X is for Xenia

This will be a random Thursday post...

Another day, another hank of yarn. Splee! I got the latest shipment from Nefarious Yarns over a week ago. I'm posting the pic's at the end of this post, so if you are in the Club and don't have yours yet, be warned...

I also an FO to share! I know. Don't fall down, I do knit and, occasionally, even finish stuff!



Notes:

Pattern: Retro Redux Shrug from the book Lace Style
Modeled by the ever-lovely Donna, this project was fairly easy and quick. My mom picked out the pattern before I took her on a yarn crawl. It gets a bit tedious around the middle but it’s so fast that the tedium is short-lived.

Yarn: Lonesome Stone's Fraser Flats

The yarn was a huge disappointment. It’s some of the yarn my mom picked out (and bought) when I took her on a yarn crawl in 11/2007. First off, I think the color is hideous! It’s like an Easter egg threw up. Also, in the first skein of Fraser Flats, there were SO many cheater knots, I stopped counting at 20. Over 20 in 325 yards. I’ll never buy this stuff! The yarn is 2 singles plied together (she says with no spinning knowledge) and most of the cheater knots were just in one single or the other. The riotous color combined with the lacy stitch pattern, I didn’t bother cutting/rejoining around the knots. You can’t see any of them!

I used one whole skein and about a tenth of the second skein. I'll definitely be making this little gem of a shrug for myself someday!

I actually finished this around Mother's Day but wanted to wait to post about it as my mom stops in occasionally.

Yesterday was Davis' last day of Kindergarten. sigh. They had a little class party and there was a slide show of the kids and most of the moms were tearing up at the music combined with the slide show. My little guy is going to be in first grade! Dave commented the other day, "Remember when they were babies and they started to lose that baby face and get that little boy face?"

Me: Sadly, yes.

Dave: Have you noticed that T doesn't really have that little boy face anymore?

Me: I know! (starts tearing up)

Dave: They'll be moving out soon... (laughs while I'm punching him for making me cry)

Speaking of crying,

I read The Last Lecture. Cranked it out in a day. Which means I spent most of that day (last Sunday) bawling. Great book but, damn, it makes me cry!

I also finished The Mists of Avalon. I think my limit on interest in a book is around the 600 page point. I loved this book, it was so amazing and so well written! BUT it was 875 pages! And around 600 I was thinking, "OK, I get it. They all love someone else they can't have and they've all been manipulated by their elders and, in turn are manipulating those around them." For me, it was sort of like watching the Sopranos series - it was an excellent, compelling story told with a type of writing I can only dream of doing but in the end, no single character was particularly likeable. They all became distinctly unlikeable as the book progressed but I couldn't stop reading it! And when it's all said and done, I just felt sad for every character involved. Except Gwenyfhar (that's Gweneviere to you and me, Rusty) - hated that bitch. She lived her life in a state of constant fear and spread her mental illness to those around her. On the other hand, the only reason she had those fears was because of the stupid way she was raised.

I think my favorite part of this book was how the author approached religion and how it was changing at the time period of the book. Very cool and endlessly fascinating to me!

I don't know if I'll plunge into The Forest House next or skip it and move on to the Hobbit. I found out that Forest House isn't even a true sequel - it's a prequel and doesn't seem to have much to do with anyone in The Mists. In my quest for sequels (and since I'm a bit behind - should've finished Mists and Forest by now!), I may save it for later and see if I have time at the end of the year.

Also, I needed a break from the Middle Ages and before I plunged into Middle Earth, so I read that Last Lecture book and am taking another small detour.

I'm reading The Shack now. Those who know my views on religion might be a bit shocked. I've been assured this is an interesting take on God and am curious about it. I've just finished the first chapter and I'm already annoyed. I think it's annoyance of my own contrivance. The guy got his little note (if you're unfamiliar with the synopsis of this book, check the link) and just fell and whacked his head a good one in the driveway. Then went into his house with a possible concussion. So. If this book ends with the "it was all just a dream" due to a concussion with the added banality of him receiving the note before the head injury so then "but who knows, maybe..." kind of thing..... I'm going to have to slap someone. Hard.

I've got 5 WIP's and my usual 15 UFO's on needles. I heard the difference being a WIP is something you are actively working on and a UFO is something that's been stalled for more then a month.

There's a big spider crawling towards me across the ceiling and now down the wall behind my desk. I have a deal with spiders - if they are outside or out of my reach, their fine. This one's about to die. He's dead.

OK... as promised, here's the pic's of my new yarn pron....

Isn't it gorgeous!? It's called Xenia after the killer femme fatale from the movie Goldeneye. I usually don't like yellow. At all. But this stuff is so pretty!

Warming up to the yellow, Ruth!