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?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Playing with kids in my new volunteer gig.

2. The first outdoor concert of the season, followed in short order by the first bar (patio) concert since COVID began.

3. Strawberries in our yogurt. Risotto with fiddleheads. A salad with pea shoots, garlic chives, and asparagus. Stir fry with pak choy from the garden

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

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?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Daytime baseball

2. Azaleas in bloom

3. A trip to the beach that coincides with a bonfire and marshmallow roast.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?