Yarn Along

Yarning along with Ginny and sharing a current read as well.

Another excellent picture in my bathroom mirror...

The Textured Tunic, now with buttons! I really love this sweater- it makes me so happy every time I see it. I am going to make an attempt at some better pictures as soon as the sun shows up again. It has been raining much of the time for several days now (and thank goodness for the cooler temperatures that has brought!), plus my photographers have been gone again! They decided yesterday was a great day to stay out til bedtime running around town so I ended up taking my own mirror pictures. Lovely, eh?


I'm still hard at work finishing items from the UFO basket. A pair of mittens is done and the plans for this evening include either finishing up a hat or sewing buttons on my little red cardi as well as knitting a bit on something else- maybe Omelet?


I finished Delirium this week. It is another in the genre of books set in the not-to-distant future where something has dramatically changed the world so that it is similar to our own, but obviously not like ours a la Hunger Games or The Giver. The book is well written and an interesting idea, but there were serious pacing problems. It started far too slowly with world building and by the time it actually developed a good pace and interesting story line it started the decent to the conclusion and the conclusion was completely disatisfying. If it would continue to another book in a series it might be able to be redeemed, but it appears to be a stand alone novel. I've been reading a lot in this genre this year and it seems to me that Delirium is an attempt by the author to hop on the bandwagon of this trend in YA fiction without much of an attempt to hide that fact.


I started Matched by Ally Condie last night and it's already a much better pace and plot. I got about 1/3 of the way though last night which is always a good sign for me- Delirium took me forever to read because I just wasn't compelled to read it.


I hope your current reads are in better shape than mine were last week!

Mama Retreat

Back in June when I turned 30 my husband got me the most awesome present.

A full day and overnight to myself.


A little "Mama Retreat" if you will.

We talked last spring about how much Ezra wanted to go on his first tent camping trip and how much Ender was looking forward to camping again this year for a "just the boys" weekend. But planning and going on the actual trip got lost in the shuffle of life until this weekend.


It was a little last minute, but I helped them get packed and sent off as long as they promised to call and tell me how much fun they were having.

And then they had such a great time that they stayed a second night.

And me?

I spent my time on a two-part knitting mission:

1. Find great buttons for my two recently finished sweaters.

2. Get as far through my UFO basket as possible in 1 weekend.

In the basket:

Poet's Pullover (needs 1 1/2 sleeves)

Ender's Mittens (needs thumbs and 1 cuff)

Ezra's Mittens (in need of thumbs)

Tappan Zee** (need to finish sleeves that I wanted to add)

Ezra's winter hat (needs to be decreased and finished off)

Omelet shawl (most of the last chart)

The basket is a little emptier this morning, and I've declared this a week of Finished Objects. I resisted the urge to cast on something new even with 4 sweaters and several shawls worth of fresh yarn staring at me. That basket is going to get knocked down to zero before anything new gets going.


**Oh, Tappan Zee... I'm seriously considering ripping and re-knitting the whole project. It's a fast knit so time isn't necessarily the concern, but I started knittting it before I knew much about fit (and I'm still learning, but know so much more than I used to!) and it doesn't fit well. It's overall too big, but especially in the shoulders, which makes it look like it's swallowing me... So I'm thinking. If I rip I'll definitely reknit with that yarn and that pattern because both are fabulous- I just made a really poor sizing decision.

Operation Find Buttons was also a success- now to get them sewn on!