Succinctly Yours

Visit Succinctly Yours to add your micro-fiction and read what others have written. The word of the week is cater.

" I cater to you dear Chair, so let's cuddle." said Pillow. "Even if I get dumped in the lake?" asked Chair. Loving to float, Pillow smiled.

Yarn Along

This book is comforting and gentle, Knit in Comfort by Isabel Sharpe, and tells the story of a city woman moving to a small Southern town. At 27 pages into the story, I am enjoying the writing style and vivid descriptions of the setting and looking forward to getting into the story line.

This "Bistro Shirt" from Oat Couture has been a WIP for a few years. OK, several years. It is this close to completion. Silly me, I just put it aside, waaaay aside and let it marinate. Apparently, it has been calling to me as I pulled it out yesterday and decided to finally-finally finish it. If that ever happens, you'll see it here!

The yarn is from the beautiful S. Charles "Mosaic Collection" which is offered at a sale price here. Mind you, I paid full price for it mumble-mumble years ago. The hand is so supple with slubs of color in silk, very pretty.

What are you reading?
What are you knitting?

Click on the yarn along link to see what other book 'n' yarn lovers are doing.





Teaser Tuesday ~ Meltzer

 "I'm afraid of heights, snakes, normalcy, mediocrity, Hollywood, the initial silence of an empty house, the enduring darkness of a poorly-lit street, evil clowns, professional failure, the intellectual impact of Barbie dolls, letting my father down, being paralyzed, hospitals, doctors, the cancer that killed my mother, dying unexpectedly, dying for a stupid reason, dying painfully, and worst of all, dying alone. But I'm not afraid of power—which is why I work in the White House"

http://shouldbereading.wordpress.com/

I May Be Crazy...But I'm Havin' Fun!

 I am having oodles of fun with this crazy knit ghan! What a whimsical, free experience it is to play with yarn textures, colors, and combinations without a pattern! Thing 4 is growing!

 And, what a lovely neighbor to have! Rowan Summer Tweed held in a single strand for a grassy stockinette. Love the nubby texture, which ,sadly, is not apparent in this picture. One side is angled by decreasing on one side on every knit row for a touch of shaping. A bit of 3x3 rib is popped on top of that!

The lovely rib has a bit of sparkling gold threads amongst the chocolate fiber of Louisa Harding "Jasmine" knitted with double strands. A rectangle of double stranded garter jumps off of one end in DK weight. And, what is growing from the garter section?

 More sparkle in Louisa Hardig "Glisten" held with a neutral Rowan "purelife" for a fine stockinette bit.

And there you have the recent bit of craziness in this long-term project. Though, I must admit, I do feel compelled to pick it up and add a bit more when I should do more pressing things. I am so anxious to get to the embroidery and embellishment!! Myra Wood's voice rings in my mind telling me to do that last. Do you know how far "last" seems from now? Ah well, I will follow the voice of the Queen and attempt to go about this with some dimension of order since the rest of this project is so free-wheeling. Did I mention that I love the process? Love. It.

                                                    

Teaser Tuesdays ~ Meredith Baxter

 http://shouldbereading.wordpress.com/

 

p. 125: "Right before our wedding I was offered a high-visibility role as William Holden's daughter in a big Hollywood disaster movie, The Towering Inferno, which I turned down because the shooting schedule overlapped with the honeymoon we'd planned. But we didn't go on a honeymoon."

Yarn Along Wednesday ~ unTied

http://www.gsheller.com/2011/03/yarn-along_16.html

I am yarning along on Thing 4 for my crazy quilt afghan and reading a memoir by Meredith Baxter, unTIED. Reading this book is a dream compared to the memoir by Barbara Walters. Miss Baxter's life story is quite surprising with a flowing writing style that makes it an I-can't-put-it-down book.

 The lace part of Thing 4 is a simple repeat using Bernat Satin yarn and size 8s. I knitted three rows of stockinette K3, yo, k2tog, repeat across row to the last three sts. K3 sts. Maintaining stockinette throughout, do four rows and repeat lace pattern. After blocking the lace, I started a stockinette triangle on one side of the lace using Rowan Summer Tweed in a mossy green, beautiful-beautiful yarn. I decided on straight stockinette to show the gorgeous texture of the yarn, which I will embellish later. I am decreasing with k2tog on the knit rows to make an isosceles triangle.

Phoenix is a beautiful place to be! This majestic saguaro stands in Scottsdale, though we've been in Phoenix this week after our five-day stay in Scottsdale. Tomorrow we will be off to Sedona.
Wherever we are, I continue to YARN ALONG!

Teaser Tuesdays ~ The Sugar Queen



From The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen:

p.33  "When she ran out of books to read, it only got worse. She was walking by the creek along the wood line at the end of the property one day when she was twelve, feeling mopey and frustrated, when she saw a book propped up against a willow tree."

http://shouldbereading.wordpress.com/

Thing 2 & Thing 3

 DH, Lailah, and I are delighting in our stay here in Phoenix with 85-degree temps! Whew! We spent five days in Scottsdale, then relocated to Phoenix for a week.

I completed Thing 2 and Thing 3 for my fledgling crazy afghan while we drove through New Mexico. The greenish stockinette rectangle is two strands of Berroco Comfort DK held together. I then switched to a brown Millefili Fine and carried it with Bernat Matrix decreasing by k2tog on each end every fourth row to form the triangle with size 8 needles.

The adventure continues!

AUDITION/No Call-Back

Audition: A Memoir by Barbara Walters

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


The biggest surprise in this book is the poor writing. It reads like a dictation, including parenthetical phrases which are quite distracting. The sentence fragments and chit-chatty voice in some sections contrast unnaturally with the more formal phrasing in other parts of the book. I find it difficult to follow her unscripted speaking, quite apart from her speech problems and clenched jaw delivery. Unfortunately, this books appears to written in the same way she speaks, often interrupting herself to wander to another topic and asking for forgiveness for saying over-worked and trite expressions. It is quite distracting to come to sentences like "But that is not the story I want to tell you. This is the story I want to tell you." That's an approximation of what she wrote, however it feels like a clunker as one is reading.

There are many pictures of Barbara in the book and on the back cover of the jacket--many, many pictures of Barbara. It's not surprising from an author who has truly put the ME! in "memoir".


View all my reviews

Thing One

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Having jumped into our motor home to leave snowy CO, we are now enjoying the sunny climes of AZ. The three spring training games were great fun at Talking Stick at Salt River, a new facility for the Rockies and the AZ Diamondbacks. There's so much time for knitting at a baseball game! During two of the games, a lady in the row in front of us was knitting as well!

In a salute to Dr. Seuss, I am using his naming method for the bits and parts for my crazy quilt style afghan. Meet Thing One, a burgundy mitered square made using a pattern in Myra Woods' book, Crazy Lace. I k3tog for the center decrease to make a prominent stitch pattern. Holding two strands of DK together, I knitted with size 8 needles. So, hello to Thing One and the beginning of a joyful project. I am excited to see where this project will take me!

http://plumslife.blogspot.com/2011/03/fibers-on-friday-my-new-friend-gus.html

http://ourjourneytoasimplerlife.blogspot.com

Yarn Along Wednesday

http://www.gsheller.com/

 A perfect combination for me, books and yarn, hence the blog name! The yarn I am reading is Audition, a memoir by Barbara Walters. The yarn I am knitting is "Marble Chunky" by James C. Brett that I bought at STITCHES West. The pattern is a ripple wrap from Bernat for the Prayer Shawl Ministry at church.

The nose belongs to the resident inspector of all things, Lailah. Upon her approval, I snapped the pic and caught a bit of her too. She, of course, is essential to anything I do!

What are you reading and knitting/crocheting?

AUDITION by Barbara Walters (Teaser Tuesdays)

Having read an  unauthorized biography about Barbara Walters, I am now reading her memoir, Audition.

Having graduated from Sarah Lawrence, she writes on page 70,

"I wound up taking the path of least resistance and headed home to New York to try and get some kind of job....And so while my friends went on to worthier futures, I went to Speedwriting school on Forty-second Street to prepare to be a who-knows-what."

Microfiction Monday #72

As grumpy butterfly dropped the Alka Seltzer into the shoe, she stirred slowly and thought it to be an unusual way to tickle one's toes.

http://www.stonyriver.ie/



A Couple of FOs & A trip to AZ

 I finally finished the Mitered Squares Ghan which has had a long and vivid past! It is made with Cascade 220 and size 8 needles. For more of its inglorious history, click here. To continue in the same vein as the story of its origin, DH and I drove 1 1/2 hours yesterday to meet DS and family for lunch. I was all set to present DGS with his blanket after lunch. Yes I was. He was eager to receive it. An afternoon of shopping and an hour and a half later, said afghan was still in the car. Yes, gentle reader, we forgot! The Mitered Squares Ghan is currently resting on a shelf with the fond hope that it will one day reside in the bedroom of the dear eight-year-old boy for whom it is intended.

My first Prayer Shawl has been finished for several days, but I just haven't taken it to the church yet. I attached a label with care instructions on the small paper that is visible--just tied it on with yarn. I used an H hook and Cascade 220 Heathers for the shawl.

We are getting ready to leave in MoHo this week for Rockies training camp in Scottsdale, AZ. Can't wait to spend time in the warm and green beauty while watching the Rockies at their new training facility. We have tickets for games with the Indians, the Cubs, and the Dodgers. I know we'll have a grand time!



Overwhelmed and Inspired at STITCHES West

 

My head is still spinning and my hands are twitching with excitement and indecision after five inspiring days at STITCHES West in Santa Clara, CA. Though it was a rainy few days, I enjoyed seeing green vegetation from my 12th floor room at the Hyatt.

This graceful blimp gently floating along gave me a sense of being in Wonderland. Quite amazing!

I brushed up on embroidery stitches with Barbara Kerr . As my sampler shows, I have much more brushing up to do! Maybe an intensive brush up!

 The marvelous Sarah Peasley demonstrated joining stitches in the "Cut and Paste"  class which focused on the variety  of applications of the kitchener stitch.

Sarah displayed lovely examples to discuss as I  slowly-slowly stitched in and out and slip and Oops! of the venerable kitchener. I salute Lord Kitchener for making me crazy! Sarah patiently sorted it all out, thank goodness!

 WOW! All I can say is WOW after my first class ever with the awesome Myra Wood. She is an amazing artist who encourages and empowers her students to express themselves artistically in her Embellishments class. She simplified each stitch as we tried a hand at embellishing, then built on each stitch to make it even more glorious.

Her crazy quilt style sweater is eye candy. Imagine the hours spent on this treasure!

Here are a few more of her creations and a laugh at the end:

 Really? Is this how Myra started? When I grow up, I want to stitch like Myra!




Have you ever seen the "Huggable Hedgehog" and the other winsome critters available through Fiber Trends ? The designer, Debbie Radtke, taught a fun-fun-fun class on needle felting. The work shop atmosphere buzzed with her enthusiasm and positive spirit. Having never needle felted, I learned so much and look forward to playing, playing, playing with this when I can settle down and focus after this stimulating long weekend of fiber and fun!

Let the needle felting begin with those killer needles and bits of fiber! My official STITCHES pin, the little sheep, sets next to my baby steps felting work. All of these classes jig-sawed together in perfect fashion to help me add a personal touch to my knitted and crocheted pieces.

Thanks to Cindy Craig and an enlightening hour-long Market Session, I finally mastered the wily entrelac. She is a warm and gifted teacher from whom I hope to take more classes.

Dazzling! STITCHES West could not have been a better experience. My classes were excellent; the Market was loaded. I learned to pace myself and definately treasure the experience more than the other STITCHES events that I've attended.

Would you mind if add a swirl and a few beads to the back of your shirt? Just wondering.