The Quickest of Knits

Something I really love about our annual winter vacation is that I get in a lot of extra knitting time and it's time I can count on. I generally bring more yarn than I end up using, but that's part of the fun. This year, I threw in a couple of balls of Patons Kroy at the last minute to make Rainbow some socks, as she'd picked it out on our most recent Michaels trip. I don't know if I've actually knit with Kroy before, but it was a pleasant surprise. While it's labeled fingering, at 332 yards per 100 g, I'd call it a sport weight. That means it knits up incredibly quickly. Remember that almost-complete first sock you saw in my last post? It's now an almost-complete pair:

The second sock was cast on yesterday and I knit while finishing up a book during the afternoon and until bedtime. When I put it down for the night, I'd done half of the heel. This afternoon, we went to see a performance of The Sound of Music, so I managed to get nearly all of the leg done. I have just a handful of rounds left before it's time to bind off, so these will be a finished pair in short order.

I've also put in a handful of rows on my Floozy cardigan, which has been on hold for the past couple months while I worked on the Mister's sweater. It's slow going, with several hundred stitches on the needles, but I'm hoping I can at least get to the split of the arms from the body.

The other nice benefit of this vacation is that there is lots of time to read and also usually a good selection of books available to choose from (when my parents come down here, they like to sit by the pool and read all day, so they usually leave the books for anyone else who wants them). I've read two so far and plan to read a few more if I can. In considering what to read next, I've been thinking about all the books I've read the past year, and this post seemed as good a place as any to highlight some of my favorites.

I really surprised myself by reading 69 books (so far) this year -- blowing my reading challenge goal of 25 out of the water. In large part, that was due to my full embrace of the digital book, which is so much easier to read when out and about than a physical book. I also finally figured out how to borrow e-books from the library, so I've been able to start things on a whim without having to go to a bookstore or shop online. You can view all the books I've read this year if you follow me on Goodreads, but for now, here are my top nine (in no particular order -- just the order in which I read them this year):

• Beautiful Wreck by Larissa Brown
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
• The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
• My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman
• The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish
• Educated by Tara Westover
• The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
• Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
• The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

The last one on the list is the book I finished last night, and I was so engrossed that I knit past where I needed to start the heel on the second sock and had to rip back several rounds! All in all, I've read some great books this year and hope to read just as many next year. I'm also hoping to finish one more before the end of 2018 so I can have an even 70 books for the year. What's really notable is that 58 of these books were digital -- I suppose I've finally entered the 21st century!