books

Bellwether

I've made an alarming discovery. I went into two clothing stores today, asked for cargo pants, and got blank stares. Cargo pants have apparently gone "out" and wherever they happen to be, they've taken my hopes for reasonably-sized pockets on girl clothes with them. In their stead, the racks are full of jeans with prefixes like "matchstick" and "toothpick" and "super skinny". This does not bode well for the human race.

And it means I'm going to have to figure out how to sew cargo pants.

Growing

I am currently reading a new book by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, more often known as The Yarn Harlot. I’m a big fan of Ms. Pearl-McPhee. Her book Knitting Rules is in the top five on my list of best knitting books I own. She taught me the essence of a sock, not how to make one, but how it’s made.

Case Statements

I’m going through the bookcase. Cases. It seems like we’ve got books crammed on every flat surface in the house. When Luke started crawling we moved everything but the board books off the first shelf and started squeezing them up higher. When he started standing, the second shelf moved up into whatever diagonal sideways backwards nooks and crannies were left. By the time he was walking, they were in haphazard flap-jack stacks piled from the top shelf to the ceiling, with all the salvaged dust jackets in a separate stack.

Stake through the Heart

I have just finished reading Dracula (via the free audiobook version available at LibraVox; all hail the public-domain) and I have thoughts to share.

When I first saw the more-recent Hollywood version of this story I remember many people calling it an appalling piece of crap. I didn't have strong feelings about it one way or the other. I thought it was entertaining enough and worth queueing up on Halloween, if nothing else.

Then I read the book.

It’s Alive!

If you like to knit...

And if you like to knit socks...

And if you like to read gothic romantic horror/sci-fi novels while knitting foot garments made in the image of the monsters these books contain...

May I please direct you to a Ravelry group I very recently co-launched, Frankensocks?

And if you don’t do like to do these things, you may now return to your sad little gray-scale lives.

Title Wave

Towards the end of my shift at the library this morning, I came across a lone reference book on my cart of fiction.

“Hello. What are you doing here?”

Turned out to be a knitting book. I raised an eyebrow at it and turned a few pages. One of the advantages of shelving books is the cool stuff that literally jumps into your hands begging to be borrowed.

I put the book on an empty lower shelf on my cart.

“You can follow me home.”

Backdrop

An online crafting zine that I’m fond of always provides suggested entertainment to go along with its projects. These take the form of songs or movies or books that will get you into the right mind frame for your crafting experience.

Paperback

Last Thursday was delivery day. The Crow’s quarterly edition came back from the printers and I spent the day running back and forth to post office and dashing in and out of bookstores with armloads of our humble little magazine. One of the problems with Delivery Day taking me in and out of most the independent bookstores in the county is that I invariably leave with more books than I went in with, at least in weight and expense.

Pulp Fiction

I recently discovered audiobooks; I believe I’ve mentioned. Pretty cool that I can read on the way to the grocery store with causing a car accident. Also, reading while knitting? That’s big. And I discovered last night that cleaning the bathroom is more entertaining if you bring vampires with you.

But I have a problem.

What You Read

I’ve discovered audio books recently. Historically, I’ve never cared for them much. I prefer a quite moment in the sunshine with a tangible paperback in my hands and my own inner voice coloring the characters. But you know what? Quite moments in the sunshine? Not so much a part of my life right now. In the brief hours between when we’ve got the kid asleep, toys corralled and dishes at least artfully stacked, to when I push myself into bed, my books have to compete with my yarn and lately the books have been losing.

Pages