Ten on Tuesday

10 Books on my To Read List

I enjoy reading almost as much as I enjoy knitting.  When I decided to really embrace audiobooks as well, I discovered that I could do both at the same time!  Life is good!  I generally though have a print book and an audiobook in progress at all times, because sometimes you just want to feel a book in your hands.  Or an e-reader :-)  When this week's prompt came from Carole I vowed to not let Tuesday get by me without posting.  After reviewing my wish lists on Amazon, Audible and Goodreads, I decided that these are the books at the top of my lists.

1. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson.  Coincidentally this is the book my Book Group has chosen for October!
2. Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
3. Inferno by Dan Brown
4. Fall of Giants by Ken Follett
5. The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
6. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
7. The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian
8. Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman
9. Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
10. The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

I'm adding a bonus selection too. This one isn't available yet, but it's definitely on my list.
11. Be Careful What you Wish For by Jeffrey Archer.  This is book 4 in The Clifton Chronicles and I can't wait for it to come out.  I am in love with this series! It's going to be a long wait for me until March!

WiP Wednesday

August is over and I have made a significant dent on my UFO's.  I'm pretty proud of myself that I did not cast on anything new and worked exclusively on existing projects.

I'm trying to continue working on WiP's, but also allow myself to cast on a couple new projects.

My Vodka Lemonade was cast on in late July, but I hardly worked on it in August.  I worked on it quite a bit over the weekend and am about 25% through my yarn for it.  I can't wait to separate the sleeves off.  There are getting to be a LOT of stitches on the needle now!

Last night I cast on Istanbul from the August Cookie A Sock Club shipment.  The yarn is Miss Babs new sock yarn, Cosmic, in this truly fabulous blue called Inkwell.  I. Love. This. Color! It makes me happy just to look at it :-)

The only thing I don't like about this sock so far is that the left leaning decrease is a slip 1, knit 1, pass slipped stitch over as opposed to ssk.  It's not laying as nice and smoothly as I'd like.  I'm slipping the stitch purl wise, but should I be slipping it knit wise?  I'm going to try a few and see if it looks better.

What do you think?  Am I doing it right or wrong?  Why decrease this way vs ssk?  Should I just change to ssk?

What I did on Summer Vacation

August is the month of vacation. A month to rest, to renew, to plan, and to prepare to begin anew.  I spent the month cleaning up some projects.  I decided to combine the Sock Knitters Anonymous Challenge, Summer of Socks, 26 Pair Plunge and Stashdown for a personal challenge to tackle my pile of UFO's.  Some had been lingering a short time and some significantly longer.

These two are projects that I cast on in July.  I wanted to finish these so that I didn't fall behind on my club kits.

These are much older.

In total I had 9 pairs of socks in progress!  Let me show you what I finished!

This pair I finished today.  The pattern is Dorothy Gale Socks from the Woolgirl Wizard of Oz Club.  I started these in September of 2009. That's right.... 2009!  I knit the 1st sock, but was not completely happy with it.  The pattern is really cute, an honestly great tribute to Dorothy in her blue and white gingham dress and her rich brown braided hair, but the yarn.....?  I don't love it.  I love the dye job and the vision of it, but the fabric it created is truly flimsy. These will be house socks as I don't believe they would hold up inside shoes.  But I'm glad they are done.

This pair is Crest by JC Briar and was the Rockin Sock Club kit for May.  The colors played beautifully for me and I love the striping I got, especially on the leg.

This pair is Tiberius from the Cookie A Club June kit.  This was a new yarn for me, SweetGeorgia CashLuxe Fine, and it is fantastic.  I would absolutely buy this yarn and would recommend it.  It's a nice light feeling yarn that makes a beautiful fabric and has great stitch definition.

This is Jubilee, also from Cookie A Sock Club, but from June 2011.  These were designed using Hazel Knits Artisan sock which is one of my favorite sock yarns.  I used the club yarn for the other pattern from June 2011 and used this old Hazel Knits club yarn from my stash.  I started these in July 2012.

At some point I decided I needed a break from all the socks and pulled out this hat that I had started this spring.  The pattern is Chelsea Market Hat.  It's an easy pattern and used just one skein of Madelinetosh Vintage.  I intended to put this in "The Gift Basket" but I might just keep it for myself instead.

So that's what I finished during the month of August!  Now I'm going to work on my Vodka Lemonade sweater while I wait for some Plucky Knitter yarn to arrive.  I ordered some Traveler Sport so that I can make Rolling Rock for Plucktember.  

Ten on Tuesday

Ten on Tuesday

It's been several weeks since I've participated in Ten on Tuesday, simply because the day has gotten away from me before I could post!  This week I'm doing it first, BEFORE I get involved in the daily summer craziness.

The prompt this week is 10 Words that Describe You with no elaboration.

1. Reliable
2. Thoughtful
3. Creative
4. Friendly
5. Competent
6. Innovative
7. Confident
8. Respectful
9. Smart
10. Conscientious

So here's a question for you.....  I take pride in everything I do.  Whatever I do, I like to do it well and I want to be proud of my efforts and what I leave behind.  What word would you use to convey that sentiment?

Want to join the fun?  Visit Carole's page to join and see what other people share.

Time for a Finishing Fest

August is the vacation month for Socks Knitters Anonymous but it has turned into the "Free Up Your Needles" month in anticipation of the new year to begin in September.  I gathered up all my SiP's to get organized.....

The good news is I found all the projects that I have on my Ravelry project page.  The bad news is that most of the patterns have to be located still.  That shouldn't be a big deal as I'm pretty good at making a working copy of my patterns and keep the originals in a binder or I know what book they are from.  But I do have 9 socks in progress.  The top picture is the ones that will quality for the SKA challenge, and they are all first socks.

The bottom picture is socks from my sock clubs and I am working on the 2nd sock for both of these.  I'm not quite keeping up but I'm not horribly behind either.  My RSC club arrived on Saturday and the Cookie A club should arrive Monday.  I should finish both of these this week then move onto my older SiP's for the rest of the month.

I wonder how many of these older projects I'll be able to complete during August?

I also got the itch to start a new sweater recently.  I cast on Vodka Lemonade and have been poking away at it a bit at a time.  It's a top down sweater that begins with a collar that is 5 inches of seed stitch! 5 Inches!  Perfect for mindless knitting :-)

Do you have anything fun planned for August?

30 Years?

It doesn't seem possible, but evidently it's true! I graduated from high school in 1983 and Saturday night I attended my 30th Class Reunion!  Crazy! I had a great time catching up with classmates I hadn't seen in years as well as having some laughs with friends I am still close to.

Here I am with my elementary school classmates Damon, Tod, and David.  It was fun reminiscing about all our high jinx from sneaking off school property during recess to go to the corner store to buy candy, to hanging out at Debbie's house which was across the street and smoking on lunch break. (We only did that a couple times before getting caught! LOL) It was a fun time!

What did you do this weekend?

A Random Catch Up

I can't believe it's been nearly a month since I last posted. There has been lots going on in my life, so here's a quick post of some of the random things I've been up to.

I was late planting my flowers and garden this year :-(  My hangers and deck planters are finally nicely filled out.  My garden is doing pretty well too, except that my corn didn't come up this year and my zucchini plants have that powdery/mildewy thing again this year.  I made sure they were plenty spread out and only water in the morning.  I'm wondering now if I have diseased soil?  I don't know, but my peas, green beans, cucumbers, carrots and tomatoes are doing great.  I should be picking cukes by the end of the week!

The dogs have been into all kinds of trouble this year.  Neal had a growth removed from his foot and it has been an EPIC battle to keep his foot clean and dry.  We've been to the vet 4 times in 10 days between him pulling his bandage off, sneaking out of the house and walking into the lake, etc and so forth.  Stitches come out Tuesday!  Yippee!

Emma has found all kinds of goose poop to roll in, even though we clean it up every. darn. day.  But little white dogs who roll in goose poop and then wish to sleep on my bed at night get baths before bedtime.  She's not impressed, but she sure smells better!

Tom took off the week of July 4th and we had a Staycation.  After years of wishing we had a jet ski, we finally caved this year and bought one.  We're having lots of fun with it :-)

My favorite little munchkin came to spend a couple days at Auntie Dianne's :-)  She is so much fun!  She's 17 months old and a busy, curious little girl.  We played ball, bubbles, side walk chalk, walked the dogs, climb on everything, and played by the lake.  She's not the only one slept well at night!

I was summoned for Jury Duty for the month of July.  So far my name has not been pulled to sit on a case, but I go again next week for selection again.

Chandler and I have also been visiting colleges he'd like to consider applying to.  Last week we went to Stonehill College and Boston University.  Tomorrow we're going to University of Vermont.  He still has 8 more schools on his "potential" list, so we'll be spending a lot of quality time together in the car.

I have managed to get some knitting in too.  I'm working on a Chelsea Market Hat.  I really like the pattern so far.

I started Tiberius from the Cookie A June sock club.

And I finished Dumbledore's Christmas Stockings.  I used Socks That Rock lightweight in a millend that I had in my stash.  I'm really happy with them.  This is definitely a raven color way and I did have some dye come off on my fingers while I was knitting them.  They'll need a vinegar bath before I wear them, but that's not a big deal.  The fit is great on these and I expect they'll get a lot of wear!

They are also my first finished pair of socks for the 26 Pair Plunge.  I fell really short last year on the plunge, only completing 13 pairs of socks, but I'm going to try it again.  It's only 2 pairs of socks a month plus a couple.  Totally doable, right?