Knitters, I’m considering options for my Tour de France Knitalong project for this year. The goal is to finish the project in three weeks, but I often end up going longer.

I’m looking for a shawl that can be knit up with fingering weight yarn, which is the bulk of my stash, either a single skein, like Noora Backlund’s Reyna, or several different colors. Or maybe a sweater, although my track record is way worse at finishing those. If it’s a sweater, I’d like it to be something I could make out of a single color of DK weight or something that could be pieced together out of different skeins, such as Andrea Mowry’s Stripes! or Wool & Pine’s Sea Glass Tee.

Do you have any suggestions that you’ve made or seen that you want to recommend?.

I splurged tonight on a new sweatshirt. It’s for the #1000wordsofsummer writing project that I’m doing. I didn’t need a new sweatshirt, but I will wear it and I wanted a tangible reminder that I am capable of making a commitment to myself for something that feels important to take on. I haven’t done that for myself in a while.

Right now, I’m 11,000 words into the project. None of it has been manna from heaven, but some of it has been insightful and some of it has been fun and some of it has been potentially decent. (I’d have to go back and read those couple of pieces to see if it was just tiredness that made me think that.)

But it has been consistent and proof that I’m capable of sticking with something like this. And writing creatively means I’m thinking more creatively and being open to ideas and that can’t possibly be a bad thing.

I wasn’t feeling this week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl and I didn’t get my act together to write a summary of recent reads, which had been my original backup plan. So, instead, I’m sharing ten books that are currently in various stages of being read:

1. Saint Young Men by Hikaru Nakamura
2. The Wedding Crasher by Mia Sosa
3. Battle of the Linguist Mages by Scotto Moore
4. Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
5. Great or Nothing by Joy McCullough, Caroline Tung Richmond, Tess Sharpe, and Jessica Spotswood
6. The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
7. The Boardwalk Bookshop by Susan Mallery
8. Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto
9. Hello, Molly! by Molly Shannon
10. An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good by Helene Tursten

What are you reading?

It was a nice weekend. I won a contest that netted me a free bucket of beer and a picnic blanket at the Friday night concert down along the River, so Rudi and I biked across town, met up with a volleyball teammate, and spent a beautiful evening listening to a Latin-Irish fusion band, which had a great sound.

Saturday, we went to the March for Our Lives down on the Mall, and while I’m sure our presence wasn’t the tipping point, it does sound like some progress was made overnight toward reaching a passable bill.

Today, I went to the farmers market, spent several hours working in the garden, had a video chat with friends, and watched the Tonys. Because airfare is outrageous right now, I proposed to Rudi that we take a couple overnight trips to New York City, so we procured tickets to three shows over the next two months. We’ve also been talking about seeing the Mets play at Citi Field (we haven’t been since they shut down Shea), so we might wrap that or Shakespeare in Central Park into the mix. Or maybe we can convince one or more of our friends in the area to meet up with us for a meal.

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I had a book on hold for me at the main library branch here in D.C., which I had yet to properly explore since it fully reopened. I picked up my book plus an impulse pick off the new fiction shelf, bought a tea from the cafe for a mere $2, and took myself up to the new rooftop terrace, a garden oasis five stories above the street. While lying on a bench next to a patch of lamb’s-ear, getting acquainted with a new character, I was hit with such a wave of fondness for this city, where they value libraries so highly as to conceive of this haven for their residents.

2. The first sweet cherries of the year

3. We finally shifted some things so we could slot an old bookshelf into a new spot and fill it with books that had been sitting in bags.

Whats’ been beautiful in your world lately?

I mentioned last week that I’m trying to get a few projects off my needles by the end of this month so I can cast on something new for the Tour de France Knitalong on July 1st without feeling guilty. A pair of socks just need their ends woven in to be done, and this shawl, my Fully Charged from last year’s race, is blocking and awaiting a fashion show. If I’m very productive, I have three projects I’d like to wrap up in the next three weeks. That may be an ambitious goal, but I’m trying to focus on creative endeavors this month as part of my sabbatical before I have to turn my attention to job hunting.

On the reading front, I am actively listening to two books, Lyssa Kay Adams’ The Bromance Book Club and The Boardwalk Bookshop by Susan Mallery. I’m only a couple chapters into the latter and just getting to know the three main characters, but I’m wondering if it’s the read for me. (On the face of it, three women creating a bookshop/cupcake bakery/giftshop on the beach should be right up my alley, but it’s feeling a little … traditional … in its scene setting at the moment. I’ll probably give it another chapter before I decide to something that feels a little more up-to-date. I have Molly Shannon’s and Jenny Lawson’s latest memoirs and Benjamin Alire Sáere’s sequel to Aristotle and Dante Conquer the World (read by Lin-Manuel Miranda) checked out already and just waiting for me to clear space enough to download them to my phone.

On the paper front, I’ve returned to Saint Young Men, the Japanese manga about Jesus and Buddha rooming together in Tokyo in the early-aughts (it’s going much faster now that I understand that while I read the text left to right, I read the text bubbles right to left), picked up and immediately started Mia Sosa’s The Wedding Crasher (set here in D.C.) at a Little Free Library in the park, and am savoring Malinda Lo’s highly lauded The Telegraph Club for Pride Month.

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