I’m going to rip out a few dozen rows on my shawl, I’ve decided. It’s been sitting in time-out while I considered my options, wondering if I was being too picky. Eventually I decided to consult Rudi. If he noticed, without much prompting, what the problem was, then back I should go.

And he did.

The problem is right there at the center “v” of the shawl, where it briefly, but rather abruptly, switches to orange. When I was lining up my leftovers, it didn’t seem like such a sharp changeover, but it is in real life. And if I’m going to have spent six years knitting a shawl, I should probably not include the bit I’m unhappy with at its most visible spot, right?

Luckily, I think that if I just rip back and excerpt that little bit of orange that it will fade much more in concert with the rest of the shawl. And hopefully it won’t cause me to run short of yarn. Keep your fingers crossed…

On the reading front, I’m reading Sandhya Menon’s From Twinkle, with Love, a YA romance featuring an Indian-American teen who wants to be a director. The novel is written in journal format, but as letters to famous female directors that Twinkle admires. In audio, I’m listening to one of this spring’s Audiobook Sync titles, Swing, by Kwame Alexander. So far, I’m finding it far more similar to his sports titles, which I loved, than his previous music-related book, Solo. Although to be fair, Swing combines a focus on music with a focus on baseball, so maybe this is the culmination of both. I’m also reading Grace Talusan’s The Body Papers, a memoir about immigration, abuse, and cancer, because I went to school with one of her siblings. I’m early in right now, but appreciate how hard it must have been for her to share her story with the world.

Want to hear more about what people are crafting and reading? Head to As Kat Knits for the roundup.

I should probably have paid attention when Flickr announced they were going to be down for maintenance, because it didn’t occur to me that they meant for 12 hours. And I just don’t have it in me to upload the photo another way right now, so until Flickr comes back online, assume that this paragraph is a shot consisting of a pot of tea, a biscuit, a half skein of yarn that had not yet been cast on for a second sock, and a book on a table outside. It looked not dissimilar from last week’s shot.

The second of my Smock Madness pair was cast on this evening. It’s nice to think that pair could be finished in a couple weeks.

I had Murder in G Major with me again today, so that’s the book that was included in the picture. Gethsemane has survived a poisoning, performed some tunes in the local bar, and convinced a ghost to write her a concerto, so life is looking up a bit for her. Elsewhere, I’m listening to The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle by Christina Uss, which starts off at the newly constructed outpost of the Nearly Silent Monastery (they have a vocabulary of eight words and practice listening) here in Washington, D.C., where a small girl has wandered in with no information about where she came from. And I also started Death Prefers Blondes, a y.a. novel about a rich girl who runs a crew of teen drag queens in performing elaborate heists around the L.A. area.

Want to hear about what other folks are reading and crafting (many of them have photos!)? Head over to As Kat Knits to catch the roundup.

We had sun and warmth for the first time in ages this afternoon, so I stopped by Big Bear Cafe on my way back from my library book group to sit and read the book I picked up afterwards.

The book, Alexia Gordon’s Murder in G Major, was recommended to me on Monday when I remarked to the Bout of Books Twitter chat that I was really hankering after cozies with non-white main characters. While I’m grateful that this mystery features a Black woman conductor and musician as its lead, and I like an Irish cottage as a setting, I’m not loving the book so far. I’m hoping it gets more comfortable with itself once it’s not introducing characters anymore.

I’m still listening to P.S. I Still Love You and also have picked Kelly Yang’s middle-grade novel Front Desk, about family of Chinese immigrants who run a hotel run by a not-such-a-nice guy.

I didn’t knit on my Smock Madness socks at all last week, so these look exactly like they did then. I found the pattern and I resumed my toe decreases while at the cafe this afternoon. However, I didn’t have a chibi with me, so the second sock had to wait for another day.

Head over to As Kat Knits if you want to read more posts about books and crafting.

I’ll have a couple FOs to show you as soon as the sun comes back out. In the meantime, here’s the next sock pair I’ll be working on, which you may remember from March when I knit them in Sock Madness. I just need to finish that toe and I’ll be able to move on to sock #2.

On the reading front, I also finished several things last week, which means I have new things to show you this week. Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant by Tony Cliff is a graphic novel set in 1807 in the Middle East and focuses on a swashbuckling adventurer with a flying boat and a former palace guard who brews an excellent pot of tea. I think it will be part Tintin, part Indiana Jones, and part Black Widow.

Girl Squads by Sam Maggs is a nonfiction collection of essays about female friendship around the world and through history. I’ve only read the first essay thus far, which focuses on a society of free divers on an island off the coast of South Korea. So far, it’s fascinating, but I’m not loving the author’s tone, which is a little breezier than I’d prefer.

Jenny Han’s P.S., I Still Love You is the sequel to To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and like the first book in the y.a. romance trilogy, I’m listening to it. I wanted to check it off before the movie adaptation hits Netflix (although I don’t know when that’ll be). It’s cute.

I’ve got several other books sort of in progress, but those are the three I’m actively reading today.

Want to learn more about what folks are reading and knitting? Head to As Kat Knits.

This weekend was the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival, and, as I mentioned earlier, because Rudi needed to go to Pennsylvania on Saturday for a ski coaching meeting, we got a rental car for the weekend. Rudi had a party to go to, so I hit the festival on my own.

While yesterday was remarkably pleasant, rain moved in last night and stayed all day, which gave the grassy areas of the festival grounds the consistency of chocolate pudding. But I and some intrepid few turned up today to take in both sheep and wool.

Here are some of the sheep I ran into:

(more…)

I’ve returned to my Lightning Shawl for a final strip, although probably not soon enough to finish and block it in time to wear it to Sheep & Wool on Sunday. But either way, it should be done soon and that will be good enough.

On the reading front, on Sunday, I picked up Jeff Zentner’s latest, Rayne and Delilah’s Midnite Matinee, about two high school senior friends from Tennessee who host a public access program where they show old monster movies and do campy interstitials, à la Elvira or Svengoolie. It is good so far, but I can see where trouble lies ahead for the characters, which stresses me out. On a less stressful note, I’m listening to Jenny Han’s P.S., I Still Love You, the second in her romantic trilogy about the fallout a girl experiences after letters she wrote, but never intended to send, to her previous crushes get mailed. The first book was made into a Netflix movie, which I thought stayed true enough to the book (although with way fewer baking sessions than I thought should have been included) and the second one has been greenlit, so this seemed like a good time to listen to it.

Check out what others are reading and crafting at As Kat Knits.