There has been no knitting the last few days. I was washing the mandolin on Monday night and sliced my finger with it. It wasn’t especially deep, but it’s taking its time healing since it’s right where I keep opening it back up by typing and washing.

Hopefully, we’ll be back in the saddle again tomorrow or so. When we are, I’ll be casting on a new pair of socks in this yarn, The Fiberists’ Audubon Sport in the Cornus florida colorway:

I’m still working my way through Signed, Sealed, Delivered, reading a chapter every few days. I’m enjoying reading about letters through history. Tonight’s chapter talked about how letters have been used to convict/implicate suspects in crimes, including the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. I put Neil Patrick Harris’ Choose Your Own Autobiography down for a few days in favor of tearing through the first volume of Ms. Marvel (loved it!), but I anticipate being done with it by Sunday, given NPH’s breezy style and the short “chapters.”

Yarning along about books and crafting with Ginny.
 

In honor of the upcoming Valentine’s Day holiday and to combat my continuing low mood, I’m looking for some suggestions of love stories to read.

Before you hop down to the comments, let me clarify: I want a book that leaves you smiling at the end. Think Rainbow Rowell, Jane Austen, or Gayle Forman. (I’m already thinking David Levithan and Stephanie Perkins.)

The biggest caveat is that I don’t want a tragedy. A little sadness is okay, so long as the overall tone is a positive one. (Think The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, for example, over Code Name Verity.)

Thanks!

Look! It’s actual knitting I’ve done this week! I mean, it’s a pathetic amount (and horribly lit, sorry about that), but given how little I’ve knit the last month, I’m pleased. Plus, because it’s a test knit of a cowl pattern, I know it’ll get done in the next couple weeks.

The book I started over the weekend as I was nearing the end of a couple others. It’s Nina Bankovitch’s Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Celebrating the Joys of Letter Writing. I’m only through the introduction and first chapter, but I’m enjoying it so far.

I’m actively reading two books right now. The Amazing Thing about the Way It Goes: Stories of Tidiness, Self-Esteem and Other Things I Gave up On is Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s 2014 book essays. They feature her typical humorous, yet poignant approach to storytelling, but this time are about things other than knitting. The two essays I read tonight, for instance, were about competing in hurdles back in school and the importance of photos. One or two in a day is about my speed, though, so the book, although small, is lasting me a few days, which is nice. The fiction I’m working on is 2 a.m. at the Cat’s Pajamas by Marie-Helene Bertino. Set around the holidays in modern Philadelphia, it’s the story of a young girl, who’s recently lost her mother and whose father is having issues coping, who wants to sing and the jazz club she discovers is not especially far away. It’s told in alternating points of view from a few different people, including one of her teachers and the club owner, in short chapters according to the time and I haven’t quite figured out how it’s all going to fit together into a cohesive whole. It appeared on several best-of lists last year, though, so I’m hopeful that it does.

I haven’t been knitting much at all the last couple months. I’ve been feeling down and getting past where I’m stuck on every in-progress project seems insurmountable. I know that dealing with that is a two-pronged approach (1) Start a new project and 2) pick one work-in-progress and knit a few rows on it each day until stops being hard/stuck/not done.), but I just haven’t had it in me to match up yarn, needles, and pattern.

I have been poking around Ravelry, though, and one of the designers I follow had a bunch of patterns she wanted test-knit by early February. One of them was a scalloped cowl that seemed more than reasonable to accomplish in three weeks, so I contacted her and downloaded the pattern this evening. I think I’m going to knit it in this pretty single-ply from Plain & Fancy Sheep Company, but we’ll see how it feels once it’s wound up. I also pulled out my Lightning Shawl and may see about making it my first reinstated project of the year.

Yarning along with Ginny.

Today’s Top Ten Tuesdays topic at The Broke and the Bookish is 2014 Releases I Meant To Read But Didn’t Get To:

1. 2 a.m. at the Cat’s Pajamas by Marie-Helene Bertine (currently reading)
2. Endangered by Eliot Schrefer (started but didn’t finish)
3. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
4. I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
5. The Eye of Zoltar by Jasper Fforde
6. Salt & Storm by Kendall Kulper
7. Yes Please by Amy Poehler
8. Five, Six, Seven, Nate! by Tim Federle
9. Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography
10. An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine

I’m looking to get to all these titles this year and am on the wait list at the library for five of the eight titles not currently in my possession.

How about you? Any regrets among new releases you missed last year?

My first Bout of Books has come and gone.

Here’s how I did on my goals:

I’m not sure I read every day, but I definitely read most days. (Things got a little weird in the middle of the week.) Better still, I started pulling out a book at the times when I’ve been more recently reading Twitter or playing games on my phone, like while waiting for the metro.

Page totals and quick thoughts on the books:

• My True Love Gave to Me: 172 pages (This was the only book I finished this week, but I started it on Boxing Day. It really was a superb collection of YA Christmas-themed romance stories. I liked each one and loved quite a few.)
• When I Was the Greatest: 66 (I hit the point where the book was getting stressful & it was overdue to the library, so I returned it a quarter of the way in. I may get it back out or I may not.)
• Christmas at Thompson Hall & Other Christmas Stories: 9 (This was in my bag, so it didn’t get read except during commuting times, but I’m looking forward to reading a the rest of this this week.)
• The Amazing Thing about the Way It Goes: 50 (Non-knitting essays from the Yarn Harlot. It’s okay. Some essays have been funnier than others so far.)
• 2 a.m. at the Cat’s Pajamas: 24 (I feel like the author never met a sentence she didn’t feel couldn’t be improved by her thesaurus, but I’m enjoying it so far. Obviously I’m not far in yet, but I think it’ll be good and I plan to finish it this week.)
• Texts from Jane Eyre and Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters: 84 (I should really only read this when alone, because I keep wanting to read bit aloud when there’s an audience.)

Without padding and to my great surprise, that means I did hit my page goal for Bout of Books, even if I didn’t read a single whole book during the week. Not bad!

I’m counting my blogging goals as accomplished, too, since technically my mid-week update and this post count.

So, overall, a success! And I took part in the final Twitter chat of the event as a bonus!

I’m looking forward to the next Bout of Books, which is in May. Maybe you’ll consider joining it, too?