaders and might be Australian. Can you tell I'm not much of a blurb reader? I'...

This weekend was the beginning of Pint of Origin - a ten day beer festival that happens in different venues all around Melbourne. We went West on Friday and got to catch the new tunnel home from Footscray. We don't have much call to use that route, and it's pretty exciting to have new train stations. the free public transport is still a thrill, and we are getting very good value from it. On Sunday we continued our beer adventures, going to six pubs Northside. Kris joined us, and we managed to get one, rather terrible photo with all of us!              Late last week and over the weekend I finished a little charity jacket, which was super fun to knit and also used up some left over yarn. The back is striped, but right now I've only got this one terrible photo. (I'm sensing a theme!)  Once I get the back closure on I'll post photos of the back as well as the front on  Ravelry: sharondoubleknit's French Macaroon (charity 12/26) .   I t...

I decided to use the leftovers from my Celeste jumper to knit a McKinnon beanie. This beanie is part of the Bendigo project . I test knit the jumper for this fun knit-a-long so i thought it would be fun to do a hat (and socks, but that's a next week situation. I haven't knit brioche for a while, and I've never knit brioche cables, but it was easy to remember and fun to knit.  And it makes such a beautiful squishy textured fabric. My moment of greatest pride was when I had to rip - I'd started a new background colour at knit night, and was three rounds in when I noticed that I'd chosen the wrong colour. I ripped it back and got the stitches back on the needles and it was fine. i had thought it might be one of those situations when I just keep tinkng back one more row to fix it, but no - I can't even tell which row it was.    It's such a bright and fun hat, and it was a pleasure to knit. I'll try to get some outside photos over the weekend, since Pint of...

 I've really run out of clever titles! There's no theme this week, just good books and fun knitting. I finished (NetGalley review book)   Ode to the Half-Broken by Suzanne Palmer , which was a good sci-fi featuring sentient robots and found family. Recommend. Now I have a break between review books, and am reading  Tyrant's Throne  the fourth and final Greatcoats novel. Swashbuckling fantasy at its best! Next up I'm back on the NetGalley wagon, and back to my original plan with    The Tea Planter's Secret (The Ceylon Series #2) by Clare Flynn  the second in a historical romance series set in Ceylon. Maybe this will inspire me to actually plan the return trip to Sri Lanka, rather than just hope a plan appears. In knitting I'm making a Bendigo project with the leftovers from the jumper I was knitting last week,  McKinnon Beanie by Susanna Kaartinen . Brioche with cables! It's been a long time since I brioched,  and I'm not sure I've ever done c...

This year  Richmond Knitters chose the  Celeste Sweater by Petit Knits  for our annual Bendigo Sheep show knitalong. It wasn't a jumper I felt particularly drawn to, but we had agreement, and early, so I was happy to knit it. the pattern is written for 8ply, and I have enough 8ply jumpers, particularly as a colourwork yoke adds quite a lot of warmth. For me a lighter jumper for inside with a jacket over the top if going outside is perfect for our Melbourne winters. Melbourne winter can be pretty sad and grey, so I wanted bright pastels (Easter egg , or 'candy' coloured were my inspiration ). I'm pretty happy with the results. There were a couple of dramas with the knitting - where the pattern calls for the main colour to be used in the yoke, it didn't really work, and then I used a speckled white, which also didn't work, so I ripped and reknit the last 8 round (the ones with ALL the stiches) twice. And then I realised the row that had been ripped out from and re...

Kat from  As Kat Knits  took a blogging break, and I missed her posts, and I also missed the communal feeling of linking up with other knitters and readers. She's back, and here we are. I finished    Major Gift   by Tiffany Izuma, which was a romance. It was fine, it was just so low stakes. Now I'm reading  Ode to the Half-Broken by Suzanne Palmer  After that it's  The Tea Planter's Secret (The Ceylon Series #2) by Clare Flynn  the second in a historical romance series set in Ceylon. I got the first one from NetGalley last year the day I was flying out to Sri-Lanka, and now I have the second while we are planning our return trip.  The knitting has gone very smoothly this week - I've been pumping out the stocking stitch in the round, and have only got a little bit of the second sleeve of my Celeste  to go. Knitting this has been such a joyous colour explosion, and I'm pretty pleased that my next project is going to be a brioche hat u...

W elcome to part 31 in a series of non-fiction book reviews, originally based on the idea that the books I request from netGalley 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! 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 thanks to Netgalley. Today we have the Violent Femmes first album, the Beatles movie A Hard Day's Night, and owls. Diverse indeed!  Owls by David Alderton (Publishing 14 April 2026) Owls have been a source of fascination and awe throughout history. In Indian folklore, owls represent wisdom and helpfulness, while in Ancient Greece they were seen as a good omen if sighted before a battle. Today, owls are often kept as pets by bird lovers, and can be found in woodland and forests from the Canadian Arctic to the...

 We're in the middle of Autumn, but the weather has been beautiful. I took the day off work to go to the beach with Anna, knit, drink coffee and follow it up with a trip to Cosco. Bliss. Speaking of knitting, my Celeste is going very nicely - I'm whizzing down the stocking stitch body. Is there anything more soothing than stocking stitch in the round?   Yes there is - knitting stocking stitch in the round with yarn I dyed myself . The reading has been good too. It's all NetGalley all the time at the moment, since I have 23 outstanding books - all ofr the future, and my ratio is still 94 percent, but I need to stay on top of it.  I just finished  Griftopia by Suzy Vitello  a somewhat odd family drama / satire on American life.  Now I'm reading The Thornbacks by which is even stranger, about a couple of female morticians (but I'm pretty sure that's not the point). It set in an unnamed city that feels a LOT like Melbourne, and is quite the experience. I'm a ...

I don't know what the collective noun for a group of hats is - a charity of hats? A celebration of hats? Anyway, this week I knit four hats, three for charity and one for a work colleague. I do love the  Fits the Whole Fam Hat  pattern. It's simple (as are most hats) It fits all sizes and it's made with three four ply (fingering yarns) held together, so it eats up a whole lot of yarn. Perfect for left over sock yarn.  I've finished with the current spasm of hats, because I will be concentrating on my Celeste jumper, but this has been (another) very pleasurable diversion.

I've had a good month with KoboPlus, currently finishing up  Vengeful by V.E. Schwab,  the second in her superhero (or not so much heroes) trilogy.  I should just have time to finish this, and complete the book of Victoria Goodard short stories which I got halfway through and then took a break from before my subscription expires. then it's back to NetGalley reviewing, which I have let lie fallow this month. I have 20 book waiting, which for me is a lot, but they are all for the future. and spread over the next 6 months. I'll be starting with   Griftopia:   by Suzy Vitello w hich, based on a cursory reading of the blub seems to be about families and overexposure and scam and grifting.  In audio I just finished   This Song Is About Me  by Melissa de la Cruz,  which is what you would get if Daisy Jones and the Six had been about Taylor Swift instead of Fleetwood Mac. It was a pretty enjoyable read, and the audiobook narrator was very good ...

Yesterday I finished reading Victoria Goddard's Till Human Voices Wake U s. while I always love Victoria Goddard (her books are heartwarming and affirming) this one was a bit weird. It was one of her very early books. I enjoyed it, but not as much as her later stories. I'm continuing the urban fantasy theme with Dancers in the Dark  w hich is set in the Sookie Stackhouse universe. I read all the Sookie Stackhouse books a very long time ago, finishing them in 2014, but I don't think I read this one. I'm enjoying it. Next up is A Ray of Sunshine   by Astrid Harewijn. Women's fiction, for a change of pace.  In audio books I decided I needed a complete change, and am listening to the last Aaron Faulk mystery by Jane Harper Exiles .  It's been a while since I read a non-cosy mystery and I'm loving the growing air of menace.     In crafting this week Shoni asked me to knit a pair of mittens for Lulu's birthday, so I did. I've just for the thumb of the seco...

The other day someone commented that my socks look like whimsy and happiness, and I thought about how I want my life to have many moments of whimsy and happiness.  So this weekend I decided to sew some dragonfly patches I had acquired on a spare cushion cover.  I don't sew much, and it's possible that my table is not an ideal height for sewing and this was kind of fiddly, so now my shoulders ache a bit, but my couch is just a little bit more whimsical. Now I'm off to collapse on it and read a book. Happiness. 

 For no particular I decided to knit a pair of house socks out of some really fun yarn I was given at the Richmond Knitters Christmas dinner. I have a comfortable pair of house socks, but they are grey, and I thought it would be fun to have something brighter and peppier as we head into winter. In reality, there is only this short stretch of autumn when I wear house socks, soon it will be time to get out the ugg boots. I choose to knit the same pattern as last time - Andrea Mowry's Bear Paw socks. They look weird off because they are ribbed all around, even the soles, but they are comfortable to wear. I sized down from last time and made a women's small. These fit firmly, unlike the previous ones which are a bit sloppy - but very comfortable around the house. They are really fun. I've been wearing them non-stop and am wearing them as I type this. I had some yarn left over, so I knit a quick pair of socks for charity. The group I knit for likes to make sets with socks, a ju...

even though I said it was Kobo + this month. As I said in my weekend report I had a joyous amount of reading time. I read Vicious by V.E. Schwab, which I really enjoyed - more man made superheros. Then I requested  A Song Only We Can Hear by Elliot Wake, mainly because the subtitle is A novel about cancer, music and love. I'm halfway through, and I would subtitle it a novel about abusive people and the cancer patient who love them.  After I finish this I'll go back to kobo +. I might read some Charlaine Harris - there are some of her novellas available, and she writes a good story. In audiobooks I returned to Netgalley, because I was really excited to request and receive Yann Martell's Son of Nobody.   It's a strangely structured book, comprising a made up history of the Trojan War from the point of view of a commoner, the notes on it by a modern scholar, and his personal life interjected in the middle. I'm very close the end and I kept thinking it would come tog...

I just had the longest, most relaxing weekend in history! I took Thursday off because it was Passover, and so the Easter break was 5 glorious days. I feel like we made the most of it (in a relax hard way). Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were family dinners, and Saturday and Sunday night we went to comedy shows (I love Comedy Festival time!).  I did have a little knitting mission - in December I finished a cute little top called Backlit , something I had been planning for ages. One the Wednesday I noticed there was once drop of coffee on the centre front. I did everything I could - washed it, tried to scrape it, but the stain remained. So I ripped it back. And then knit it forward! In this photo you can clearly see the line between the old knitting and the reknitting. Now it's re-blocked the textures are the same. Other than that we did a lot of sleeping - 5 days without an alarm is my idea of bliss. I woke up every morning at my own pace, and then lay around reading until the ...

 Regular (blog) scheduling has recommenced! Life scheduling - who knows. I've got 5 days off in a row - one annual leave day for Passover, and then four days for Easter. Bliss. On the first day off I finished  Joji's  Hipster Top . It was a very fun knit, with some fancy shoulder stitches and then simple two row stipes, all the way down.  The only criticism i have of the pattern is that she says that, once you finish the knitting there is no finishing. Sure, if you want it to look unfinished. I put some i-cord along the back neck, and did a tubular cast off to make it look more finished. I did not do jogless stipes, something that is very obvious when you look at the side seam, but doesn't really bother me. I don't know how much wear I'll get from it this year - while yesterday was beautiful, today there is a distinct chill to air. It was a fun, satisfying knit and I can imagine it with a pair of simple denim shorts, or with a full black skirt. It styles surprisingl...