Year-end Knitting Review, Tolkien Reading Day, and Lara Lacombe's New Release

nitting round-up for year's end!


Last year I didn’t really set any knitting or other craft goals, except to not let them fall completely by the wayside. I mentioned that I needed an excuse to knit something as a gift...and a couple of friends got pregnant!

Some of my other posts throughout the year:

A Poem and a Few Songs for Burns Night, and ROW80, Including Knitting
Playlists, IWSG Day, Knitting in Public, and Elephants!
Kait Nolan's New Release! Also, New Mittens and Blog Plans Till January...

ROW80, A Completed Project, and The Enchanted April (a finished baby blanket)
ROW80 End of Round Wrap Up, and Visits to Yvoire (France) and Gruyeres, plus Photos from Vaud (Switzerland) (another finished baby blanket)

Why I didn't knit much:
I completed my second year of graduate school, and this guy came along:

Another friend also had a baby this year, and a group of mutual friends put together two quilts, one for each of us.

Here’s me starting to embroider my name on the square I contributed:

Here’re some photos of both quilts taken by the friend who did the finishing work:

Here’s what I wrote when I first shared a photo of the quilt, on the day I received mine:

I always say that one of the best parts of having read Outlander all those years ago was having joined the Forum and become friends with so many amazing people. This is a beautiful instance of that joy. Baby is kicking in happiness
PS close up of Kedi, because his and Austin's story was the first one I started on after I joined the Forum, following a two-year drought, and I'm still amazed by how many other characters have come to know him over the years.

And here are the photos to date:

1 month

2 months

2 months

2 months

3 months

3 months

3 months

4 months

4 months

For this year my goal remains the same, to simply knit something sometime.

My other ongoing goals are to:

1. Think about buying expensive wool to make, slowly, methodically, and properly, a gorgeous design by Kate Davies This is ongoing, and mostly on the backburner. But last year I read Handywoman by Kate Davies, and I’m currently enrolled in the Knitting Season club, which features a new pattern every week. I haven’t had time to make any, of course, but am storing them all up for later, and really enjoying the essays by Kate that accompany each pattern release.

2. Pick up crochet again, but I'm still stumped by the double crochet stitch. I need to watch more YouTube videos

3. Organise all our photos and print a few, especially for the grandparents
I have finally caught up with this! Now the trick is to not fall behind again...

4. Bake more!
I have been more successful at this lately. I’ve been baking every weekend! And I've made bread for the first time ever! I'll write up a separate post of that.


Lara Lacombe has a new book out!

Ranger’s Baby Rescue

“Who kidnapped Emma Foster’s baby?
When her daughter is abducted from her Texas home, Emma Foster turns to Matt Thompson to help her. Matt and Emma work together to retrieve little Christina from the clutches of traffickers. But it will be a race against the clock for the ranger and the nurse, who must risk it all to save the innocent infant…”

I love the way this story dives right into the action, yet from the start the reader has a clear view of who the characters are, what events have shaped them, and what they hope for the future. Both Emma and Matt are hesitant to take a leap, to hope for something between them, especially while doing their best to save Emma’s daughter.

If they can trust their emotions long enough to let go and open up to each other, all sorts of new possibilities might lie ahead. As they continue to work together to rescue Christina and keep her safe, an opportunity finally comes up for them to reveal their feelings. I was on tenterhooks waiting to see how they came together! Plus, I could completely relate to having to do everything with a young child in tow; all the baby-related scenes were very realistic!


Next Monday is Tolkien Reading Day!

This year’s theme is Tolkien and the mysterious...

I’ll either reread The Notion Club Papers, or some of the art books, featuring such lovely mysterious drawings as these:

The Shores of Faery

The End of the World

The first round of A Round of Words in 80 Days has ended!

I haven't gotten as far along in my edits of The Handful of Time as I'd like. Mostly this has been due to being ill and choosing sleep over editing time, but still! If I could do even a couple of sentences a day... It would be nice to have it done by the end of the year. Slow and steady wins the race!

Which crafts have you been exploring?

Do you enjoy reading suspense novels?