Saturday 20 July 2013

New projects

It feels so good to feel creative again after living in a perpertual brainfog for most of the beginning of the year. There are still ups and downs (there always will be), but I'm really excited to try new things out.

Dyeing!

My family brought back this delightful undyed skein of Wensleydale Yarn by West Yorkshire Spinners from holiday for me. It's got a lovely crisp feel to it, and I feel postively awash with the colour possibilitities. I need to investigate fully what sort of dye I want to use and various methods, but I think it wants to be a varigated pinky purple sort of colour.

a skein of undyed wool, creamish in colour.


Knitting with wire!

The urge to try and knit jewellery popped back into my head the other day. It's something I've been curious about before, but this time I found myself standing in front of the wire in our local Hobbycraft. I have a vague idea of what I want to knit first, but I need to have a play about with the wire and see how it knits up. I can't wait.

a coil of thins silver plated wire, and a small tub of pale yellow seed beads


Spinning!

This one has been building for the last year or so, especially after having a couple of goes at shows this year. I've not bought anything yet, just started to read up on it, but I am very excited to have another go. I suspect one of the drop spindle learning kits will be making it's way to me from HilltopCloud come payday.

Wednesday 17 July 2013

What I'm reading 17/7/13

What are you currently reading?

I'm a few pages further along in Komarr by Lois McMaster Bujold (and still enjoying it), and I've just started flicking through Managing Ehler Danlos (type 3) Hypermobility Syndrome by Isobel Knight. It's rather more in depth than her last book, though still very readable, and I suspect I will be dipping in and out of it for a while.

What did you recently finish reading?


It's been a mainly disappointing week for books.

I ended up DNF'ing The Aylesford Skull by James P Blaylock. It was all right enough to dip in and out of as a break time read, but I tried to read it for more than ten minutes at a time, and I found I just didn't care. I liked some of the characters, just not enough to finish the book.

Hunted by Kevin Hearne. It was all right I suppose. It wasn't bad, but I found myself skimming passages, and I really only carried on reading because I'm reasonably invested with the characters at this point. I'll read the next book because I want to see where it goes from here, but this book felt like it was just filler

What do you think you’ll read next?

Book of Souls by James Oswald has just come in for me, and I can't wait to read it.

Tuesday 16 July 2013

Knitted increases

One of the things I love about knitting is that there is always something new to learn or to appreciate. Lately for me it's been how different various increases can look.

Up until fairly recently, I've been doing increases whatever way was easiest as I've been knitting items where the look of it hasn't been hugely important. Cue Secret project number one.

It's a blanket made from mitred squares, a simple project that has been ideal for knitting whilst watching tv or when I'm brain dead. I'm following the method I first saw in Lorna Miser's Faith, Hope, Love, Knitting, and increasing one stitch either side of a stocking stitch ridge, and I grew curious as to how different the squares would look with different increases. Since the blanket is made up from squares, it really is the perfect project to footer about with and see what happens.

I started off with a KFB increase (knitting into the front and back of the same stitch) and you can see how less pronounced the ridge is on one side.

yellow knitted square on wooden background. Square is knitted in garter stitch, and the stocking stitch rib running from point to point is less prominent on one side.


I wasn't too keen on how these looked so after a few of these squares, I moved on to trying an m1R (picking up the loop between stitches from the back and then knitting into the front of this new loop) increase.

Another yellow knitted square. This time the ridge is more prominent on the top half. The lower half is slightly less prominent on one side, and there are a few mistakes in the ridge itself.


Apart from the few slips ups at the bottom of the square (it turns out there is actually a point when you are too brain dead to knit even the simplest of patterns) you can see the ridge is equally prominent, and I much prefer the appearance of this square.

The experiment started off knitting with an m1L increase (the same but picking up from the front and knitting into the back) on the left hand side, and even that has a slight difference as you can make out the tiny holes. Actually I'm not sure what happened there - it's supposed to be an invisible increase, and often is with me, but I think the ridge is altering things slightly. I'll have to investigate that further.

Isn't it all just fun?:D

And of course, I also learned that lemon is not the best colour to show off these differences. Ah well, you live and learn.

Friday 12 July 2013

What I'm reading 12/7/13

Hello again! It's seems like forever since I've managed to blog, but then I remember it's because I was busy surviving and recovering from a holiday with my siblings. It actually wasn't as bad as I feared, and I actually enjoyed myself (although it was hard to tell what was scarier: the rides or my siblings arguing over who got to push me!). I'm starting to get back into the swing of things so expect more updates soon. 

What are you currently reading?

At the minute, I'm only in the middle of The Aylesford Skull by James P Blaylock. I am dipping in and out of it as my breaktime read, but I'm not too sure about it. I'm intrigued enough to keep reading but I'm not exactly excited by it.

What did you recently finish reading?


I DNF'd Val McDermid's Place of Execution after I finally admitted I had lost all interest in it. I'm not sure why exactly, especially after the first part sucked me in so well, but I was just past the halfway point and the thought of reading the rest was just plain tiring.

Laidlaw by William McIlvanney. This one felt a little odd to me. I mean, I can see why it is such a recommended book, and how it set off the Scottish crime writing scene, and I did enjoy it, but I have no desire to either reread it or go on and read the other two in the series. I think it was the amount of different POV's that did it - I couldn't really latch onto anyone long enough to properly care about reading more. I'm glad I read it though.

Blade Reforged by Kelly McCullough. It was definitely worth the wait to read this one. I love the slow unveiling of the worldbuilding that keeps taking place, and the development of all the main characters is still fantastic. I said when I first started it that it was like rolling yourself up in your favourite quilt, and that feeling lasted through the whole book. There are throwbacks to previous books, some interesting new characters are introduced and things get a little political as well (always one of my favourite aspects). The whole book is littered with fantastic little details that make the world seem alive, and it feels like coming full circle from the first book. At the same time, new questions and plot threads are introduced so it feels like . The only criticism I would have was the absence of Faran felt a little odd, and perhaps a little forced, but that was my only quibble in what is an otherwise great book.

According to McCullough's website, there are going to be at least two more in the series, but it's going to be at December 2014 before the next one. I'm extremely pleased there is going to be more, but I can wait. The end of this one feels like a natural stopping point in the series, and whilst I'm still very eager for more, it's not quite as urgent as it was at the end of the last one. In the meanwhile, I'll definitely be rereading the series so far.

What do you think you’ll read next?

I'd really like to finish Bujold's Komarr as it sort of fell by the wayside, and Kevin Hearne's Hunted just came in at the library for me.