{Yarn Along} The French House

I'm starting a brand new pair of socks. The yarn is Opal and, I think, I got it at an estate sale for a dollar. I know there was a dollar skein that I picked up a few years back and there's no way that I paid the $18.50 on the price tag of this skein....so by process of elimination, I suppose this is the one. 

I'm excited to see what the yarn does. That shade of yellow on the toe is so pretty and summery...but I'm not sure what the orange and blue are going to look like.

The French House: An American Family, a Ruined Maison, and the Village That Restored Them All

Here's the book's description from Amazon:
When Francophiles Don and Mindy Wallace received an offer for a house on a tiny French island, they jumped at the chance, buying it almost sight unseen. What they found when they arrived was a building in ruin, and it wasn't long before their lives resembled it. Plagued by emergency repairs, a stock market crash, and very exasperated French neighbors, the Wallace's could have accepted their fate. Instead, they embraced it. The French House is the delightfully amusing and picturesque memoir about a family who seized life, rose from the rubble, and built themselves a home away from home.

I've been devouring memoirs lately, especially the ones set in other countries, and I'm always drawn to anything about old houses in need of repair. I really expected to love this book, but it was slow reading. The story is mostly about how the Wallaces manage to pay for the repairs that their French dream house so desperately need and how much time passes between visits to the island. Maybe if I'd started the book with more knowledge about French culture and architecture I would have enjoyed it more.

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




Disclosure - The publisher provided me with an ARC.