Cherry Knits

Knit and Other Lit

First of all, apropos to the subject of this post but before I get to the "lit" part, look at the new yarn I bought on my recent trip through Albuquerque NM from Scout's Hand-painted Swag! The colorway is called Biblioteque and it's a stunner. The yarn is fingering weight washable merino. My current plan is to pair it with a brand new deep green color (#45) of Elsebeth Lavold's Silky Wool in a Maureen Jamison Shadow Shawl. Be sure to check out Scout's online shop and her blog. She's got some fabulous things going on in there!

Now for the Lit:

I'm so pleased and excited to announce that my friend Traci Jones just published her first book! Standing Against the Wind is in book stores this week and is getting a lot of buzz in the young adult/children's category. Look for it at your local independent (or one of those other great big book stores - you know who they are) near you. And here's the link to Amazon:

Congrats Traci!

I just finished reading The Last Days of Dogtown by Anita Diamant and highly recommend it. The prose and the characters are so engaging. The story is set near Cape Ann and accounts the demise of an early 19th century New England community. It stayed with me for days after I finished the book.

And in the Knit Lit category, here's a new acquisition I'm excited about adding to my library:

Helen Hamann's designs in Andean Inspired Knits feature alpaca yarns. The silhouettes of the designs are very interesting  and the color work is absolutely beautiful in classic Andean traditions. The history lessons are wonderful too. I'm very excited that the trunk show for this collection will be coming to one of my LYS's in December. It's a lovely addition to a knitting library even if you don't knit a thing from the book - but there are several wonderful designs that I can't wait to knit, I just have to decide which one to do first.

Knitting update: I've added a few more blocks to Rambling Rows - it's about 3/5's done. My Noro Blossom jacket just needs one more sleeve - I'll have it up here to show you soon.

Happy Knitting!

Woolly Wisdom

This is a fun little book I came accross in my travels. It's from Don Donovan and a New Zealand publisher --now there's a country that can appreciate the wisdom of sheep. This little book is full of sheepy quotables and great photography featuring our woolly friends. It just makes me smile. Here are a couple of my favorites:

"When people are free to do as they please, they usually immitate each other." --Eric Hoffer

"I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and give the wrong answers." --Joseph Blosephina

Oh, and this one!

"So, where is the Cannes Film Festival being held this year?"--Christina Aguilera

I did not fall off the planet!

I just got back from the land of the great saguaros and a pretty intense two week trip, so I'm very glad to be home -- until tomorrow anyway and then I'm back on the road again for ten more days. 

So besides working while I was out on the road, I finished reading Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles by Margaret George ( see Book Picks). I also finished two books on tape during the long hours of driving - I logged a total of 2,552 miles on this trip. One of the books on tape was Tony Hillerman's The Sinister Pig.  What's really cool is that while listening I was actually driving through Shiprock, San Juan County and the Navajo lands in the Four Corners area of New Mexico, which is the setting of the story and base of operations for protagonist tribal patrolman Jim Chee. My last night out, I tuned to PBS in my hotel room and happened onto another Tony Hillerman story, Coyote Waits, on Mystery. It was truly amazing having just driven through such dramatic landscapes. The experience added a whole other dimension to the enjoyment of Hillerman's stories and my impressions of Navajo culture.

And, I actually got some knitting done and finished the capelet started in New York a few weeks ago. Yay!

OK, so I just went to take pics of the two recently finished projects and my camera battery is dead. I'll get them posted up here just as soon as I can get to the store and buy a new battery--aughhh!