Reading and Writing Wednesday - Best Board Books Ever

When I saw the three books above listed as new books at the library, I requested them immediately and they didn't disappoint. Each one is illustrated with needle felted pictures and is only 12 words long. Perhaps the most perfect twelve words for each book. I, of course, love the "Pride and Prejudice" one the best. The little guy enjoyed reading them too.

Here are a couple pictures from "Moby Dick". I have never read it but my husband has - with a dictionary by his side when he was a teenager. It's his bosses favourite book. 

The art is just amazing.

Chasing the whale!

Below are some pictures from "Emma".

"Badly done, Emma. Badly done indeed!"

Happy ending.

And from "Pride and Prejudice".

Jane and Lizzie.

My older son loved the page above and the page below. He thought it was funny.

Another happy ending.

There were several other books in the series which I might have to request just to look at them. 

Getting Twiggy with it.

Saturday afternoon, my daughter and I went to a workshop taught by Anna Hrachovec of Mochimochi fame. Find her patterns on ravelry here or on her website here. The workshop we went to was about wrapping twigs in yarn and then knitting little creatures to go with it. Some of the people there knew how to knit but most spent the time wrapping twigs. My husband may have made a few jokes about taking a workshop for something so simple but it was really an excuse to spend some time with my girl and to meet the author. And to have a fun afternoon of crafting - which it was.

My daughter putting her yarn into a bobbin as instructed by Anna to make wrapping the twig easier.

My pile of yarn and twigs.

My daughter's branch and some of her yarn.

Wrapping.

Daughter wrapping. 

Finished my first twig and was able to knit a leaf and attach it. 

Daughter's finished branch. I knit her a blue leaf and she knit herself one as well.

There was a big branch in the middle for everyone to work on as a group project. I added the purple in the middle beside the blue. Anna tweeted a picture of it later, which you can see here.

Anna has written 4 books. I bought one of them.

And of course I got her to sign it.

Later that night I got out lots of needles and yarn and played around. And had a little chocolate.

Wrapped this twig I found in our yard with yellow yarn and made some leaves.

Here is my finished piece made during the workshop. Still needs a creature or something on it.

I made this Saturday night. The green is a knitted icord.

 And I may have become addicted to twig wrapping. We were out for a walk this morning and I wanted to bring almost every branch/ twig I saw on the ground home with us. This was super fun and simple and I encourage others to try it. Not sure what I am going to do with the finished pieces. Christmas presents, perhaps?

Knitting Along

I've been a little distracted by Wimbledon lately. Excited to watch fellow Canadian, Eugenie Bouchard, in the Women's final later this morning. All this tennis watching is good for the knitting but no so much for blog posting. Above is the Reading shawl I started as a gift. I was doing another shawl with the yarn but frogged it and started this one instead. Easy pattern to memorize and it will have a lace border at the end.

I have been making good progress on my Camp Loopy project for July. I'm very happy with how quickly this seems to be knitting up. I know things will slow down once I get to the sleeves but I'm hoping since I am knitting the smallest size they will work up quickly too.

I should be a better blogger once Monday gets here and Wimbledon is over. However, we'll have company so... maybe not.

Camp Loopy : Project One

For June's Camp Loopy project I knit the Chocolat shawl. This is a gift. I finished it June 15th and am finally posting pictures. I had to change the borders as I ran out of blue yarn even though I used the recommended yarn and amount. I think I like my borders better. Here it is before blocking.

I did the pattern's eyelet border, but only once, in the contrast border. Then I added the garter stitch border. I only had a couple yards of the blue yarn left when I was done.

The Little Guy liked it.

Getting washed. The blue ran quite a bit.

I had more knits in need of blocking. I did the brown beaded cowl, then changed the water.

Blocked and the Little Guy still likes it. It was hard to keep it straight as he wouldn't stay off of it.

Using it as a yoga mat?

You can see that the lace section really opened up after blocking. I had to push the Little Guy away to keep his hands out of this picture.

My son took this picture inside as it was raining.

All folded up and ready to be gifted... in December.

Sun came out that evening so my daughter and I took some more pictures outside.

I like how big this ended up being.

It was a little hot outside to be modeling such a warm shawl.

Tomorrow is the beginning of Project Two. This year I decided that all Camp Loopy projects would be gifts. July's project will be a sweater for my daughter. I picked the pattern, Brick, and the yarn, but I had her pick the colour. She hasn't seen the pattern. 

The inspiration for the project was supposed to be a place we go to relax. A good day with my kids can be relaxing (you know, when everyone gets along and there's lots of laughter; those days are great) but when she picked the yarn and I saw that the colour was Iris it reminded me of my favourite painting, Van Gogh's Irises. I have had a poster of that painting up somewhere in our house since I was in University. It is currently beside my side of the bed. I have always loved looking at it and picturing myself lying in the irises - so I guess my project ended up being about a place I relax after all.

A Reading and Writing Wednesday Post

If I only did writing posts on Wednesdays, I wouldn't have much to say. The kids are on their second week of summer vacation and we are still trying to find a routine. I haven't been doing much writing. I think about it a lot. However, I have been doing a lot of reading. I currently have over 50 items out from the library with 7 waiting for me to pick up and another 50 on my reserve list. Yeah, I love the library. So Wednesday will become a reading and writing update

I took this picture a couple weeks ago of the novels I had checked out then, including "The Book Thief" which my SIL lent me. I have read one of them and have added several more to the pile.

I read this graphic novel the other day. I really enjoyed it. It's a little weird. It was co-written by singer Amanda Palmer who I never heard off until a couple weeks ago. I of course checked the library for any cd's they might have and found this book as well. It's a nice quick read. My husband read it too and thought it was okay but didn't like it as much as I did. 

I finished reading this novel last week as it was due and I couldn't renew it. My mom read the end when she visited earlier this month and thought I would like it. I have to admit that I didn't like it and the fact that my mother knew how it ended was the only thing motivating me to continue reading sometimes. I'm not really sure what I don't like about it. It just wasn't believable I guess. When I finish a novel I want to continue thinking about the characters and what happens next for them. I just didn't buy it and was left questioning the author's intent. I don't know if I would recommend this book to anyone and I really need to talk to my mom as she thought I'd like it. Hmmm. 

I don't just read fiction. With two boys I thought it was time I read a little something about raising them. I have less than a hundred pages left and am learning quite a bit. There was an interesting chapter on testosterone and how boy brains are different. Who knew boys were this complex?

My mother gifted me this Jane Austen puzzle which I finally did on Sunday. 

I kept saying this quote in my head the whole time I was putting it together and after. I need to see "Pride and Prejudice" again. Soon.

And some of the writing books I have out from the library. The first one is about writing short fiction. It mainly deals with twitter and text messages but I am hoping it might give me some insight into something I just found out about. MicroFiction - stories that are 250 words or less. It seems like such an interesting idea. Who has time to write a whole novel? Not me. At least not right now. But a 250 word story? I think I can do that during nap time or almost anytime. I wrote my first story the other day and it came in around 260 words. I really like it and am looking forward to trying to write a few more. I'm not giving up novel writing but it's neat to focus ideas to the bare minimum and still have it feel complete.

Graph Paper QAL Update

Here's my progress report for the Graph Paper QAL hosted by Fabric Mutt.

I haven't made a lot of progress but I've done more with my scraps the past two weeks then I have in years so that's good. Above is the first of two overflowing bins of scraps I want to iron and cut into squares for some charity quilts. I took this picture at the end of last week and only have a small stack left to iron.

My growing pile of ironed scraps.

I did get some squares cut. On the left are 2 inch squares and on the right are 3 inch squares. My crazy brain is also thinking of cutting some 1.5 inch squares and 4 or 5 inch squares as well for future charity quilts. I'd hate to waste any fabric and I'm not cutting any bigger squares (such as leftover charm squares) down to size since I'd throw out what I trim off, which seems silly to me. 

Some 2 inch squares sewn together. Hope to get a lot more sewn together this week. 

Go here to see the progress of others.