Current Reads

      I've really been enjoying reading this year. My reading is a mixture of classics, mysteries, children's literature, and pretty much anything that piques my interest on booktube. I am a very active library patron so I visit the library at least once a week. On Thursday we will be leaving for a 2 1/2 week vacation with lots of driving in there so in addition to physical books I wanted to have some audiobooks for the drive. 

The audiobooks I picked up are:
1. Wild - Cheryl Strayed I heard about this one on book riot's channel and that it's an especially good summer read. This tells the story of a woman hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. I am even more excited to read this after seeing this video today.

2. Murder at the Vicarage - Agatha Christie As referenced earlier I watched several of the Miss Marple mini-series and grew to really like the little town of St. Mary Mead that Miss Marple lives in and the fact that she's always knitting. I decided this is a detective series I would like to go through. 

3. The Return of the King - J. R. R. Tolkien This series is really rocking my world and it blew my husband's mind that I had never read it before. I have saved the last one for vacation and in addition to the audiobook got a very cheap paperback copy that will be beach friendly. 

The books that I'm reading right now are:

1. The Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens Ugh - I go so back and forth over whether I'm enjoying this or not but I'm determined to finish it since I'm over halfway through. 

2. The Gracekeepers - Kirsty Logan This has been getting a lot of booktube buzz and I was pretty happy to jump on the bandwagon since it involves ships with traveling circuses. I'm not yet 50 pages in but I'm really enjoying it so far. 

3. Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie This one is also getting lots of booktube buzz and after reading "Half of a Yellow Sun" I was definitely up for another one from her. This one is a romance too and doesn't have as many tragedies of war in it. I'll definitely be doing a review since everyone has been so excited about it. 

4. Mansfield Park - Jane Austen Another ugh - this is the only of Austen's novels that I haven't read. I just haven't really gotten into it simply because I'm not wild about any of the characters. I hear that you don't grow to like Fanny until the very end so we shall see. 

Since we are going on vacation I have (as usual) all of these lofty reading goals. I always bring way too many books but I like to have plenty of options. I'll list the books I'll be bringing with me but save summaries for the later ones that I actually read. *Not included in the list are a couple of Babysitter's Club books and a couple of Boxcar Children books. 
1. Atonement - Ian McEwan (This would be a re-read)
2. The Final Empire - Brandon Sanderson
3. The Pursuit of Love - Nancy Mitford
4. Miss Buncle's Book - D.E. Stevenson
5. The Fair Fight - Anna Freeman
6. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? - Mindy Kaling
7. The Cruelest Month - Louise Penny
8. A Rule Against Murder - Louise Penny
9. Simisola - Ruth Rendell (I own all of the Inspector Wexford books and have been making my way through the series)
10. Road Rage - Ruth Rendell
11. The Heart of Betrayal (The Remnant Chronicles #2) - Mary Pearson

Next month is my birthday so I'm very excited to purchase some long desired books with some birthday money.

What are you reading lately?

Cheers, Kate

                                            July WIPs                                     

        As I mentioned earlier, WIPs are happening like nobody's business over here. It seems that every year when I enter a new season of the year I get all nostalgic and think about what life was like at this time last year. At this time last year I was so very pregnant and furiously knitting a blanket for my sister and her now husband. I knew they would be engaged soon and got the notion to make them an "engagement quilt." I'm not really sure if engagement quilts are a thing but I decided it was a nice notion. I banked on Peter being two weeks late since he was my first baby and I didn't want to get my hopes up for any earlier. Well - Peter decided to come 2 days early thank goodness and the engagement quilt was put to a halt and finished at Christmas. But I have such sweet memories of that part of the summer where the only thing I needed to do was wait for baby to come. Each day I would make sure to take an hour walk through the hilly streets of Bellevue and listen to the "Wives and Daughters" audiobook and then come back and knit and watch "Miss Marple" and in the evenings "Merlin" with Dave. During the course of this year I've been busy being interested in things other than knitting like baby and reading. So here I am as we enter the second half of the summer and I start to think of cooler months and what I want for those months. I currently have a total of 6 WIPs and 4 I'm pondering just putting on the needles too since I'm so excited about them.

      1. Peter's Green Blanket. - This is in stockinette stitch with a garter stitch border and since I have so many knotted yarns in the back of the blanket I plan on sewing a layer of minky (color tbd) on the back. I plan to give it to him for his first birthday. Anyhow I'm very excited about this - it's with Caron's simply soft yarn so it can be washed and I just love this rich Kelly green!

      2. Dave's hat. Since the husband will be using public transportation this whole winter I want him to have a very good hat. I had some leftover yarn from when I did the ties for a friend's wedding party. It's this lovely shade of deep turquoise with these lovely shades of aqua in it. I love that about non-acrylic yarn - the colors are much richer and deeper. It's going to be somewhere between a toque and a beanie. I will unfortunately have to frog what is on the needles though since I am only just learning how to use gauges and will have to reassess since my yarn is a heavier weight than the pattern calls for. I'm also very pleased that I didn't throw away a too small wool dress since I plan to line the hat with some of that fabric. I think I finally have the gauge figured out (after doing it 4 times!!!) and will be putting it on the needles very soon.

     3. Gryffindor bag. This project is all knit except for the strap. I plan on this being used for knitting projects and library books on the days that I go there. This fangirl is so excited about this bag! I should keep a running count of how many times I reference Harry Potter on this blog. Mom is going to sew a knit stretchy crimson fabric into it for me.

     4. Mom's Pillows - This pattern is from Jane Brocket's "The Gentle Art of Knitting". It's such a stunning book with beautiful pictures and such a dynamic and elegant writing style. I told Mom that I'm really hyper about knitting and she could request something. I'm also very glad that I know about how to use gauge now since I was using a chunkier yarn than the pattern called for and needed to go down 2 sizes in needles. I can't count how many projects would have been saved for me if I had known about gauge swatches before.

      5. Pop Fizzle Hat - Even though this isn't cast on yet, I will be taking this with me on vacation and will be casting it on soon. I thought about pairing these yarns when I saw this Pop Fizzle hat pictured on knitgraffiti from Lesley Anne Robinson . As soon as I saw this Pop Fizzle hat I HAD to have the pattern! It's on Ravelry and the KAL (knit along) goes until September 30th. There's an option in the pattern to use DK weight as the main color and fingering weight as the accent color. I think these colors would look simply smashing together!

    6. Beanie Hat with chunky yarn. I have had this hand dyed Gwen Erin wool that is so pretty I'm having trouble committing it to a project. Unfortunately there's not quite enough for a hat on its own so I'm going to try out pairing it with a grey acrylic and wool chunky yarn. I would love to have a really fun and warm casual winter hat. 

Projects I'm pondering:
Proper socks (small needles with fingering weight yarn) with sock yarn
Comfy socks with chunky yarn
A double moss stitch scarf blanket (pattern in "The Gentle Art of Knitting"
Big comfy jumper (pattern also in "The Gentle Art of Knitting")

 So it took me a little while to find my camera and I still haven't found the charger (fingers crossed) because I would love pictures to be a regular thing on here when I want to share my knitting. I hope you enjoyed seeing what I'm knitting and I would love to hear from anyone about what they're knitting!

Cheers, Kate

Entering the Blogosphere

This being my very first blog post I'm not sure quite what to post. During these past months of keeping Baby Peter alive, I've often thought about starting a blog. I know that there are simply scads and scads of blogs out there but when it comes down to it I would love to have these years, what I think I will most likely look back on as the most rich and meaningful years of my life, documented - plain and simple. I frequently look at knitting blogs, watch booktube, and read blogs by fans of period dramas. Filming videos on a regular basis seems daunting and I love that in a blog I can take the time to think about what I would like to say but still have some pictures in the blog.

So, I think the main function of this blog will be to document my life so it will be there to look back on and possibly interest other bloggers.

What will you find on this blog? Pretty much whatever I am enthusiastic about at the moment. This is on a pretty regular rotation.
1. Baby Peter
2. Dave (Husband)
3. Reading
4. Knitting and other Gentle Arts
5. Watching Period Dramas
6. Music
7. Baking and Cooking
8. Jane Austen - this means ALL THINGS AUSTEN. Whether it be Austen's original novels, fan fiction, or fan tributes I love mostly all of it.
9. General arts and culture.

I'm having trouble loading any pictures right now so I'll be working on that in the hopes that my next blog post will be a guide of all my WIPs (works in progress). Pretty much every year during the middle of the summer I get excited about knitting all over again.

If you are reading this, thank you!

Cheers, Kate