An Incomplete Sock and A Finished Book

Here's the progress on my second Fall-themed Monkey. In fact, I've made almost one more repeat since this picture was taken. It is still far too hot to be thinking of wool socks.

Today I finished Reginald Hill's An April Shroud. It's one of the older Dalziel and Pascoe books, though almost Pascoe-less. The copyright is from '75, and mostly it holds up well. Once in a while a reference or attitude jarred me into remembering that it's a 30 year old book.

I've only read a handful of the Dalziel and Pascoe stories. An April Shroud is the first largely from Dalziel's viewpoint. I've found it interesting getting inside his head.

At only about 180 pages, this book took several days since I've been playing with my knitting so much. Interesting how much publishing has changed over the years since the series started; now they're running to 400+ pages. Much as I love a long, meaty read, there's definitely a place for a tightly woven story as well.

One down. . .

One to go. This is the Monkey sock from knitty.com, made from a beautiful trekking yarn. It was great fun to make and I suspect I'll be using that pattern many times in the future. It would be beautiful in a solid yarn too.

Since it was 92 today, the first day of fall, I don't know how long it will be until I get to wear cozy, beautiful socks.

And on the book front, I finished Good Grief for my (new!) book club meeting last night. It was a quick read, with great characters, though quite painful early on in the descriptions of grief. I haven't managed to spend any time with An April Shroud this weekend since I got a Ravelry invite and have spent most of my free time playing around there.

Almost Finished!

The Sesame Sweater is almost done! I'm working on the collar; after that it's just the button bands, weaving in ends and sewing the seams. I'm hoping to keep momentum going and not do my usual endless procrastinating before tackling the endless number of ends to weave in. Some day I'll pick a sweater to knit based on the minimum amount of finishing to be done.