My shawl is … still small. I’m through the first three set-up sections, but there are eight sections of mosaic ahead.

I just tonight wrapped up listening to Act Your Age, Eve Brown, the final book in Talia Hibbert’s Brown sisters romance novels.

I still have about 100 pages left in Arsenic and Adobo. The main character and her family have grown on me, but I am neither impressed by the murder mystery aspect of the book nor especially worried that the whodunit is going to surprise me.

I’m thinking when I’m done I’ll start A Lady’s Formula for Love, about a Victorian scientist and the Scottish body guard/police officer who must protect her against threats.

Head over to As Kat Knits to see what others are reading and crafting!

Count me as the rider crossing the finish line just in front of the sag wagon on Day #1 of the Tour, but a little start is still a start after all.

This is Fully Charged. The colors are a bit washed out in the lamplight, but the pink is Periwinkle Sheep Watercolors in Hot Mama and the green is Kelbourne Woolens Perennial in Neon Lime. The latter has a little alpaca in it, so I’m making it the more background color, since I think it will fuzz a bit and soften the colorwork. We’ll find out if it was a terrible choice.

My rainbow socks will not likely be done by the end of the month, particularly with Tour knitting starting on Saturday. But I do have a finished sock, so that’s not nothing.

I am about halfway through both Arsenic and Adobo and Act Your Age, Eve Brown. The former has started irritating me less, so although I am relatively certain I know the who of the murder, I’m happy to read through to see if there’s some depth to the why. And the latter series of books is always enjoyable. Both Chloe and Dani have now made (phone) appearances in the story, so I’m even happier.

Head over to As Kat Knits to see what others are crafting and reading.

Thanks to those of you who weighed in on the smaller shawls I was considering for the Tour de France Knitalong. Fully Charged and Winterberry both got multiple votes.

I thought I’d share a few more shawls, but this time they’re larger pieces, calling for three or more skeins of yarn. Usually, this makes them more wearable, but also it means they’ll take longer to knit, and the odds of finishing in three weeks the Tour lasts diminishes significantly.

I’ve been looking at Pressed Flowers since before last year’s Tour, and the fact that I’m still considering it bodes well. It’s a heavier yarn and requires 3-4 skeins.

Nightshift is another pattern I’ve looked at over and over again. Again, a heavier weight shawl.

Fernweh is a brioche shawl, knit with sock yarn.

Rodanthe is mosaic, knit with sock yarn.

Quicksilver alternates stripes with mesh lace.

The Everything Shawl combines two skeins of sock yarn with one skein of mohair.

I’m no closer to deciding what to knit for this year’s Tour de France knitalong than I was last year. But I promised to share some of the things I was thinking about, so, I thought I’d give you some of the 1-2 skein projects I’m looking at tonight and then share the 3+ skein projects later on. The links all go to Ravelry, should that be a helpful piece of information to you.

There are more here than I expected. And normally I would have Rudi help me filter them down and then bring them to you to help me decide. But he’s in bed and you’re always here (in a sense), so there we go.

First up is the XO Shawl. It’s knit with one skein of sock yarn and one of a silk mohair (both of which I should be able to wrangle out of my stash).

The Seladonia Shawl would give me the push to finally learn brioche

Either Winterberry, Crunch Time, or Orkidae Shawl would use two skeins of the same color. That gives me at least one option, but possibly just that.

Kingston Lacy could be knit in either fingering or lace, which gives me several options.

If I knit the Little Rainbow Shawl, I’d probably combine a solid with a gradient, rather than using mini skeins, which I don’t own.

Full Charged comes from the designer I knit my purple and pink 4-Ever in Blue Jeans shawl from two years ago.

Stonechurch is another mosaic design (colorwork done by slipping stitches, rather than knitting with two colors on the same row), which I seem to be attracted to a lot this past year.

Flowers in the Air is knit with a mohair blend and uses beads. The beaded socks I started knitting earlier this spring quickly went sideways, but I don’t really think that was the beads’ fault. Wispy Shawl doesn’t have any beads to complicate things.

Escanda uses just a single skein of sock yarn.

Hennes combines a solid and a variagated or self-striping skein.

What do you think? Do any of these catch your eye? Or, even better, have you made any of them yourself?

I finished up print and audio books this week and will complete the toe of my first sock tomorrow.

In the ears, I’ve started Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert, the third of the Brown sisters trilogy. I’m sad to wrap up their tales, but hold out hope the author will give their grandmother, Gigi, her own book(s).

On paper, I’m about to begin Mia P. Manansala’s Arsenic and Adobo, in which the main character’s life is described on the back cover as swerving from “Nora Ephron romp to an Agatha Christie case.” It’s slightly overdue, but I expect to quickly tear through it. (And our library system doesn’t charge fines, so it’s simply my own guilt over being a bad library citizen I need to overcome.)

Head over to As Kat Knits to see what others are reading and crafting this week.