Texture

I was afraid that the wicker weave wouldn't show up in a photograph, but it stopped raining long enough for my to take my project out into the daylight. The texture shows up better in the picture than it does in real life. 

The pattern I'm using is The Wicker Socks, inspired by the movie The Wicker Man. It was one of the patterns from the Super Sock Scarefest and I was looking forward to casting on as soon as I finished the Fly socks, but I got bogged down with all of those bobbles and then distracted by the Scroll socks.

In addition to the knitting, I've been reading...

Over the past couple of years, I've read a lot of memoirs. It's wonderful to get glimpses into difference places and lives, but I keep wondering what inspires some of these writers to share so much detail about their private lives. When I saw Why We Write About Ourselves: Twenty Memoirists on Why They Expose Themselves (and Others) in the Name of Literature by Meredith Maran, I thought it might provide me with some answers. The book was an interesting read, more geared toward readers who plan to write their own memoirs than to readers like me, who are just curious about how the books get written. The advice each author offers to aspiring memoirists is a bit repetitive, mostly along the lines of "be honest and don't deliberately hurt people." I wound up with a list of memoirs to reserve at the library, which is definitely a good thing.

Dearly Departed is the second in the Amy's Travel mystery series by Hy Conrad. After her last big trip included a real murder, Amy is determined not to put on a second murder mystery road rally. She wants to distance herself as much as possible from those awful memories. Organizing a round the world trip to scatter the ashes of a dead woman will be difficult, but she's sure that it will be safe. Until the accident...and the murder. I enjoyed this one even more than I did Toured to Death, the first book in the series. The mystery is more complex than most of the cozies I've read and it kept me guessing until the very end.

The publisher provided me with an advance review copy. This post is linked to Patchwork Times, iknead2knit, and Yarn Along.