Reading list #4

1. Catriona’s  War by Jean Grainger WW2 England and France
2. The Little Spark by Carrie Bloomston lots of ideas for boosting creativity making time and making a dedicated space
3. 1969: The Year Everything Changed by Rob Kirkpatrick About everything in 1969, Nixon, Vietnam, football, baseball, music, movies, theater, Woodstock and a whole lot more. I was 12/13 then I remember some of the events but not in detail except the moon landing and Zip to Zap, North Dakota where college students tried to drink the very small town dry.
4. Rainy Day Kisses by Debbie Macomber romantic fluff
5. Finding Billie Romano by Jean Grainger more in the life of Conor and Ana O’Shea and  Castle Dysert, explains a lot of Irish history and attitudes.
6. The Diary by Eileen  Goudge about two sisters reading their mother’s diary and a love story.
7. The Dressmaker’s Gift by Fiona Valpy WW2 France resistance and fashion.
8. Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J Ryan Stradal for book club enjoyed it as much the second time
9. A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley farm family in Iowa for book club
10. The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg great story just for fun.
11. Trials and Tribulations by Jean Grainger a Robinswood novel #3
12. Last Christmas in Paris by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb love story told through letters during WWI.
13. The Great Christmas Knit-Off by Alexandra Brown 30 something year old woman and her pity party, fiancé failed to show up for the wedding. Change of scenery, old friends and new friends help her get her life back together.
14. The Paris Secret by Lily Graham Paris WW2 
15. Pompeii: a Novel by Robert Harris about the eruption of Mt. Vesuveus in AD 79. I read this after son and DIL returned from their honeymoon cruise to New Zealand, their ship passed the volcano that erupted the night before it blew.  So glad they are home safe.
16. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
17. Stranger from the Sea by Winston Graham book 8 of the Poldark saga.  There is a 10 year span between book 7 and 8.  Season 4 of the PBS series ended with book 7, season 5 was entirely the creation of series writers.   Book 8 starts roughly where season 5 ended with Ross going to abroad to deliver a message from Parliment to the English General Wellington during Napoleon's revolution. (I really don't know English/French history very well because Ross went to Portugal in book 8)  I read this a couple years go, needless to say I was a bit confused during season 5 when none of the plot was familiar.
18. The Miller's Dance by Winston Graham book 9 life continues in Cornwall as the Poldark children become young adults.

72 books in 2019

Happy New Year!  Happy reading, happy quilting, happy knitting, happy coffee, happy wine.
Happy 2020!  --Ann--

things I miss

Little things I miss:

•  Phones with cords  too many private conversations in public places
• Shopping in department stores  Shopping in big department stores was the best, they had fabulous window displays, merchandise was sensibly arranged by size and type of clothing. Outerwear was together, dressy was together, casual was together with all brands. Now the manufacturers have their section and all of their label is together so I can’t go to the sock section and see all the brands of socks in one spot I have to look all over the store.  No wonder online shopping is taking over.
• Ovens with dials  I have to push the temperature button 15 times to go from 350 to 425 for a sheet pan dinner.  Why doesn’t it change in 25 degree increments instead of 5. Have you ever baked anything at 335?  I haven't.
• Sliders on the controls in the car   It’s the same in the car, push push push it’s distracting me from driving.
• zip codes in phone books  I was looking up addresses in the phone book to send Christmas cards and no zip codes not even a page of zips for the state however on further inspection of a couple other phone books put out by other companies they did have the zip codes but not the one I needed.
• 8-12 ounce water glasses in eating establishments.  Do I really need to drink anything from a quart size vessel?

And a rant to end the year.  --Ann--

It was just a whisper

It was just a whisper at first, from the day it came in the mail, "knit me."  I can't start it until............ decorations are hung, presents are wrapped, cookies are baked, etc. etc. It called to me every time I went down stairs, "wind me, knit me."  I would pet it then walk away to finish some other task. Then it called a little louder so I wound it into balls.  Soon, very soon I would start knitting.  The anticipation.... I felt like a little kid waiting for Christmas.  Over the weekend the calling got louder, I could hear it hollering from downstairs  so I knit the swatch.  It kept prodding me to cast on and enchanted my needles...... The pattern is Fall River by Jennifer Wood.
--Ann--

in a stable

BELIEVE
Merry Christmas
--Ann--

believe

believe
--Ann--

the stockings were hung

   
  The stockings were hung, new sock made for DIL, I hope she likes it.   And stockings are knitted.  I can put my feet up and read this weekend.  Ha! I'll find some Christmas preparation I have forgotten to do.  --Ann--

Away in a manger

My pudgy little people that my Mother made, she wove the strips and sewed them together.
Remember the reason for the season.
--Ann--

Design wall

The blocks are arranged and sewn together.  Next to find a neutral fabric for the sashing and figure out how much I need.  Quantity may be the determining factor or a couple that work together.  Did you notice I matched the light side of the half square triangles in the blocks to make butterflies?         --Ann--

sweater finish

Another sweater finish this one on size 9 needles, it knit fast with an aran worsted weight yarn.  The cold snap that stayed has been an incentive to get it done.  Hope you are staying warm --A--

more little trees

 More little trees I've learned a lot knitting these little trees, I need a firm gauge so the trees stand up. The tall green and red yarn is sock weight  which was a pair of socks but it is 100% merino so I wore through the heel. The yarn was too expensive to toss and the beauty of yarn is you can rip and reknit, no one knows but you.  For socks use a blend with 10-25% nylon for strength and washability.  I knit the tree on 2.5 needles a smaller needle the tree might have stood up without a paper cone inside.  The short tree of the same yarn was knit on 1.0 needles.  The yellow green tree was single ply sock yarn, if I make another tree from that yarn I will use 2 strands.  The grey with blue and green in the yarn is a single stand in a mock cable.  Sometimes the color changes do not enhance the stitch pattern but you don't know until you try it.  I like the knit purl band tree because I can quit when the tree is tall enough or I run out of yarn. The ugly trees will find a spot behind the Christmas stuff.  Just a few more inches on the last pair of socks for Christmas.  Did I miss any k's?  Sometimes when writing about knitting I type kneedles and kneed, sometimes spellcheck corrects it and sometimes it doesn't.  --Ann--

bigger trees

 A few years ago I knit some bigger trees to fill the space above my kitchen cabinets. They were shapeless floppy cones that looked like really bad stocking caps.  I found this pattern for tall skinny trees with knit rows and purl rows.  I picked the yarn end and ripped and knit as I ripped some more.

  The grey tree is knit on size 6 needles with a double strand of sock yarn, I pulled the yarn out and matched to color sections to  mostly grey or green and blue.  The last 2 pattern repeats the colors started pooling.  Wish the whole tree was like that with swirls of green and grey.   I will knit some smaller trees with a single strand of that yarn and see what happens.  The solid blue green yarn is a worsted weight but a single ply and works best with simple stitches.  There will soon be 2 more trees of this yarn and pattern (for knit / purl trees).  The house is looking like Christmas.  --Ann--

A forest of trees

I’ve been knitting these little fir trees the last few months. I knit a couple rounds between arranging the quilt blocks.  They are fiddley to get started on DPNs  (casting on DPNs is the most clumsy thing in the world and on skinny short needles it’s even worse) but then my hands get a feel for it and in no time my tree is done. Some have cables, some right and left cables making antlers or wishbones, some have extra cables because I wanted a taller tree then I got brave and tried  a mock cable which is the tallest in the top pic, it was so floppy I inserted a paper cone to hold it up, its not a stocking cap.  I even knit one with no cables.  Top row of trees are knit with a silky bamboo yarn that had long stretches of white.  The trees in the middle pic are made with leftover sock yarn. These little cuties (link to pattern) fit on a wine cork.  --Ann--

more scraps

A little work in the sewing room last week.  The weather got chilly again so....... to my sewing room. Pretty random placement of 4 patches and half square triangles.  Lots to do and this is not high on the priority list at the moment anyway hope you are staying warm and cozy and not getting crazy with Christmas preparations. --Ann--