March 19, 2006
yarns, socks and books
Shoppity shop is updated with all new yarns. Five, count 'em, five monster hat kits for you wild knitter out there, two ragamitten kits, and 8 yarns, including one with 'peace-silk' coccoons ( i hope you like them as much as i liked them the first time I saw lexi put them in a yarn). And if that's not enough for ya, I sent kpixie.com 25 new hanks and kits last week so those should be up soon too. Yep, and my stock is wiped. Also, I'm proud to say that 100% of my yarns are now from humane sources -- farm/animal sanctuaries, and a small family farm. Yay!
Hey, look what I spun! 5 oz. at 360 yards of soft wool!
Rockin' sockin' yarn! And I just couldn't help myself, I know I've got like a gazillion things on the needles, but I gave up last night's regular knitting and knit this. It knit up on 3s at 7 stitches an inch and makes a nice, winter sock weight. It's so freakin' pretty. Handpainted with big, random yellow stripes. I'm thinking about carding the next one with a bit of nylon or even cotton for added strength. I can't wait to finish and wear these warm things ALL SUMMER LONG! Heh.
In other knitting news, the cabled hoodie is teetering on the brink of almost done (except for the arms) and almost frogged. I was unhappy with the arm shaping so I'm in the process of ripping both fronts back to the pits. The back is fine, I think, but I've gotta unbind a bit because I think I'm gonna leave everything live and do a 3 needle BO. Oh, and I'm reworking the hood too.
The Bea Arthur coccoon monstrosity is also wackin' around, looking nothing like a sweater but it will, mark my words, it will. I make it up as I go along.
And for a little non-knitty fun, here's the book meme that's going around --
Meme instructions: Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you've read, italicize the ones you might read, cross out the ones you won't, underline the ones on your book shelf, and place parentheses around the ones you've never even heard of.
The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J. K. Rowling
(Life of Pi - Yann Martel)
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story - George Orwell
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
(The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon)
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
1984 - George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J. K. Rowling
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
(The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini)
(The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold0
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
(The Secret History - Donna Tartt)
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
(Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell)
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
(Atonement - Ian McEwan)
(The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon)
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Dune - Frank Herbert
and I'm always looking for great books to read. I've been dissapointed lately so if you've got any recommendations, leave me a comment! I'm about to finish The Poisenwood Bible and am gonna need something good!
Posted by jacey at March 19, 2006 10:58 PMGood books... based on your meme answers, you might like to try Orson Scott Card. "Seventh Son" is the first book in the Alvin Maker series, a cool sort of alternate US history. "Ender's Game" is the first in a second series, more hardcore scifi. I read the first few books in each years ago and have not kept up with them, but there's a new book in the Ender sequence in hardcover. Also, Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake and Merry Gentry series are great -- vampires and werewolves, and fairies, respectively, in modern day situations. I like reading series, because you can really immerse yourself in the characters' worlds. Lots more where these came from... love me some books!
Posted by: Miranda at March 20, 2006 09:12 AMI haven't read "Life of Pi", but my sister recently read it, and told me about in detail over my shouts for her to shut up because I want to read it. It's the true story of a boy that is trapped on a life boat with a Bengal tiger, and her survives! Although my sis did warn me that there are some gross bits that I wouldn't like; must be about eating meat.
Posted by: Pam at March 20, 2006 06:17 PMIf you enjoyed "The Poisonwood Bible" try "The Prodigal Summer", also by Barbara Kingsolver. It's almost as good. Definatley read "The Life of Pi" and "The Time Traveler's Wife", both are excellent. I just finished "Autobiography of a Blue-eyed Devil" by Inga Muscio. It was good, but not as awesome as her first book, "Cunt". The last truly great thing I read was "So Far From God" by Ana Castillo. It's a fairly short novel about three sisters in a small New Mexico town. She takes magical realism to a new level. If you like Gabriel Garcia Marques you really like Ana Castillo. And if you haven't read "The Mists of Avalon" by Marion Zimmer Bradley, forget everything I said about all those other book and go get it from the library.
Posted by: Sarah Kate at March 20, 2006 06:36 PMThe only thing there might be more of in my house then yarn and animals is books. They are everywhere! I have to partake of books mostly on tape because of my incessant multi-tasking. A good friend who is in his 80's is divesting himself of his library and he is a scholarly sort. I do not wish it upon you to live in the Midwest but if you were near he could set you up with some fine reading.
Posted by: Diane at March 20, 2006 10:49 PMthe secret history by donna tartt is my fave book...give it a try!
Posted by: lyn at March 21, 2006 11:31 AMMy absolute FAVORITE book is the Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. If you enjoy a book that will leave you thinking for weeks, I would highly suggest it.
Posted by: Shanying at April 1, 2006 05:33 AMfor springtime i would recomend banana yoshimoto, anything by her is great. but if you haven't read any of her stuff you may enjoy "kitchen" or "n.p.".
viva la read-a!
Here are some of my all time favorite titles i find marvelous, darling, marvelous:
Daughters of a Coral Dawn (Katherine Forrest)
Daughters of an Amber Moon (read after 1st Daughters)
All of Sheri Tepper's sci-fi/fantasy - start at the eartliest and work your way through (Try Grass then try her later work like Gibbon's Decline and Fall and onward)
Fifth Sacred Thing (Starhawk)
Woman on the Edge of Time (Marge Piercy)
The Kanshou (Sally Miller Gearhart)
The Magister (read after the Kanshou)
that's a start....i have tons of titles
oh, i think The Painted Drum (all Louise Erdrich's stuff is great) and The Kite Runner are both great.
Posted by: chris mcclarren at April 8, 2006 12:34 PM