Sometimes Monday’s are for endings…
Today is the 89th and final day of winter and I will complete my last bit of stitching in Winter later today.
I knit like the wind this weekend and today will bring me to the end of the first skein in my Clauranach.
And, it is the end of March Madness for 48 basketball teams, some quite unexpectedly.
Here is to a brief but spectacular Monday! Or, one that ends quickly and without drama!
It’s Bracket Season… did you vote? Did any of you have trouble picking 8 patterns in all categories? I confess that I did.
I had gotten so much knitting time in during the Olympics and I was missing watching the games. But, thanks to March Madness, knitting time has ticked up again with all the games to watch! I got one entire repeat done on my Clauranach yesterday…only 4 or 5 more repeats to go in this half. And, suddenly, I am thinking that maybe I can get it done before Easter! More knitting time today as Round One continues!
Now, how about some links?
The Shetland Wool Week announced their 2018 Patron and you can get her Merrie Dancers Toorie hat pattern here.
Rachel Atkinson’s Daughter of a Shepherd Volume 1: Beginnings is available for pre-order.
Quince & Co has released their Sparrow 2018 Collection
I really love Rose by Andrea Mowry and Flat White by Casapinka
And, finally Still Waters Sleeveless in Purl Soho Linen Quill is a great transition knit!
That is all I have for this week! Have a wonderful weekend and I will see you back here on Monday!
Today’s Things are all about the Ides of March
THING ONE:
Did you know there is a website called shmoop.com and that they have an entire section on the Omens of Julius Caesar? Neither did I but thank you Google!
THING TWO:
Need to brush up on those Julius Caesar assassination facts? Because what is better than knowing some history from 44BC, amirite?
THING THREE:
Once you have studied up, perhaps you’d like to take the sparknotes Julius Caesar Quiz!
There you have it, Happy March 15th everyone. Want to see more mid-March lists? Head on over to Carole’s!
Sometimes, the urge to knit something new is so over powering it defies common sense. That happened this week, I cast on for Anne Hanson’s Cluaranach. I am slowly working my way through the first chart repeats and not doing much knitting on anything else. For a brief second, I pondered being able to finish this before Easter, but then reality set it. I do not think that is at all humanly possible, although the fleeting thought was nice for a second!
However, my reading has been off the charts good!
Sometimes, life needs to stop so one can read all the things, especially when you have a flurry of holds become available at the library. That happened to me in the past week, so I had to get moving on reading!
I finished:
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, which I loved so much! It is a 5-star book and I highly recommend it!
Make Your Bed which was a nice little palate cleanser, and at 4-stars, I also recommend it!
I did something unusual this week, in that I read actual books: Brianna Wolfson’s Rosie Colored Glasses, which is a stop everything and read this book recommendation. It is Brianna’s debut novel and it is fantastic. It fills the “One-sitting Book” slot on my Read Harder Challenge, that’s right, I started reading it at about 8PM on Monday night and finished it shortly before midnight. It is so good, but be warned, I cried for probably the last 45 minutes or so of the story. It gets 5-stars from me and again, this is a MUST-READ book!
I also read Where the Dead Sit Talking, this was a tough read but well written. 4-stars and I highly recommend.
My current reads:
I am about half way though The Power and Love and Ruin. Both so good, and diversely different! Up next, one of the books from the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2018 longlist: A Boy in Winter by Rachel Seiffert, Lexie Elliott’s The French Girl, and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, which I want to get read before the HBO movie of the same name starts in April. And, have I said recently how much I love my library? Because, I do so much!
If you are joining us today, thank you! Please leave the link to your post in your comment!
What are you reading and making this week?
We got so much done over the weekend despite it missing an hour of time.
We had our requisite visits from campaign canvasser’s – yes, that is plural visits as in 2 on Saturday and 1 on Sunday (and that does not count the times they have been here during the week!) Truly, I am not sure how many times you have to confirm that YES, you are voting on Tuesday, and YES, you are voting for their candidate!
19 Crimes has finally made its way to our Wine and Spirits stores! I am totally enamored with the animated wine labels! Apparently, I am easily amused, especially when drinking! Ha! (Living Wine Labels App is available for both iOS and Android devices in the App Store)
Keeping with the drinking theme… we discovered Neapolitan Milk Stout. Oh boy. No, really. It is so good! And, the joy that filled my being at finding beer from the Saugatuck Brewing Company in Pittsburgh is off the charts!
But, lest you think all we did was drink all weekend…we worked more on the not-enough-storage issue and ended the weekend on Sunday night with the same amount of storage, but less things to store. Döstädning is our new obsession! Now, we are by no means done – but we made an impressive dent in the clutter!
Daylight Saving Time is back, and while the added light was truly a treat as we wound down the weekend on Sunday night, I must confess though that I was ready to get in bed at the obscenely early time of 7PM last night. Really, I wish I was kidding, but these are the facts.
I hope you are feeling well-rested, have electricity, and are ready to tackle Monday. It’s a big week…March Madness starts! I have lots on my list today so that I can spend some time knitting and watching games later this week! What’s on your list today?
I have completed my swatching for the Lunar Phase MKAL. I am so excited about what I have learned about putting together colors in the past year or so. In my mind’s eye, I envisioned this shawl being like a water color painting – with subtle changes. My swatch has more of the pop of color than I think the MKAL will (after all, we only need 80 yds of the pop of color) and I think I have achieved the watercolor effect I was looking for. While this was not my outward intention, it very much reminds me of Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
I have likewise spent much time thinking about the other little swatch. I think that swatch might be destined to become Find Your Fade I just need to figure out a few more colors to add in, more swatching will ensue. And, that does not disappoint me at all. I have learned the value of swatching, even swatching for a shawl. Yes, Gentle Reader, the swatch is your friend.
I discovered this week that I knit tighter at a smaller circumference, which is not a good thing at all. My sleeve on Strokkur is a much smaller gauge that the sweater body. Here is the stupid part of this: I realized this about 10-ish rounds in, but I ignored that little nagging voice saying to me “DANGER, WILL ROBINSON” and “THIS IS NOT RIGHT, STOP KNITTING” Some 50 plus rounds later, I finally listened to the yelling in my head and measured gauge. Yeah, when that voice speaks to you, you need to listen. Now, I am having a bit of a debate with myself – rip out sleeve one and start over or knit sleeve two at the correct gauge and then see how much yarn I have left with the hopes that I can then knit a 3rd sleeve at the correct gauge without ripping out sleeve one. The one good thing in all this…It has been snowing here for the past couple of days and wool knitting is all the rage when the snow flies! Ha.
I read a blog in the past week that has made me shake my head in confusion – the gist of the post was that they were all about the process, not about the finishing of projects and stated that they finished almost nothing in a year and that was okay. Wait, what? You want to make but not actually make anything? As my daughter would say SMH… big time! LOL I am not that at all, I am a PROJECT maker versus a PROCESS maker. Don’t get me wrong – knitting is my superpower; it is therapy, and when I am knitting, I am in my happy place. But, I knit to make. I guess that I what really makes me happy is a finished object that someone will love and, hopefully, wear often! I still don’t understand that post, but to each their own I suppose.
Now, how about some links?
First up, this made me cry – this was in the NYTimes yesterday for International Woman’s Day “Since 1851, obituaries in The New York Times have been dominated by white men. Now, we’re adding the stories of 15 remarkable women.” When I first read the line, I thought – so no women died? But, then I realized that a woman’s significance in life was nothing – in life and death. It is painful to think about and perhaps we need not a single day where we celebrate women, but we should celebrate every day.
Steve sent me a link this week that made me smile. Knitting can make you a Super Hero…
Up for a sweater challenge? Hannah Fettig has a Mystery Cardigan perking along and it is not too late to join in!
Carol Sunday’s Capture the Moment is awesome!
And, finally, Marie Greene has us turning our minds to spring with Lace Market. Oh man, I love it and am pondering yarn subs.
That is all I have for the week, have an awesome weekend and I will see you back here on Monday!
P.S. The flowers above are from one of my Sunday School students. I am so surprised they are surviving as they are, I don’t have the best of luck with indoor blooming plants!
