{yarn along} Rose Ribbons Shawl

After finishing Treads, I wanted to challenge myself again. What constitutes a knitting challenge for me has changed a lot over the last three or four years. Before the change, I could pretty much cast on and knit whatever I set my mind to. I had my limits, but they were a lot less....limiting.

These days, my results aren't so predictable. I think my knitting skills have atrophied, and I'm determined to build them back up.



My new project is the Rose Ribbons Shawl from Knitting Lace Trianglesby Evelyn A. Clark. That Amazon link is just so you can find information about the book -- apparently it's gone out of print since I bought my copy and the prices are just ridiculous. I might wish I'd seen that before deciding to write the abbreviations next to the chart in my own copy last night! Or not -- I wasn't planning on getting rid of it anyway. (I did a little more digging and it's available as a Ravelry download at a much saner price. I'm not going to even look at the patterns in the new version that aren't in my copy of the book...)

I'm using a worsted weight cotton blend from my stash. In one evening, I made it through the set up rows and the first flower lace repeat. Now it's time to switch to the leaf lace, which looks easier to follow.

 

 

And the reading for this week -- remember when I told you about the free Kindle download for Heaven Preserve Us? (It's not free anymore.) Before I had a chance to start that one, the kids and I made a trip to the library and they had the first book in the series. Might as well read them in order, right?

I absolutely loved Lye in Wait.  As soon as I can pry my Kindle away from the boys and get a charge on them, I'm starting Heaven Preserve Us. And I've already got the third book in the series sitting on the edge of my treadle.


  Cocoa butter soap, check. Lemon lip balm, check. A dead body?

That's just what Sophie Mae Reynolds finds in her workroom: the corpse of Walter Hanover, the neighborhood handyman. He died from drinking lye, something she has in good supply. But the police don't suspect Sophie Mae, a thirty-something widow who makes and sells beauty products. Instead they call it a suicide. But why would a man with lottery cash and a loving fiancée kill himself?

No one can stop the impulsive Sophie Mae from answering this riddle, not her sensible best friend Meghan or Detective Ambrose, who incites annoyance as well as stomach flutters. Sophie Mae's big mouth and sharp nose lead her to a peppermint-scented trail of arson, bigamy, and a shocking family secret that reveals a personal connection to Walter . . . and his killer

If you read horror novels, I hugely recommend Alex by Adam J Nicolai. It's a ninety-nine cent download for Kindle and it's one of the best horror novels I've read in ages. Ian Colmes can't manage to get to work on time because he can't drag himself away from the sounds of his happily playing son.  His son, who had been kidnapped and left dead in a ditch six months earlier.

 

There are things that his little boy desperately needs to tell him, but he can only communicate by repeating conversations from his past. The scene where Ian comes home with a ouija board and the ghost of his five year old stands there tearfully telling him that it is NOT a toy (replaying an incident when he'd gotten in trouble for playing with an eletrical socket) is seriously creepy.

 

 

I'm tempted to order the author's second book, but I'm not sure I'm ready for that one yet. I'm still kind of spooked by the first one.    

For more fun projects to drool over, check out On the Needles at Patchwork Times and Work in Progress Wednesdays at Tami's Amis.