"a blog mostly about knitting, but also about reading, shelter mutts, and other assorted craftiness"

There's lots of ground to cover since my last post, seems I've been absent from blog land lately only managing a post about once a week. As my last post noted there's a new baby in the house, and new babies require lots, and lots, of attention. So while I have managed to keep up with my half dozen or so ongoing projects, and with Aaron (just barely), I have not, shamefully, been able to keep current on my blog.

However, this morning I spent a little more than 2 hours running all three dogs ragged, and now they are sound asleep on the office floor. (Yup, nothing makes me happier than all my dogs scattered about the office resting peaceful, it's truly a lovely thing.) And so I take a deep breath and begin a much overdue blog post.

On the knitting front: I started and stopped, and started again on the Josephine Top from the Summer Issue of Interweave Knits. Yesterday at my knitting group I quit the dang thing for good, and I frogged my meager 6 rows of Josephine. It's too bad really because it is a lovely garment, I just can't seem to get it going. It's the lace thing, every row requires no interruptions, I always have to have the pattern in front of me, and I just don't have the luxury of that much quite time, remember I've got three young dogs, and so I end up not working on it at all. So frogged! I guess I'm just not a lace knitter.

I have been making progress on the Montego Bay Scarf. That pattern I can memorize, and if I'm distracted momentarily it's no big deal, I can pick up and know where I left off. I like that. I also impulsively whipped off an Amanda's Squatty Sidekick purse, all that's left is the fulling, which I intend to do just as soon as the laundry is caught up.

On to reading; I've joined a new Book Club, one that actually reads books. I love my old book club, but as I mentioned previously it tends to be more of a "wine and eating" club, which I've got no problem with. The old book club seems also to have fizzled on getting together regularly. I miss the old book club and will definitely join them for some "wine and eating" should they manage a meeting.

The new book club actually reads books, and talks about them at their regular meetings. They also eat and drink, but that seems to be secondary to the reading. When I attended my first meeting they had just read "The Time Traveler's Wife", a book that has been on my list for awhile now and one of the members was kind enough to loan me her copy, which I started and intend to finish just as soon as I read this month's selection. This month's selection is "Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl". I'm not sure how it was selected but it's one I somehow got a BA in English without having read. I also just read "Water For Elephants" - I mention this only as a way of recommendation, it's a story well worth reading.

As for other craftiness, I've been binding journals, mostly for my Etsy shop. I seem to have set aside the Book Arts for knitting, and other necessities of life, but lately I've been making the time again. I've been working with my favorite sewn binding for hardcovers, the chain stitch. There is something tedious and repetitive about book binding, not unlike knitting, and that appeals to me very much. I've always enjoyed edition work.

And finally as for the shelter mutts: I've already pretty much covered that in the last few posts. The mutts are all well, and beautiful.

So that's the catch up post, pat your self on the back and resume breathing if you made it through this long, windy post. I'm off to Minneapolis, the first trip "home" since moving to Austin, and so I'll be absent again for another week or so. When I return I'll have finished objects from airplane knitting, tales of yarn store visits and stash enhancements, and news from both the MN Center for Book Arts and the MN Textile Center. Until then...