The black hole that is Ravelry

This is a drive-by posting to say a) Ravelry is awesome (though you all new that, didn't you?) b) there is no new knitting content and c) this is mainly because of a. When I have a breakthrough on the new addiction (like, when I stop clicking on every possible project and calculating if and when I can make it), I'll have some new sock pictures.

Maybe.

(Also, we watched All the President's Men last night as part of my Top 100 movie quest. I would place it on the So-So list, mainly because it had the most abrupt, disappointing ending ever, so it can't be on the Good list. Very entertaining up to then, though.)

The sock it to me sock: update

Progress has been slow but steady. I have finished the body, heel flap, turn, and am now working on the gusset decrease:

I love the heel flap for this pattern. It features a slipped stitch and looks great. You probably can't see it in this photo (which is very bad and I couldn't get my photo program to rotate it, so the whole photo shoot was a bit of a bust), but I'll try to get a good pic of it on the finished sock.

There isn't too much else to say about it at this point. I still love the pattern. I haven't had any disasters (knock on wood). I am actually going much faster than my first pair of socks. All in all, I am very happy with this sock so far. Let's hope it stays that way. :-)

ETA: I just got my Ravelry invite! I am LinknKnits (for my love of Zelda on the DS).... look me up!

Movie-riffic!

I recently joined Netflix for the first time ever (yes, I am about 8 years behind the times; what of it?). Let me just say, I am loving it. The “watch the movie any time you feel like it without pressure because those stupid late fees” part of it is the best. Now, not having really rented movies in about ten years, and having a husband who hates to go to the theater, would make you think that my queue is full of recent hits.

Not true, though.

I have decided to watch every movie on the American Film Institutes’ Top 100 List; consequently, my “to watch” list is full of classics. Why am I doing this? I’m not sure, really. I think it might be the thrill of hitting a goal (like these two books, however artificial) or the fact that I have been really burnt out on current Hollywood fare for awhile (How many comic books can they make into movies? How many good books can be turned into mediocre movies? How boring and unoriginal can they be?).

So from time to time, I might comment on some of the Top 100 movies that I have watched recently. Thus far we have:

The Good
The Philadelphia Story
All About Eve
The Apartment
Rear Window
Casablanca
The Searchers

The Bad
Duck Soup
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
The Last Picture Show

The So-So
Some Like It Hot
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Bringing Up Baby
It Happened One Night

I have to say, it has been a thrill to actually see John Wayne in a movie (funny that I could recognize a John Wayne impersonation, w/o ever seeing him in a movie until The Searchers!). And who knew that Shirley MacLaine was a cutie before she was a nutter? (Watch The Apartment if you don’t believe me!) I highly recommend any of the movies on The Good list; they really do deserve “classic” status. (And in case you are wondering, I am just skipping around the list and watching them in whatever order I feel like.)

Tonight, the hubby and I are off to the Michigan Theater to see Spartacus. Which is on the list, of course!

Ribbed, but not for my pleasure

As I said in my last post, I did get a little vacation knitting done. Just a little. This is the cuff and three repeats of the Elongated Corded Rib sock pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks. (Can I just say, this book is awesome? Such a good idea! So many sock patterns, so easy to understand. Go buy it now. Seriously.)

I know this isn't an insanely impressive amount of knitting. You know why? Me and ribbing do NOT get along. It takes me forever. And yet, for some reason, I choose to knit a pair of socks that are almost entirely ribbed. What was I thinking?

I also bought a little yarn while in TC, too. Not sock yarn, but worsted weight superwash wool:

Last year, I made my mom these. She loved them. Wore them every day, and kept calling to tell me how great they are. How useful and functional and wonderful... except for one thing. They are an alpaca wool mix and are most definitely NOT superwash. And as she delivers mail for a living (read: dirty paper) they got real filthy, real quick. So I am going to remedy the situation with a new indestructible pair (cue evil genius laughter).

Between my slower-than-slow socks and the fingerless mitts, I should be pretty busy for while!

Back to reality

But it will be easier after a week of vacation that looked like this:

Lighthouse on Old Mission Peninsula

Sleeping Bear Dunes and the Manitou Islands

Me with vineyards and the bay

Despite the lovely time, I did do some knitting and reading, so I'll post about some of that soon. Now, to plan next year's vacation....

Vacation

Just a quickie to say that I won't be updating for the next week, as I will be on summer vacation (In October. I know. We are a bit behind!). We're going to Traverse City for the week and are looking forward to a week of cherries, hiking, vineyards, and autumn colors ~ even though it is 85 degrees and I am wearing shorts and a tank top right now. But I digress.

I will be bringing my knitting with me, so I hope to have some good pictures when I get back. Until then....

FO: Pebble Socks

Yarn: Knit Picks Felicia in Pebble. I used one ball and just a shade of a second ball.
Needles: Options size 2.0
Pattern: From Knitty

Thoughts: Not bad for my first pair of socks (not counting my Fuzzy Feet from last summer, because felting hides all sins), but not great either. I viewed making these as a “just keep knitting”-type experience. So if I noticed mistakes, I didn’t frog but just tried to correct it. I knew that, especially for the first one, I would just keep frogging over and over and never get anything done if I let my perfectionist nature out. So there are some pretty obvious mistakes in the first; the second looks much better. (Hey, I do improve with practice. Encouraging!)

Did I like making these? Heck yeah. So much so that I went and bought this…

Mini book review: March

I finished March on Friday night. Though a slim book (and a Pulitzer Prize winner), I had a tough time finishing it. I just couldn’t reconcile this vision of the March girls’ father with the original source material, Little Women. I know Mr. March was almost completely absent from LW so this seems a little odd. But my thought process was that this man, so adrift and in many ways such a loser in all of life’s major areas, could not have raised the sweet, wholesome girls of LW. It just didn’t work for me.

However, if I overlooked the LW connection, I thought March did a superb job of capturing both sides of a marriage; those little misunderstandings and slights that can drive two people who love each other apart. The Civil War scenes were pitch perfect. And Brooks’ portrayal of Northern abolitionists, the Underground Railroad, and John Brown were all fascinating. In fact, her notes at the end of the novel, where she discusses her source materials and the Alcott family (she used Bronson Alcott’s views as a template for much of March’s character) were almost as interesting as the actual story.

On the Bookwormy Goodness Review Scale, where ***** is “go out and buy this book now, it is that good!” and * is “the most appalling awful book ever”, I give March ***.