Yarn Along: A Tale of Three Shawls

Yes, there’s only two shawls in the photo, the third shawl is below! :)

I’ve been digging into my stash to work projects that I’d sort of forgotten about!

So the blue and green shawl is the sail-away shawl from Modern Daily Knitting’s Ease edition. And it really is easy—lovely garter stitch and KFB increases in gorgeous wool from Sincere Sheep! These are Suerte (the green) and Hathor’s Gem (the blue) . These were actually birthday gifts so they’re finally getting used, yay! I’m making the smaller version of the pattern.

The second, on the right, is the Find Your Fade Shawl, which was super popular a few years ago when it came out but I finally got the yarn for it…two years ago? And I started it but I thought I was messing it up so I frogged it and put it away. BUT the yarn was calling me!

Turns out that the stitch count isn’t really important in this guy. I got to the end of the first section and I had the right count on one side and the wrong side on another—how did that happen?—but I forged ahead anyway, and I’m also only doing one lace section instead of three as you see here, which I might change to two and then to three in the following sections. But the point is, this is a really forgiving shawl, so as long as you’re increasing and decreasing at the right rate, you’ll be fine if your count is off. All the colors here are from the various Hawthorne lines from Knit Picks. (You can see all the colors on my Ravelry notes, but the colors you see here are Sellwood and Goose Hollow, which they don’t make anymore! Sadness! :( The third color which is just coming in here they do still make, and that’s Delphinium)

The third shawl is the Hawthorne Shawl from Quince and Co, using their lark yarn in a limited edition color way called Blue Balloon:

I haven’t worked too much on it because it requires a lot of concentration! So I’m working on the other two shawls and will circle back to this guy. She is pretty, isn’t she? :)

What I’m reading: My copy of Clanlands just arrived so I’m really excited about that. In case you’re new here, I love the Outlander books and TV series, so a book written by two of the stars? Sign me up. Another new novel is The Strawberry Thief, by Joanne Harris. It’s part of the Chocolat series, so I enjoy spending more time with these characters.

Thoughts on The Great American Read

Let's talk books!

Summer is a great time to talk about books, but this year it's especially so, because PBS has come out with the The Great American Read. It's an eight-part series on PBS that talks about the "100 best" American books--but this is where it gets confusing, because it's not 100 books by Americans, and it's not the most influential books--it's 100 "best-loved novels (as chosen in a national survey)." 

So, here are my thoughts: 

• I've read 54 of them. I've linked to the list above. Obviously, I am thrilled Pride and Prejudice is here--go America!--but I'm shocked that there's no Shakespeare. There aren't any plays at all. BOOOOO. 
   
• Some of the books I love, some are meh, some I hate, and some I would never, ever read (DaVinci Code, looking at you). If you're curious, my love list is: Anne of Green Gables, The Giver, P&P , Book Thief, Narnia, Rebecca, Charlotte's Web, Grapes of Wrath, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, 80% of Jane Eyre, Little Women, Memoirs of a Geisha, Outlander, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Sun Also Rises, and Wuthering Heights.
   
• Books on the list I hate: 100 Years of Solitude, Moby-Dick, The Lovely Bones
   
• Some of these are clearly "hot" books that people are currently reading or have been popular: Twilight, Ready, Player One, Fifty Shades of Grey. These are not books that will last, I'm willing to bet. 
   
• I would like it very much if everyone would read 1984 and The Handmaid's Tale and then write papers about the two. And then realize that we do not live in the world of Handmaid's Tale. (Hulu, looking at you....)
   
• There are books on this list that I need to read: Catch-22, War and Peace, Call of the Wild, and Crime and Punishment. (Well, I have to finish Crime and Punishment.) I gave up on Don Quioxte because the book itself is Quixotic. :-P
   
• Conversely, books I will never touch with a 39 and a half foot pole: DaVinci Code, Fifty Shades, Left Behind --because it is vehemently anti-Catholic-- and The Shack.
   
• No Henry James, Edith Wharton, or Nathaniel Hawthorne? I think The Scarlet Letter is MUCH better than Moby-Dick, personally.  

How about you? Which of these have you read? Do you have a favorite? Any you're meaning to read? 

Yarn Along No. 76

It's May, and that means--Yarn Along with Ginny!

So I've been finishing a commission for Barton Cottage Crafts, but for my own knitting, I'm working on the Skye Cowl from Quince and Co., with their Puffin yarn. (My ravelry page here) I'm using the sorbet colorway, because I wanted something fun. 

Yes, my nails are terrible. Sorry. 

Above, the project is with the Magnolia Table cookbook (birthday gift), and I've been reading various things all month--the spring Bella Grace, which is a great magazine, Ann Voskamp's The Way of Abundance, and the fifth Outlander book, The Fiery Cross. So I'm all over the map. 

And, Barton Cottage Crafts (my little knitting shop) is taking commissions! I do the basketweave scarves, shawls (basic ones), and plain garter stitch scarves. You get to pick the colors for anything you commission, obviously. Plain scarves are $30, basketweave's are $35, and shawls are $40. That price includes shipping!

I don't have a good picture of the "plain" scarf--bad me--but it's really lovely. I use Quince's osprey yarn, so it's very plush and squishy! 

If you'd like a commission, contact me and we'll get started!