Winding Yarn

Well, I've started to wind the yarn for my next project, which will be a pullover sweater with a few changes to the pattern. The yarn chosen for this is Cherry Tree Hill mohair/wool/silk boucle in the Champlain Sunset colourway.

The sweater pattern originally had bandings of different colours (this is the "Blueberry Hill" I mentioned in a previous post, which I was doing in a light and medium denim blue, orchid, and a variegated which brought all the colours together). Since this is already a multicolour yarn with short colour repeats, I have decided to change the body of the sweater to a heavy rib (probably 3X3) up to the division for the armholes; then I'll be changing to seed stitch; after splicing the shoulders I'll add a heavily ribbed loose turtle neck. The sleeves I'll be knitting down from the shoulder in seed stitch and I'll finish with heavy ribbing for the wrists.

Finally, A Project Done -- And A Project to Be Frogged

I can hardley believe that I have finally finished the large bag I was knitting for an exchange. I used a beautiful salmon fingering yarn by Knit Picks and a salmon marl alpaca fingering yarn. It is much easier picking out yarn and some other goodies for an exchange!

Now for the bad news, I finally figured out that I will have to frog my "Blueberry Hill" sweater because of the cheap circulars I used. My KnitPicks Harmonies and Addies have been wonderful -- however, these Clover needles kinked so badly that I didn't realize that the sweater had gotten all twisted. However, not all is lost as I have decided to slightly modify the pattern.

Modern Goddess Portraits

You can see more of this artist's paintings at

www.pagesperso-orange.fr/goddess-seat/

So Busy Knitting and Reading

I can't believe it's been this long since the last post on this blog! I have been keeping up with the side-bar information on the 52 in 52 reading project, however.

On that note, I really do have to recommend Lindsey Davis' Marcus Didius Falco mysteries. As a former history major with an emphasis on the Classical, Mediaeval and Renaissance, her descriptions of the time of Vespasian are spot on. In my opinion, Vespasian was one of the best emperors of the Roman Empire and her depictions of him and his family are terrific. I was also pleased (no brick bats, please) to see that she placed the Christian sects in the right position -- they were not as put-upon and persecuted as their own histories tried to make out and were not really of much interest to every day Romans.

Besides these I have also read a few other novels as well. The Tao of Pooh is also now on my nightstand (I have never read it!).

I have been working on little items. Right now I am making a largish decorative bag in peach KnitPicks Peruvian wool in a fingering weight along with a great peachy marl in alpaca (half and half). It's going to be lined so there will be two sections. Whoever will get it will be able to store their runes and tarot cards together.

Recent Reads ~~ 52 In 52

I have been working on my reading recently and have just finished Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels. These were a lot of fun and the tone the author achieved was just right, in my opinion. I am looking forward to the collected Sookie short stories, which will be published this autumn.

Last week-end I read Pemberly by the Sea by Abigail Reynolds. I'm up in the air a bit with a review. I think most people will enjoy it, though at times the heroine was her own worst enemy.