While Sunday was overcast, it was not pouring, which was a pleasant change from Friday and Saturday. I was going to Sheep and Wool regardless, but I’ve been in the rain before and it definitely is a drawback. So to only have to deal with mud seemed pretty easy. I pulled on my wellies, and headed up to the fairgrounds.

It ended up being a nice afternoon all things considered, without the need for my coat, but with the advantage of it being cool enough that all the knitters were able to show off our handknits one final time for the spring.

I went with a limited budget and I stuck to it. I wanted something I couldn’t just buy at one of my local yarn shops, and I think I found it. Urban Girl Yarns is made locally in Virginia by a Black woman knitter and dyer. This is her Virginia Fingering in Caliente. The necklace matches a shawl pin I bought a number of years back and is made by a Maryland metalworker, Silver Siren Designs. I also came home with two jars of local honey and six seedlings, which have already been planted.

On the reading front, I’m still alternating between two print novels, The Lincoln Highway and Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake. I gave up on the overly descriptive romance novel I’d been listening to when it came due and I’ve downloaded Ruth Hogan’s The Keeper of Lost Things to try instead.

Head over to As Kat Knits for the weekly Unraveled Wednesday roundup.

Two literary endeavors in one post!

The Bout of Books readathon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple. It’s a weeklong readathon that begins 12:01 a.m. Monday, May 9th, and runs through Sunday, May 15th, in YOUR time zone. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are reading sprints, Twitter chats, and exclusive Instagram challenges, but they’re all completely optional. For all Bout of Books 34 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team

It’s not too late to sign up and Bout of Books is super chill. I read a couple chapters of Alexis Hall’s Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake for it this afternoon.

On the Top Ten Tuesday front, That Artsy Reader Girl has asked us to share our top ten bookish characters this week.

1. Thursday Next, literary detective: The Eyre Affair and its sequels by Jasper Fforde
2. Matilda, child reader: Roald Dahl’s Matilda
3. Liesel, book savior: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
4. Nina Hill, bookstore employee: The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman
5. A.J. Fikry, bookstore owner: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
6. Lila Castro, creator of a book exchange and secret book blogger: The Holiday Switch by Tif Marcelo
7. Isola Pribby, quirky book club member: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
8. Queen Elizabeth, British matriarch: Alan Bennett’s The Uncommon Reader
9. The Mac, librarian: Booked by Kwame Alexander
10. Lily and Dash, the most adorkable couple to meet through The Strand: Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares by David Levithan and Rachel Cohen

How about you? What bookish characters do you love?

It occurred to me suddenly last week that this coming Sunday was Sheep and Wool and that if I wanted to debut something new (weather-pending), I’d need to get a move on finishing a piece. So I’ve pulled out Fully Charged, my Tour de France 2021 shawl, to see if I can finish it. Technically, I could do the border rows now, but I still have yarn and, frankly, the shawl seems a little small at the moment. So I’m just continuing on with the stripey section until one of the balls gets small enough for me to start feeling worried.

I have not yet started Amor Towles’ The Lincoln Highway, but I’d better get started because it’s 600 pages and due back in less than two weeks. It’s in my knitting bag for tomorrow.

Visit As Kat Knits for this week’s reading and crafting roundup.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl asks us to share one-word reviews of the last ten books we read. I’m going to mix it up slightly and give you the one word I currently most associate with each of the last ten I’ve started (feel free to ask in the comments if you want more detail):

1. Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop by Roselle Lim: Adjectives (in progress)
2. Saint Young Men by Hikaru Nakamura: Deities (in progress)
3. The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes by Leonard Goldberg: Spin-off
4. Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny: Waiting (in progress)
5. Yours Cruelly, Elvira by Cassandra Peterson: Celebrities
6. The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin: Tearful
7. Shelf Respect by Annie Austen: Bibliophilia
8. A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske: Magic
9. Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki: Doomed
10. Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto: Family (in progress)

How about you? What is the word you’d most associate with a book you’re reading or recently finished?

Look! Different knitting and different reading!

The knitting is Mum’s (2021) Christmas gift, Campfire Cozy, which I picked up again toward the end of last week. I have eight more rows of the textured stitches to get through and then it becomes mindless tv knitting. I’m hopeful I’ll be able to hand the shawl over sometime before Christmas 2022.

I put Fools in Love back into the rotation because it’s overdue to the library and I forgot to put it in my bag last week when I went to Virginia. I took that as a sign I was meant to finish this collection of YA romance short stories after all. I also started Saint Young Men, a collection of comics translated from Japanese about religious figures Jesus and Buddha rooming together as young men during a gap year in Tokyo in the early aughts. It’s less sacrilegious than it sounds, but also maybe less funny than I’d hoped it would be. I’ve also started a new audiobook, Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop by Roselle Lim. I’m not yet sure if I’ll keep going with it. It probably depends on how many more times she describes food with multiple adjectives.

Want to see what others are reading and crafting? Head to As Kat Knits for the weekly roundup.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to pick an item or design element and find 10 books featuring it on the cover. It will surprise no one that I’ve picked covers that include books and/or reading:

Covers are:
Row 1: A Rogue of One’s Own by Evie Dunmore, Jo & Laurie by Margaret Stohl & Melissa de la Cruz, and The Bookshop of Second Chances by Jackie Fraser

Row 2: Shelf Respect by Annie Austen, Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston, and Book Lovers by Emily Henry

Row 3: Meet Me in the Margins by Melissa Ferguson, The Wild Book by Juan Villoro, and The Book Jumper by Mechthild Gläser (in this instance, the cover was better than the book)

I’ve read six, am listening to the audiobook off and on of another, and have three on my TBR list.

How about you? Do any memorable covers featuring books or reading spring to mind?