Squam Part 1: Pictures

It was lovely.

On my nightstand

Woah.  I really thought I would be able to post more in the past month.  No school for me apparently meant not much computer for me.  I think I just needed a break from my laptop.  But I read a lot!  I actually, for the first time, worked my way completely through my nightstand from last month.  Well, at least the front stack.


What I read:
The Rosie Project (Graeme Simsion)
Maine (J. Courtney Sullivan)
Heads in Beds (Jacob Tomsky)
Eighteen Acres (Nicolle Wallace)
Ready Player One (Ernest Cline)

And I'm currently reading Going Clear.  That's it.  That's the stack!  Yay for me!

This month, I'm hoping to finish Going Clear.  Right now I'm stalled on it.  I read another book about Scientology a couple of years ago, so I'm waiting for this one to hook me in with some new information.  The new stack has Still Missing by Chevy Stevens.  This one was sent to me by my mother.  I like a good mystery.  We will see, since this one has a blurb by Gillian Flynn, who wrote Gone Girl, which I did not like at all.  The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht, Glock by Paul M. Barrett, and Eighty Days by Matthew Goodman. I've also moved Cloud Atlas from the back stack to the front stack.  Although I've been meaning to read this for years, the reason it gets moved up this month is because Ready Player One was amazing.

Ready Player One had been sitting on my nightstand for months, and I cannot believe people were not shaking me for not reading it sooner!  How can you be a movie geek raised in the 80s and not read this?  It was so unique and engrossing.  I stayed up way too late on several nights to finish it.  It has been a long time since a book has made me stay up reading past 2 am.  So, Cloud Atlas, there's a lot of pressure on you!  Are you as good as Ready Player One?  I've heard rumors...

Happy Star Wars Day!

I have finished what could possibly be the geekiest thing I have ever made.  Star Wars cross stitch!

I finished them last night.  Well, not quite finished.  I need to add some French knots in a few places, but other than that, they are finished.  A long time coming, too.  I started them two years ago.  To be fair, I didn't even work on them at all in this house until yesterday.  They had been "lost" when we moved and I just found them.  (This is a polite way of saying I'm still unpacking boxes nine months after moving.  Eh, what can you do?  We actually moved boxes from North Carolina to here that had never been unpacked from our last move.)

A closer look:

And the back (because I always like to see the back):

The patterns are from weelittlestitches on Etsy.  They have some really fun patterns.  I would love to do the Ferris Bueller or Breakfast Club patterns.  Now, off to watch a movie.  Episode V, perhaps?

May the Fourth be with you!

{this moment}

Joining Amanda in celebrating a single moment of the week, a moment to remember.

On my nightstand

Whoo hoo!  Finished with spring semester, 2014.  That was a hard slog.  Three classes, one of which was pathophysiology.  Ugh.

So what are my educational plans for the summer?  This:

Only recreational reading.  That's right, I'm not taking classes at all this summer!  Ohmygosh, I'm so very excited to not have to be on a deadline for the next four months.

Right now, I'm reading The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion on my Kindle.  Not great, but good.  On the stack are:  Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan (bought at a Barnes & Noble 3 for 2 table), Heads in Beds by Jacob Tomsky (insiders view of hotel service), Going Clear by Lawrence Wright (about Scientology), Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (this has been on my to-read list since it came out), and Eighteen Acres by Nicolle Wallace (given to me by my mother, and sounds kind of like the television program Scandal).

The books in the second stack have been hanging out quite a while.  There are a couple of feeding babies and toddlers, one one parenting, Cloud Atlas (which has been on the table for at least a year, and I refuse to watch the movie before reading the book, which means that I've been telling my DVR not to delete it for months now, too), Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (re-reading this one, so not in a hurry to finish), and The Winter Palace (ordered in a fit of Russian interest during the Winter Olymics, about Catherine the Great).

I'm also planning some knitting, of course, but no pictures of yarn yet.  And I'm starting a sampler.  The floss is wound.

And, of course, hanging out with these two.

Please note the dog (Charlie) photo bombing the picture.  Snouts everywhere, I tell you.

Another check in the box

Birthday gift finished, washed, and sent--check!  I suppose it doesn't really matter that said birthday was in October and the recipient has already seen the (mostly) completed item.  It is a gift!  Be glad!  [I say this with tongue in cheek.  The giftee loves these, loves me, and doesn't mind that they are late.]

These are the Hedgerow Mitts (Rav link).  The pattern is really easy to figure out and memorize, and looks really complicated, but isn't.

From a distance it almost looks like a cable pattern, but there isn't any cabling involved.

It is really just moving the knit and purl stitches around.  Which, if you think about it, is what most of knitting is about.  Just figuring out a new or fun or interesting way to do two different stitches.  Manipulating them until we like the effect.

I made them rather long.  They come up about two-thirds of the way to my elbow.  I'm from the UP, so I know from cold.  Gloves were never long enough.  Between your gloves and your coat there was always a little bit of skin exposed to the cold, especially when you reached for something.  There are few things colder than wind on the inside of your wrist.  However, I would probably wear them like this:

Gotta scrunch them down a bit.  But, like I mentioned, these were a gift, and they have been sent away to their recipient.  Down here, it was in the 80s today.  Up there, they got about eight inches of snow.  I think she'll wear these now, for a few weeks anyway.

It feels really good to get these off the Knitting To Do list.  These have been finished for a while now, and have only been needing a bath.  I kind of forgot about them for a bit, and then found them under a pile in my craft room.  That can happen.  I wish I wasn't like this--and trust me, I'm working on it-- but I am the type of knitter that starts off with my needles on fire with a new project, only to get to the final lap.  Then I lose steam.  My Tiny Tea Leaves sat for almost three months without sleeves.  Sleeves!  The easiest part of that pattern!  Must. Finish.  The.  Knits.

Last weekend we went to the Savannah Quilt Show.  I didn't take my camera, so all my pictures are on Mike's phone (which I think has a better camera [at least pixel-wise] than my point-and-shoot).  As soon as I figure out how to make that transfer happen, I'll post a few here.  Just gorgeous.

Of course, there was a Marketplace.  I've been wanting those lovely Ghana bolga baskets for a long time, and there was a vendor at the quilt show.

Did you know there was a baby basket?  I didn't!  I almost didn't get it, and now I think I should have bought at least two more.  I'm not sure if the big one is going to be yarn storage or the farmer's market basket (this thing is huge!), but the little one is perfect for a sock in progress.

How cute, right?  Oh my gosh, I'm loving that cute little basket!

I still think I need more baby baskets.  Right now I have four socks-in-progress.  So at lease three more baskets, right?  Can you imagine them all lined up on the table next to the davenport?  I would love it!

Tiny Tosh Tea Leaves

I've graduated from the Baby Tea Leave and made it into the Tiny Tea Leaves.  And oh, is it so sweet.  The color is Molly Ringwald by MadelineTosh.  I just love this yarn, and the color is so sweet and perfect for a darling five year old girl.

Of course, no photo shoot would be complete without a little assistance.

My fault, really, for trying to put something on the floor.  If it is on the floor, it is fair game for a snouting.  And while I was taking these pictures, something else was happening on the floor behind me.

Oh, Frosty.  He's never very far from Camden.  He's been very protective right from the beginning.  Frosty is our first fluff, and he's getting old.  He's a little guy, so he hopefully has a bunch more years left in him, but we notice him getting slower.  He doesn't always go upstairs with us until he is pretty sure we are staying up there.  He sleeps a lot more now.  He's on some medicine (which we call "Frosty's Little Blue Pills"; no sense in not having a sense of humor about it).  Our F-er.  We love our sweet Doodlebug.  He loves Camden.  All is good.