Knitting FO: Robin the Striped

Robin the Striped

Pattern: Flock by Meg Bakewell

My Ravelry project page

Last year I made a baby mobile for a friend that was adorned with five colorful knit birds. (Here's a look at that project.) Way back then, my mom requested I make her a little bird too, and I finally got around to it for her birthday this month. Mom likes robins and the Denver Broncos, so I decided on a pretty medium blue and a pumpkin orange for her bird. Robin the Striped turned out so cute!

 

Two tips if you want to make one (or several) of these little guys:

1. When I made all the birds for the mobile, I didn't really like the way they looked where I stitched the wings to the body. This time I cast on my wing stitches with size 3 needles so the stitches would be tighter and not gap as much. Of course, this might have just happened because I'm really bad at sewing knit stuff and just kind of winged it. (Pun intended...) Either way, I was much happier with the wing seams this time.

2. I used black worsted weight yarn to make Robin's eyes, which I think I like better than the embroidery floss eyes of the mobile birds. These stand out much more.

My Favorite Lunch: Homemade Tomato Bisque

Today was cold and snowy with gusty, house-rattling wind, and it was the perfect time for my favorite lunch -- soup and a sandwich. There are several soup recipes that we love, but my go-to is tomato bisque. Today we had it with mozzarella-pesto grilled cheese sandwiches. Yummm.
 

I've been whipping up this tomato soup for a couple of years now and it always tastes amazing. I found it on Allrecipes, where it's known as Creamy Tomato Bisque III (here) and make it mostly as written, with just a few changes:

1. I cut the recipe in half but still use one whole carrot and one entire stalk of celery.
2. I use half-and-half or heavy cream interchangeably, depending on what's on hand, and it's good either way.
3. I add some dried basil (maybe 1 tsp) and some crushed red pepper flakes (just a sprinkle) for zing.
4. I puree all the soup, not just 3/4 as the recipe suggests.

If you've been eating tomato soup from a can, try this fairly quick and easy (and sorta healthy, maybe?) recipe and you'll never go back! It's the perfect cozy, warm lunch for a snowy, blustery day -- I can vouch for that!

Furry Friday

Conan decided to help me fold laundry. I gave him the all-important job of guarding the (snuggly warm, fresh-from-the-dryer) socks to make sure none ran away.

Top 10 Things On My Reading Wish-List

Every week the ladies at The Broke and The Bookish host a fun list-making link-up. This week's prompt is the top 10 things on your reading wish-list, i.e. time period, type of plot, issue tackled. I think I went a little out-of-the-box with my answers, as they are all pretty broad... but oh well.

My list is by no means a must-have list, but rather things that I enjoy and appreciate in a story -- and that may make me more likely to pick up a book.

1. A happy ending.
I'm a sucker for happily-ever-afters -- the couple gets together, the bad guy is caught, all is well in the world. Of course not every book can have a happy ending, but I feel content and resolved closing the back cover on the ones that do.

2. A dog.
If you read my blog even once in a while, you know that my husband and I are just a wee bit obsessed with our boxer, Conan. And that's reflected in my reading. I will always pick up and read the jacket summary of a book with a dog on the cover.

Some of my favorite dog-related books are:
-"The Art of Racing in the Rain" by Garth Stein
-"Dog On It" by Spencer Quinn
-"The Dogs of Christmas" by W. Bruce Cameron (my review)

3. Knitting.
I'm a knitter myself so, as with dog-themed books, I'll always give a book with yarn on the cover a second glance. Unfortunately, though, I haven't really read many good knitting books. I've been disappointed by the cozy knitting mysteries I've read, and while I read the whole series I didn't love the Friday Night Knitting Club books. I did come across "The Wishing Thread" on another blog and I'm excited to read that -- perhaps it will finally strike my knitting fancy.

4. A good, solid mystery that's not too predictable, but is actually solveable by the reader.
I love mysteries, but I hate when the culprit turns out to be someone we as readers were never introduced to or whom we were never given the proper clues to identify. It's fun to be fed a crumb trail of clues -- with some red herrings thrown in, of course -- and guess who the killer is before the big reveal. It stinks when you find out toward the end that the bad guy is some crazy ex-boyfriend we never even knew about. Conversely, it's annoying when the mystery is too easy and readers can easily solve it from the outset.

5. A likeable, relatable protagonist.
I have actually stopped reading books simply because I hated the main character. I can't stand protagonists who are naive, vain, snobby, overly weak or clueless.

6. Humor.
Books that make me laugh out loud always get extra points. Not all books are meant to be humorous, but I appreciate authors who can add a little levity to a serious story.

These books made me LOL:
-"Let's Pretend This Never Happened" by Jenny Lawson (review)
-most of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series
-"Mad About The Boy" by Helen Fielding (review)

7. Teach me something.
It's always nice to learn something under the guise of reading an engrossing tale. I haven't read a ton of non-fiction but the memoirs and biographies I've read seem to fit the bill. And I've read a ton of fiction that's based in fact and from which I've gained all kinds of knowledge that I wouldn't otherwise want to spend the time researching.

A few examples:
-"Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand -- WWII (my review)
-"A Walk In The Woods" by Bill Bryson -- the Appalachian Trail (my review)
-the Percy Jackson and the Olympians books by Rick Riordan -- Greek and Roman mythology

8. Set in locations I have lived or want to visit.
Stories set in locales I dream about visiting are always appealing. I love books set in cities like New York, Seattle, London, Paris... And it's always fun to read tales that take place in familiar locations, like Colorado or Florida.

9. Food.
My husband and I love to eat, and thus I love to read about food. Books like "My Life in France" by Julia Child and "Paris in Love: A Memoir" by Eloisa James are full of mouthwatering descriptions. After reading James's book, I am now determined to get a hot chocolate in Paris.

10. Fosters a cozy ambiance.
Back in October I wrote a post called Books For a Blustery Day. Some books -- Gothic tales, historical fiction, mysteries, ghost stories -- just make you feel snug and warm and cozy. It's the "It was a dark and stormy night..." effect.

So we have 10 things that I enjoy -- or wish for -- in books. What makes up your literary wish-list?

The Knitting Run-Down

Happy Monday evening. I hope you all enjoyed a three-day weekend! I actually don't work on Mondays so I didn't get a free day off, but Jarrod was home and the animals and I were happy to lounge around the house with him this morning. We had to take Conan to the vet for his chemo this afternoon -- which turned into a many-hour excursion -- but we are home and fed and about to hunker down with some chocolate pudding cake and start episode 4 of "Top of the Lake," the Golden Globe-winning miniseries starring Elisabeth Moss of "Mad Men."

I'm also about to pick up my knitting, which always soothes and relaxes me if I've had a stressful day. That's fitting, because I started putting together this post about knitting this morning when I was happy and relaxed, and after our rather long and frustrating day my hands are now itching to pick up my knitting needles!

Until recently, I've been a pretty monogamous knitter. Of course there might be exceptions if I needed to whip up a quick baby hat or something, but for the most part I only worked on one project at a time. The past few months, though, that's changed. I currently have needles in five separate projects, just finished a sixth one, and am about to cast on for some baby gifts and a Valentine's Day decoration. Phew!

The problem with this ADD sort of knitting is that some half-finished projects inevitably get put on the back burner (i.e. in the dark depths of the coffee table drawer), not to be picked up for weeks or months at a time. I really hope to get those forgotten garments back into the knitting rotation soon. So what are these five WIPs, you ask? Behold:
 

1. Follow Your Arrow Mystery Knit-Along

I love mystery knit-alongs to begin with, and this one is even more exciting because not only do you not know anything about the finished product other than that it's a shawl, but you have not one but two options with each of the five clues! Usually the only thing that varies with an MKAL is the color, but there are (according to someone much better at math than me) 32 possible shawl versions.

(If you're unfamiliar with a mystery knit-along, it's where a bunch of people come together to complete a new pattern at the same time, except you don't know what your knit will end up looking like -- only the needles, yarn weight and yardage necessary. Pieces of the pattern, or clues, are released weekly. Participants are encouraged to post "spoiler" pictures after each piece of the pattern is completed, and once you've finished you can go check out how everyone else's clue turned out. Such fun!)

I chose pattern B for the first week, and the second set of clues came out today. I'm excited to look them over and "follow my arrow."

*

Pattern: Follow Your Arrow Mystery KAL

My Ravelry project page

Yarn: Cascade Yarns Heritage Silk 

 

 

2. Lace Ribbon Scarf

A couple years ago, when I was much more of a novice knitter, I made one of these scarves for my boss as a going-away gift for her move from Hawaii to Oregon. I thought it was the most beautiful object I had knitted to date and vowed to make one for myself one day. So here we are -- and living in a place where the winters necessitate the wearing of such things!

This Malabrigo yarn is absolutely stunning, but I just couldn't get it to photograph properly on one of Ohio's rare winter sunny days. The color is more green than blue -- a lovely teal -- with varying shades of green, blue and turquoise flecked throughout. While the yarn is amazing and the pattern is easy TV knitting, I now remember why I haven't made a scarf in ages. Row after row after endless row of the same thing repeated. Booooring. But I'm nearly finished and I know all the work will be worth it as this is sure to become a favorite winter accessory and get tons of wear (and, hopefully, compliments.)

*

Pattern: Lace Ribbon Scarf

My Ravelry project page

Yarn: Malabrigo Sock in Solis

 

 

3. Mittens for the Mantle

I knew months before Christmas that I wanted to make this garland but ended up getting a start on it way too late. I adorable-little-mittened my butt off but about two weeks before Christmas when things really started getting busy I had to concede that we just wouldn't have a mitten garland to adorn the mantle this year. I actually only have 1 1/2 more mittens to make (and I have to sew the hanging loops closed on all of them). Then I have to figure out how I want to string them up (I'm thinking twine for a rustic look). There's no hurry to finish this project since, once finished, the garland won't be seeing the light of day until next December.

*

Pattern: Smitten (A Holiday Garland)

My Ravelry project page

Yarn: various and sundry cheap acrylics

 

 

4. Splitsone Vest

This is project #1 of 2 that has been neglected for quite some time. It's my first sweater vest and I liked the way it was coming along... then other projects just kept coming up that took priority. I'm sorry, vest. We shall meet again soon.

*
Pattern: Splitstone Vest
My Ravelry project page
Yarn: Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Dark Rose Heather

 

 

5. Overly-Bright Library Cardigan
I actually made quite a bit of progress on my first sweater this summer. All that's left is the sleeves and the ribbed edging along the collar and front. But it's been tossed to the side for quite a while. Probably that's because I don't love the yarn color and I'm afraid I'll never wear it. I bought the yarn on eBay and from the poorly lit pictures assumed it was a raspberry pink. Not quite.
*
Pattern: Shapely Boyfriend
My Ravelry project page
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Merino Aran

Book Review: "Mad About The Boy" by Helen Fielding

"Mad About The Boy" by Helen Fielding
Bridget Jones #3
First published in 2013
384 pages
My rating 4.5 out of 5

(image source)

Friday January 17 2014
150lbs, alcohol units consumed 0 (so far), British words learned 5, times laughed out loud 26 (v.g), times laughed out loud about bodily fluids 7+, entire bags of grated cheese eaten 0

It's a rare pleasure when a book I thought would just be a fine, ok, nothing-amazing read turns out to be better than expected.

"Mad About The Boy" was hilarious. I can't remember the last time I laughed out loud so many times reading a book -- one of the early Stephanie Plum novels, maybe? Sure, some of the jokes involved things like vomit, diarrhea and farts, proving that I have the sense of humor of an 8-year-old boy, but they still made me laugh. And that's a good thing, no matter how it's achieved.

Behind all the humor about sex, head lice, online dating and comfort-eating entire bags of grated cheese, the book does actually have some more serious themes. After several years of wedded bliss and two babies with Mark Darcy, Bridget suddenly and tragically becomes a widow and is plunged into single-motherhood. "Mad About The Boy" opens five years after Mark's death, and Bridget's friends are urging her to climb out of her black hole of grief, and to start taking care of herself and dating again. This involves an unnecessary trip to an obesity clinic, a Botox disaster and drunk posts on Twitter, but we also watch Bridget try to cope with her guilt about moving on with her life after Mark.

A younger co-worker coincidentally read "Mad About The Boy" at the same time as me, and she mentioned that she sometimes had a hard time relating to Bridget. I actually noted while reading the book that I never seem to meet up with Bridget Jones at the right time in my life. In the first two books, Bridget's in her 30s and constantly being reminded by her family and "smug-married" friends about her lack of boyfriend. I read those novels back in high school, and though I found them interesting and humorous I'd undoubtedly have more of a connection to Bridget now at age 28. And in "Mad About The Boy," Bridget not only has two (adorable) young children (4 and 6) but is 51 and coping with middle age. I did, however, find that I thoroughly enjoyed all the anecdotes about Bridget's daily parenting woes. Perhaps that's because so many of my friends have babies now -- and because Bridget is the sort of wonderful but somewhat hilariously bumbling mother I would probably be.

"Mad About The Boy" can stand on its own no problem, but I think it would be beneficial to check out the original "Bridget Jones's Diary" (book or movie) before reading if you haven't already. It would be helpful for readers to know Bridget's background story, particularly with Mark Darcy and Daniel Cleaver.

Favorite quotes (of many):
"Have got onto Twitter site but do not understand. Is just incomprehensible streams of gibberish half-conversations with @this and @that. How is anybody supposed to know what is going on?"
***
(Still setting up Twitter account) "Cannot figure out how to put up photo. Is just empty egg-shaped graphic. Is fine! Can be photo of self before was conceived."
***
"Call me old-fashioned, but I did read in Glamour that one's shorts should always be longer than one's vagina."
***
"We've been texting for weeks. Surely it's rather like in Jane Austen's Day when they did letter-writing for months and months and then just, like, immediately got married?"

"Bridget. Sleeping with a twenty-nine-year-old off Twitter on the second date is not 'rather like in Jane Austen's day.'"

Book Review: "The Diviners" by Libba Bray

"The Diviners" by Libba Bray
First published in 2013
578 pages
My rating: 4 out of 5
(image source)

I'm happy to report that for the first time in months I've come across a young adult book that I thoroughly enjoyed, with a page-turning plot, interesting characters and fairly well-done writing.

Set in New York City in the 1920s with 17-year-old Evie O'Neill at the helm, "The Diviners" is a light paranormal thriller with some humor and a bit of romance thrown in. Evie is a diviner, someone who has some form of extra-sensory perception, such as the ability to see the future or talk to the dead. Evie can see into a person's past and discover their darkest secrets by touching an item of his or hers.

After a debacle at a party in her Midwestern hometown in which Evie drank too much and displayed her "party trick," inadvertently revealing something nasty about a town golden boy, she's sent to live with her Uncle Will, proprietor of the Museum of American Folklore, Superstition and the Occult, in Manhattan. Evie, a flapper in the '20s, is thrilled to be sent to the nexus of it all and has high hopes of making a name for herself in the big city. Shortly after her arrival, her uncle is asked to consult on a grisly murder case, and Evie realizes she can use her gift to help identify the perpetrator -- who just so happens to be a serial killer come back from the dead to usher in the End of Days.

There are other characters and diviners in the tale too, and their stories all begin to intertwine at the end and set the stage for the next book in the series, like Mabel, Evie's conservative best friend; Theta, a beautiful performer in a famous revue; Memphis, an aspiring Harlem writer whose power to heal people with his touch vanished suddenly after his mother died.

I found "The Diviners" to be a sort of cross between the Fox TV show "Sleepy Hollow" and the movie "The Bone Collector." None of the ideas in the novel were particularly original -- special powers, the coming of the Antichrist, serial killers working from a book -- but nevertheless I enjoyed the way Bray put them together.

I did have a few complaints about the novel, though. After the excitement and thrill leading up to the climax, I found Evie's (inevitable) confrontation with the killer pretty underwhelming. And, while I really liked the atmosphere the 1920s setting lended the story, I thought Bray went a bit overboard with the (endless) '20s cliches: "She's the elephants eyebrows!" "You bet-ski!" "It must be the duck's quack to be famous!" etc., etc. ... etc.

Favorite quote: "I'm a librarian, not an oracle!"
Oh, how many times I wished I could say that to patrons at my last library job, where we all filled the role of reference librarian!

*I'm using "The Diviners" to fufill the Young Adult Fiction requirement in the Reading Outside the Box book challenge.