In which Lesley loses her mind

Caitlin asked me to knit her something, and chose the Central Park Hoodie from Knitscene magazine. I've had the wool, a beautiful green from Cascade 220, bought and waiting for a while now. A Ravelry group, NaKniSweMo (or knit a sweater in the month of November) is giving me the kick start I need to get this piece up and running.

I'm making the small size, 32, but with the hood it is still an impressive amount of knitting for me to try in thirty days, including a major holiday. I'll consider it a victory if I have all the big pieces done and am left with only the edging or seaming left in 30 days.

On the book front, I read two very good books in October: Down River, a second novel by John Hart, and In the Woods, a debut by Tana French. Down River was set in North Carolina, the story of a man who left Salisbury after being tried and acquitted of murder. After returning at the request of a friend, more bad things begin to happen and of course suspicion falls on him.

In the Woods was quite compelling, though somewhat flawed. It was had two parallel mysteries, one past and one present. One large basic premise was a bit hard to swallow and the conclusion was ultimately rather frustrating, but she is a compelling writer and I will definitely look for her next book.

Fall Flowers

Time for Fall planting! We spent Sunday working on yard and porch. These beautiful pansies are in my large planter; I plan to get a decent (for me) picture of the finished product soon. In my strawberry pots are some lovely variegated snapdragons and ivy.

We're trying lettuce from seed in the garden. It may be a bit late to set out seed, but since this summer is never-ending I suspect the baby plants will have time to get going before a hard freeze. It is over 90 again today, for the 90th or so time in 2007. I suspect we're feeling the inverse of people in the north who are frozen solid for a quarter of the year. I'm definitely ready for cooler weather!

On the knitting front, I'm still working on the Monkey socks. I started the button band on the Sesame Sweater over the weekend. Picking up 140 stitches was certainly not my idea of fun. I need to practice buttonholes before I tackle the other side and the buttonhole band. Not to mention actually buying the buttons.

Books - well, instead of reading anything on the TBR or the alarming number of library holds that seen to come in all at once, I've spent the last few days revisiting Bujold and Miles Vorkosigan. Must begin work on the stack that will be recalled to the library soon!

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.