Big Accomplishment

Do you have any idea how long Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley has been sitting on my bookshelf? Long enough for the edges of the pages to start yellowing, that's how long. I've been meaning to read it, really I have, especially since I've tried twice before, crapping out in approximately the same place both times, and that just seems like a challenge to me. The thing is, weighing in at just under 900 pages, the thing is not light reading in the literal sense of the word, even in paperpack, and not readily portable. It's physically uncomfortable to read, not unlike some of the later Harry Potters (in hardcover, if you please) but not nearly so addictive.

I did make it. It took me two weeks, which for me is an eon in reading time. I read fast, people, and I'm not used to dedicating so much time to something not for a class. I'm really glad I did finally make it. The book was very good - well conceived and well written. There are few dangling ends and remarkable connections are made across many pages and years. I found, however, that it really wasn't my thing. I had a hard time connecting to any of the characters. I just didn't like any of them. It was hard for me to invest myself in the outcome because I didn't identify with any of them. This the King Arthur legend told from the point of view of the women in the story, and while it is very interesting to see the inner workings of the women of the time, I find that a huge and complicated story like this, told only from one side, is a half-told story.

Still, I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to add a little weightlifting to their reading.

Did you notice what I'm wearing?
Pattern: Prairie Tunic by Veronik Avery from Interweave Spring 2006
Yarn: Frog Tree Pima Silk in color 820
Needles: US 3
Mods: Did a little gauge magic to make the yarn work - knit 36.5" size for an approximately 38-39" bust. Shortened the vents on the side from 6" to 2.5" and did not start the A-line decreases until after the vents. Also, I decided to forgo the racer-style back for a regular tank-style back and used ribbon instead of yarn cord for the straps.

Sorry the color is washed out in this picture, but you can see how I did the back. I knit to the armpits, did about 1.5" of the initial short-row armhole shaping specified in the pattern, and then continued on in stockinette, decreasing each end every row for about 3/4-1". Then I added four rows of garter stitch to the middle portion (the patterned bit plus six stitches on either side), decreasing every row at the armholes and the beginning and end of the garter section. Bound off the middle part, leaving three garter stitches on each end and worked the two tabs separately, decreasing every other row until 8 stitches were left, and following the directions for the tab extensions as for the front.

I opted against the twisted yarn straps in the pattern because: 1. I was not using the racer back, and 2. I have broad shoulders and do not possess the ability to go bra-less. I used a 7/8" wide leopard print ribbon for the straps to add some interest and coverage. I'm not normally a leopard print kind of girl, but when I went to the store, this ribbon just jumped out of the rack and into my hands. I'm embracing it.

I hope you are having a wonderful holiday weekend!

February Book Round-up

Here's a run down of the books I read from my "stash" this month:

The Dark Hills Divide by Patrick Carman. Our exchange student, Caroline, from Indonesia left this book for me to read when she moved on to another host family. That was two years ago, and I’m just getting around to reading this one. The book started as a serial bedtime story for Carman’s daughters, and it reads like one. Alexa lives in a world of walled cities. More than that, even the paths between the cities are walled, to keep out, well, whatever’s out there. It is only natural that a twelve-year-old girl is intensely curious about the world outside the walls. Alexa begins to discover the truth of the reason the walls were built and learns that her highly protected world is in grave danger. This book may be captivating for young (or non-native) readers, but lacks a lot in character development and explanation of events. For someone who has lived her entire life inside walls, Alexa is disturbingly uncurious about what she encounters when she finally makes it outside them. The book starts slow but picks up a lot in the last third.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories by Ernest Hemingway. This is a compilation of ten short stories by Hemingway published elsewhere. I have generally liked Hemingway a lot, but not had much opportunity to read his works. Like many books of short stories, I found some brilliant and a few inscrutable. I particularly liked “A Day’s Wait,” “Fathers and Sons,” and “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” Hemingway has an incredible ear for dialogue, both internal and external.

Turtle Moon by Alice Hoffman. I love Alice Hoffman. I seem to forget just how much I love her until I read another of her books. She sees the magic in every day life, and she sees her characters truly – with all their faults. Here’s a sample: “People in Verity like to talk, but the one thing they neglect to mention to outsiders is that something is wrong with the month of May. It isn’t the humidity, or even the heat, which is so fierce and sudden it can make grown men cry. Every May, when the sea turtles begin their migration across West Main Street, mistaking the glow of streetlights for the moon, people go a little bit crazy. At least one teenage boy comes close to slamming his car right into the gumbo-limbo tree that grows outside the Burger King. Girls run away from home, babies cry all night, ficus hedges explode into flame, and during one particularly awful May, half a dozen rattlesnakes set themselves up in the phone book outside the 7-Eleven and refused to budge until June.”

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. I have never read an author with more love for commas, semicolons, and pronouns than Woolf, and I’m sorry to say that this predilection made the book a bit of a slog. Time after time I found myself heading to the beginning of a page-long paragraph trying to determine exactly the subject of the sentence (which was often as long as the paragraph). Superficially the book is about a few days at a summer home with a philosopher, his wife and eight children, and various other hangers-on. The strength of the writing lies in how Woolf sees interactions between people and their inner thoughts without their ever saying anything. Indeed, there is very little dialog in the book. Like Hoffman, Woolf sees her characters with all their flaws but her view is harsher, unforgiving, though I think she does not love them less.

The Girl Who Married the Moon: Tales from Native North America Told by Joseph Bruchac and Gayle Ross. I bought this book a few years ago when I was in New Mexico. I do love a good story. This collection is about girls who are brave, self-reliant, and in control of their destinies. I found the stories to be mostly nice but forgettable. A few were truly remarkable, particularly “Stonecoat,” a story about the innate and mysterious power of being a woman, and “Where the Girl Rescued Her Brother,” a relative recent and true story set in the time of Custer.

I also finished the Librivox recording of Jane Eyre read by Gloriana which I have been hacking away at in the gym for a few months now. I thouroughly enjoyed it. I read the book long ago, and found that it went mostly over my head at the time, and I didn't understand what the fuss was about. Now, I understand, and I adored it. It really pays to go back to books that you have read and not understood, because I have found that many I have tossed off in the past have become favorites with a bit more maturity, even if they are "age appropriate." L.M. Montgomery, who is an absolute favorite of mine, I did not truly discover until late high school and college, even though I tried more than once in elementary school to appreciate Anne of Green Gables.

But, reader, (I stole that from Charlotte Bronte, I'm not ashamed to admit) this reading from the stash thing is kind of backfiring. You see, no less than five new books have found their way into my hands in the last week. It's a good thing there was stipulation in my resolution about the purchase of new books.....

Resolutions

A while back, I mentioned that I had some ideas about what I wanted my New Year's Resolutions to be. Soon, I'll be talking again about my word for the year - wellness - but right now, I want to talk about my most concrete resolution. I resolved to read all the unread books in my bookshelves by the end of the year (if not sooner) or relegate them to the donation pile.

I've been a book fiend all of my life. I never have enough bookshelf space and I usually have a stack or two of books living in various parts of my apartment. Every time I expand my bookshelves, I fill them up in record time, and it's not unusual for my books to be hiding in drawers, since I have no other place to put them. My dream is to have a library in my house some day with whole walls of shelves. I especially would like door with bookshelves above it. You know what I'm talking about? Like there's so many books that every available space needs using, including the space above the door? I want that.

But I don't have that space. Not yet. Not for a long time. So I'm paring down my whole life. My books are just one part. The only ones that are staying are books that I would read again or that I would recommend to a friend. The rest are out.

So.

This month I have read six books.

Ghostgirl by Tanya Hurley. A fun trip into teen-land ala an ABCFamily original feature. The analogy makes even more sense as Hurley is involved in many facets of teen entertainment, including writing for TV. Charlotte Usher feels invisible and overlooked. After a summer spent carefully planning how to change her social invisibility, she chokes on a gummi bear and finds herself permanently invisible, as in dead. This isn't going to keep her from the guy she loves, however, and in the process she discovers the true nature of invisibility.

Peaches by Jodi Lynn Anderson. A wonderfully written book. The voice of the author is sure and steady. Birdie, Leeda, and Murphy are three very different girls who find themselves thrown together one summer on a peach farm in Georgia. Though the book is billed as a tale of friendship, the real gem lies in the way that adult problems effect children and the way the girls see and handle them. Lovers of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants will want to snatch this one right up.

The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon. I've never read any Chabon, though I'd heard good things about him. This book, unfortunately, does not make me inclined to read any more. Meyer Landsman is a homicide detective in the Federal District of Sitka, Alaska, a temporary Jewish safehaven and refugee camp after the Holocaust. As the District is about to revert to US control, a murder takes place in the hotel where Landsman lives. I spent so much time wondering how much of the story is based in reality (a Jewish controlled settlement in Alaska? When did I miss this?) that I was unsure whether I needed to bone up on my history and Jewish studies (not being Jewish, I'm not very familiar with the different kinds of Judaism and their customs) or just go with it. When I finally reached the end, I discovered the "interview with the author" section and it was made clear that nearly everything was fictious, from Sitka (which, confusingly, is an actual place in Alaska) to a lot of the Yiddish words (which are real words but are used here in a kind of "slang" way that Chabon made up as if the settlement had evolved unique word usages.) I might have been able to enjoy it more had I been comfortably aware of the fiction of the whole premise of the book.

Stardust by Neil Gaiman. I love fairy tales, so how is it I haven't read any Neil Gaiman before? I don't know, but I can tell you this won't be my last. Tristran Thorn has promised to bring back a falling star in exchange for the hand of his beloved and crosses into the enchanted land that lies just beyond the boundaries of his town. Magic, adventure, and love with a libral dose of practicality. I loved it.

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr. Aislinn has always seen faeries while other haven't. The first rule of being able to see, she learns from her grandmother, is to not let the faeries know she can see as they are both powerful and dangerous. When the faeries start to seek her out and learn she can see, an inevitable series of events unfolds. An interesting take on faeries, as these are of the Celtic doom-and-gloom variety and not the enchanted-forest kind we are used to, however, the book introduces a great number of huge life-effecting senarios that it glosses over in favor of the big finish.

Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution by Ji Li Jiang. A heartbreaking story of a girl coming of age in a "black" family during the Cultural Revolution. An interesting counterpoint to the class in East Asian music I took in the fall. Fact: During the Revolution all music was banned with the exception of eight pieces which showed the proper balance of patriotism, non-bourgeois influences, and non-historical ties. Eight pieces for 10 years. Think about it.

The verdict: Peaches, Stardust, and Ghostgirl are staying.

If you are interested in any of the rest (except for Red Scarf Girl which belongs to my aunt) let me know!

Genius

I'm not sure I have many people to convince that Elizabeth Zimmermann is a genius, except those who've never heard of her, because you can't deny her incredibly practical approach to knitting - which has up until recently been an incredibly practical skill. And those of you who've never heard of her? Where have you been? Get on the boat already!

I read both Knitting Workshop and Knitting Around this weekend. I devoured them like novels. Even the patterns, I swear. Knitting Around almost is a novel, combining patterns with "digressions" on Elizabeth's life. I've always loved to hear stories about the way that things used to be back when my grandparents and their parents were young, so it's only fitting that I was so involved in Elizabeth's story.

Her patterns make so much sense. She acknowledges the fact that everyone fits differently, and is fully aware and even encourages you to do what works for you. We knitters all know that we alter patterns to a greater or lesser degree even when the pattern seems set in stone. Well, no more. No more for me. I have a freakishly long torso, and I'm not going to pretend I don't anymore!

And in the spirit of taking a pattern as a guide and not a set of rules, I've started a hat for my brother. He found this yarn in a hippie store in Santa Fe and asked if I'd make him a hat. Well, how could I say no?

The yarn is 55% hemp 45% wool, and it smells distinctly of hippie, if you know what I mean. That sort of incense-y, hemp-y, tie-dye-y, kill-your-television-y kind of smell. I have no idea who manufactures this stuff. There's no company name on the ball band, just "Hemp Yarn." And it just proves how much I love my brother because, dudes, this stuff is something akin to knitting with grass. Let's just say, I wouldn't want it near my head. I hear hemp softens up with time, and you can bet your behind I'm going to steam the heck out of it in order to attempt to turn it into something someone might want to wear, but I make no promises.

And, being a boy, he had to choose the least interesting colors (chocolate and curry yellow, according to packaging), and the most boring design. Stripes! No fun colorwork, no zig-zags, no stylized X and O patterns. Stripes. Stripes! What is it with men and their inability to admit that they might like colors? I mean, blue is even stretching it for this one. And he chose straight ribbing down to his ears, so there's not even a turned under hem where I can stitch something fun. Like his name.

But I love him, so I'll try to not screw this one up. I've done most of the math and meausuring necessary, assuming I get gauge (5 st per inch) so I just need to get gauge and cast on.

Some more pics and a book recommendation

I thought I'd share some more pics from my trip to Ithaca.

Wildflower Preserve

Wildflower Preserve

Watkins Glen State Park

Watkins Glen State Park

Watkins Glen State Park

I tell ya. There's no way to take a bad picture when your subject is so gorgeous.

I finished a book yesterday called Rodzina by Karen Cushman. Never heard of her? I'm not surprised. She write books for the Young Adult market (actually, almost more of the Independent Reader market). She won a Newberry Medal for her book Catherine, Called Birdy. The funny thing about me and young adult fiction is that the books and authors I love now, I couldn't force my way through back then. I tried, twice, to like Catherine, Called Birdy back in the day, and couldn't do it. Could. Not. Do. It. And yet.... I loved Rodzina and especially The Midwife's Apprentice.

And here's where I get on my soapbox. It's just a little soapbox, I promise. Just because books are about children, it doesn't mean that they are for children. Two cases in point - Harry Potter and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

End soapbox.

So, go out and read Rodzina. And laugh a little when you get to page 79.

"My ma was the knittingest woman you ever saw," Mickey Dooley put in. "She'd take yarn to bed with her at night, and every once in a while she'd throw out a sock."

Other things I love

I love books. Love them. Last year when I moved to North Carolina, I had to get rid of a bunch of books - half of my library to be exact - and I cried. Because books have always been my best, most loyal friends. And even though I gave a bunch of them to a friend I knew would take care of them the way I would, and the rest went to the library to finance even more books, I spent a couple of days depressed.

Why am I going into this? Well, I imagine there will be a number of entries on this blog involving books, and I thought I'd give you fair warning. And also, because this blog has to do with a book about knitting. Yarn Harlot: The Secret Life of a Knitter to be exact.

I bought this book last week and finished in two days, and that was by holding back. This book is an addictive collection of short essays perfect for before-bed reading or in a quick moment running from one place to another. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (Go to her blog if you haven't already. You won't be sorry. Go now.) has an incredible voice, and an unabashed acknowledgement of her knitting neuroses. I can't personally identify with a lot of her craziness (I like to pretend that I'm perfectly normal all the time) like her numerous essays about her stash, but every single story has an element of humor which I highly appreciate. I've not read any more of her books, but based on this one, my library is in serious trouble.

Oh, and the Ballet Camisole? Off the needles. I just have to add the crocheted edgings and ruch the front (which may be interesting... may have to find some elastic thread). Initially, the top is on the verge of being too big. Knit Picks Shine Sport is supposed to be machine washable and dryable, so I put a swatch in the wash yesterday. If it shrinks a bit, that wouldn't be the worse thing ever.

FO shots later this week?

Look out Chicago!

I'm leaving for Chicago at the butt crack of dawn tomorrow, and I'm so excited. A little CSO, a little shopping, a little museum-going, and a whole lot of spoiling myself. Here's a preview of my plans for the train ride:

That's mom's Trellis, Knit Picks Shine Sport for the ballet camisole, my iPod (on which I have 2 new CDs and 2 new audiobooks), and Meg Cabot's Size 14 is not Fat Either. I have been very good about this book. I bought it last week, and I've been saving it. It has not been easy. Add the fact that it's a sequel (to Size 12 is not Fat) to the fact that I love Meg Cabot and have since before the Princess Diaries was a movie, and you have one very, very good girl. Well all that goodness is about to be rewarded.

I think I'll make Meg Cabot an honorary Double G Knitster. Not only is she awesome, but our names both have 2 G's in them! Which just ups her coolness quotient.

All I have to say about the next pic is "addictive."

Ms. Marigold has been incredibly addictive for the past week. It's flying off my needles and I'm not even trying that hard! Plus I love the yarn. I love the color, I love the feel of it in my fingers, and I hope I'll love the feel of it when I wear it. I'm slightly concerned about size, but I think that once I finish up the ribbing at the neck and arms (I've elected against the ruffle. I have rather manly shoulders to begin with, so adding a ruffle on top is like icing a 2x4) and block it, it won't look so small. Once I get an idea of how the yarn will wear, I'd really like to knit something else out of it. A cardi, perhaps?

Adding greatly to the speediness of this project were two excellent movies - Proof and Casino Royale. Go rent them now.