One, Two, Three

I'm keeping things simple today with a list:

1. One stitch (all knit)

Last night I successfully finished the ribbing on my Rhinebeck sweater, which means I'm now on to the ease of stockinette -- just knit knit knit until it's long enough. The switchover means that this project is now fully mindless and thus faster. I've also switched over to larger needles, and I've actually gone from a 40 inch circular (which was really too big for a sweater that's going to be about 38 inches in circumference) to a 32 inch circ, so things are now much more comfortable.


2. Two books read

I finished two books this week, one of which was a quick read and one that I've been reading for far too long.

The Lost Girls of Paris was a library book that I'd had a hold on for more than a month, I think, and I ended up being rather disappointed in it. For as much as it was a quick read and moderately entertaining, I was so distracted by the implausibility of the story lines that I really didn't enjoy it. I gave it two stars; if you're okay with some minor spoilers and want to know why I didn't like it, you can read my review here.

I'd been reading Dreyer's English since late April (silly me thought it would be my first bingo square covered!) and finally finished it last night. It didn't take me that long to get through it because it wasn't good or I didn't enjoy it. Rather, I kept putting it down in favor of other books (many of them library books with a due date and a waiting list) because I knew I'd get back to it eventually. This one was a good read. For those of you who may not already know this, my day job is as a copyeditor, so style, punctuation, and grammar are very pertinent to me and at heart I'm a language nerd. This was an interesting and humorous read that earned four stars from me.

When I checked on my Goodreads reading challenge after finishing these, I was surprised to see that I'm way ahead of pace to meet my goal of reading 50 books this year. I'm at 44 already!


3. Three skeins of yarn (if you include the mini skein)

Despite my self-imposed yarn diet, I have had some new skeins of yarn come into the house over the past week or so, but they're sock yarn, and sock yarn doesn't count, right?

The skein of the right is the free skein I won for participating in the Fibernymph Dye Works Monthly Makes program for the first half of the year. I got to pick the base and colorway I wanted, and I chose Cosmic on Bounce (superwash merino/nylon). Rainbow tried to steal it from me when she saw it, so I've agreed to use it to make us matching pairs of shortie/ankle socks (they are her new favorite thing -- she's been wearing the most recent pair I made her every evening since I finished them). The skeins on the left arrived yesterday, and they're the first shipment from Lisa's Just Desserts sock yarn club, which I caved and signed up for. This colorway is called Summer Fruit Tarte, and it came with a mini skein dyed to look like pie crust and a recipe for the tart itself. The yarn looks good enough to eat, don't you think?


We've got a quieter weekend planned, with the only things currently on the calendar being a cookout at our synagogue tomorrow evening and a birthday party for a friend of Rainbow's on Sunday afternoon. Rainbow and I have talked about maybe checking out the farmers market near us Saturday morning as well. We are still anxiously awaiting the arrival of our nephew; my sister-in-law's due date has come and gone, and when she went for an ultrasound yesterday, they told her that they estimate the baby is now weighing more than 9 pounds! They are headed back to the doctor today to discuss the plan going forward, and for her sake, I hope the baby comes soon!