{Yarn Along} I don't know what the problem with the heels is

Last week, Whatzitknitz asked which type of heel I preferred -- toe up or cuff down. My default heel is short row, because it's easy and makes sense and doesn't require looking up any numbers. And I know for a fact that it'll work with my toe up socks. I can do the flap and gusset heels, but I still have to have someone else's directions to work from. I hear that you can do a regular heel with a flap and gusset on toe up socks, but I've never tried it.  Maybe it's time to just make a baby sock and figure it out once and for all?

Toe up socks make me happy. I don't have to worry about twisting stitches, or casting on a whole ton of stitches all at once, or running out of yarn with an inch of foot left to go. The cast on I do for my toes probably breaks every rule in the book, but it works for me.

Historical disasters fascinate me. It's not the death and destruction, it's the stories of survivial, about people who made it through impossible circumstances. So I jumped at the chance to read The Johnstown Girls by Kathleen George. The characters in the book are all fictional, but the story of the flood itself is real.

Here's the book's description from Amazon:

Ellen Emerson may be the last living survivor of the Johnstown flood. She was only four years old on May 31, 1889, when twenty million tons of water decimated her hometown of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Thousands perished in what was the worst natural disaster in U.S. history at the time. As we witness in The Johnstown Girls, the flood not only changed the course of history, but also the individual lives of those who survived it.

A century later, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporters Ben Bragdon and Nina Collins set out to interview 103-year-old Ellen for Ben’s feature article on the flood. When asked the secret to her longevity, Ellen simply attributes it to “restlessness.” As we see, that restlessness is fueled by Ellen’s innate belief that her twin sister Mary, who went missing in the flood, is somehow still alive. Her story intrigues Ben, but it haunts Nina, who is determined to help Ellen find her missing half.

It took me a while to get into this book. There's a sex scene within the first few pages. I think it's the only one in the whole book, and it wasn't all that graphic, but I didn't want to be reading those intimate details about two characters I hadn't had a chance to learn anything about. I never did get that interested in Nina and Ben. Ellen and her missing sister, on the other hand, fascinated me. Happily, most of the book was focused on them.  I didn't want their story to end.

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



Disclosure -- The publishers provided me with an electronic ARC.