Yarn is starting to noticeably disappear from the center of my shawl balls, so I imagine I’ll only do one or two more repeats before I hit the 80% mark that signals the next part of the pattern and the decreasing. The prospect of a finished project is exciting.

I started Ashley Herring Blake’s Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World this evening and am finding it charming. Artistic Ivy, age twelve, her teenage sister, her parents, and her twin infant brothers lose their home to a tornado in the second chapter of the novel. This external force will cause repercussions during a time of adolescent stress and runs the risk of disclosing secrets Ivy hasn’t yet fully revealed even to herself.

We’re two chapters from hearing the end of A Conspiracy in Belgravia and I have two dozen short chapters left to listen to in The President Is Missing. I’m excited to hear the resolution to Lady Sherlock’s current woes in the former, and will be pleased to be done with the latter, in which none of the problems have yet to be resolved (but which I have no doubt will occur in quick order).

Want to see more book and craft pairings? Head to As Kat Knits.

Pardon the ugly appearance of the book bingo, but I was having technical difficulties deleting things and changing the colors of things and ultimately decided just to go to bed instead.

By moving things around, I did manage a single book bingo, which surprised me, since I’d expected not to find one at all. And since I read 20 books this summer, regardless of their ability to fit onto my sheet, I’m counting it as a win!

As you can see, I’m braving the heat and working on the shawl outside. It’s only true after dark, and this particular coffeehouse sits on a corner near parkland, which means it has a breeze and less of a heat sink than many other outdoor locations I could choose to knit in. (It’s also near my community garden plot, thus the English muffin bag full of harvested vegetables.) While the purple color changes are more subtle (particularly at night), I’m pretty sure you can see that the orange is now turning to yellow.

The pattern calls for you to knit the same thing until you’re 80% done with your yarn. Because I’m me, I’ll eyeball that and move on to the next step when it looks like I’m getting low on magenta.

I’m still reading Spinning Silver, which is overdue. The other night, though, many of you will appreciate that one of the three main protagonists, who has recently been introduced to the magic that is writing, awakes to find that the blanket she’s begun knitting now has a vine pattern in it (two women in two different dimensions are both occupying the same space, unbeknownst to each other). She has never knit such a complicated pattern and begins to unravel it to get a sense of what’s going on. When she realizes that she’s going to have difficulty keeping track of what’s going on, she begins to read the knitting and write down the (30 row) pattern for what she’s seeing.

I’m still listening to The President Is Missing. It’s fine, but nothing special, so I wouldn’t recommend anyone bother with that one.

On September 1st, I began a re-read of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, in honor of it being the day we all board the Hogwarts Express. I have the first three Harry Potter books in oversized illustrated versions, which means they are just at-home reading, but which also means I get to look at lots of exquisite drawings of a world I love. Plus, it has the added benefit that the first three books are the ones I have in softcover. The first book in particular is getting a little fragile, so I’m glad to have an alternative to read.

I also started Takashi Hiraide’s The Guest Cat over the weekend, because it was small enough to fit in my bag with my knitting while I was out and about. Hiraide is a poet, which doesn’t surprise me because the language is direct, but evocative. (Kudos, too, to the translator, Eric Selland.)

I’m feeling good about getting some things finished up this coming week. I’m ready to be done with the old and to move onto new projects and books.

Head over to As Kat Knits for more Unraveled posts.

I spent this past Saturday at the National Book Festival soaking in bookish vibes. The festival used to be held later in September (and on the Mall and over two days), but they’ve moved it indoors and up in the calendar year (I assume the two are related) the past five years. I don’t love those changes, but I’ve reconciled myself to the fact that lots of other people do and that it’s unlikely to return to the festival it started out as. I mean, there are still authors and books and book lovers, so the most important parts of the festival remain intact, and that’s the important thing.

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More Posey sock knitting, more Posey sock unraveling (with Jeremiah supervision, as you can see in the above shot). In this case, I accidentally pulled seven stitches off the needle and dropped them. I fixed that in the dark (by the light of a nearby streetlight) while watching the start of Wonder Woman tonight, but missed a row on one stitch, so had to drop it back down to catch it back up. The good news is that I probably only had four rows of dropped stitches originally, so the rest is progress made during the film. I’m nearing the heel, but it’s looking less likely that I’ll get them done by Friday night, which was my goal.

I’m more than a third of the way into Spinning Silver and all three of the girls — Miryem, as the queen of bloodthirsty winter elves; Wanda, on the run with the brother who accidentally killed a man while protecting her; and Irina, the new wife of a tsar she is pretty sure is a warlock — are on the move now.

On audio, I’m listening to The President Is Missing, a political thriller from James Patterson and Bill Clinton. The story is fine, but nothing extraordinary, so far.

Head over to As Kat Knits to see more crafting and reading posts.

Today’s reading was from Spinning Silver, and I read at the Wharf, while waiting for the dragon boat race to begin, and at the park until it got dark. I also downloaded the audiobook for The President Is Missing, which I’m looking forward to listening to as I was dishes tonight.

Today’s challenge is to make/meet stretch goals.

It’s the last day of the readathon, so today’s challenge is to take a look at the goals you set for the week (if you have them) and decide a) how you can stretch yourself to complete them or b) how you can revise them so you can meet them.

My goals for the week were to:

• Take part in at least two challenges and at least one of the Twitter chats.
  I took part in both Twitter chats and this makes the second challenge.
• Visit at least one other Bout of Books participant’s blog a day.
  I decided earlier in the week that this goal was more about actually leaving comments at participants’ blogs and that if I did that for seven different blogs, I’d be good. I’ve done four and have three more to do tomorrow.
• Read a little each day.
  A great success!
• Post some reviews.
  A failure so far! So I guess we know what I have to do tomorrow…