Books and socks

On the first weekend of the new year, I bravely went into town, to the shopping area (I needed to buy a humidifier!). I went into the bookstore, and left with two books under my arm: The Stainless Steel Rat omnibus (amazon|wiki), and Sock Innovation (amazon|rav).

Of course, after buying Sock Innovation, I spent several days searching the web looking for sheep-less sock yarn. I should have thought about this little problem before buying the book and becoming obsessed with socks, but I could not resist its lure.

I have now found some yarn that works for me, and that is shipped from the UK: Cafe Knit sells some Crystal Palace Panda Cotton, and Martin at yarndamour is dying for me some of his cotton-tencel sock yarn!

The Panda Cotton is here already, and I just need to finish Alex's socks so I can free my 2.75mm needles, and cast on for Wanida!

Then when the new yarn arrives, I can do Milo and Kai-Mei. And Cauchy for Alex. I suddenly love socks.

Not that book, but those ones

I have been looking for a particular book, The Mote in God's Eye, for quite a while. None of the Bristol bookshops had it, and Amazon had it only for delivery in 1 or 2 weeks (it was only available in the continent somewhere). However, while those weeks happened, the book went out of stock. I can't have my book. But look what I got instead!

The Best of Interweave Knits
I want to make (at least) the Icarus Shawl, Union Square Market Pullover, Simply Marilyn and Burma Rings.



Cute Stuff, by Aranzi Aronzo
Someone had it at my S'n'B, and was making felt monkeys, and I thought I must have it. It is also, as advertised, full of cute stuff.



The Noonday Demon, by Andrew Solomon
Less happy, but I've heard very good things about this book. Hopefully it will help me shake the leftovers out.

Now, does anybody know where I can find The Mote in God's Eye? I will check out London bookstores next time I'm around, but I don't have a lot of hope, suddenly.

FO: Book cover

Occasionally my books get a bit damaged in my bag, as they have to share space with plenty of things, like knitting, pen knives, the occasional screwdriver set, tape, planner, phone, iPod... you name it, it's there. I am hopping that this will protect them a little bit, because I'm not about to start reading not carry enough stuff for an expedition to the Himalayas.

Technical details
Ravelry project page
Pattern: Improvised, based on the stitch Aran Rib 2 from The Knitter's Bible (amazon|ravelry)
Yarn: Rowan All Seasons Cotton, in Tornado (leftover from Wisteria)
Needles: 4.5mm, dpns



Notes: It felt quite good to improvise a pattern based on a stitch. I mean, it's not very complicated, but I had attempted about a year ago to do something similar and I just couldn't get it to work. A bit of thinking and measuring books got me the right size, and then I alternated the cables with a bit of a rib, so that it could tailor all sorts of paperback sizes (there seem to be about 3 common front dimensions, but obviously an enormous array of widths).



I have just finished Tau Zero, by Poul Anderson. If you like hard science fiction, I strongly recommend this book. Not only is very well written, but how many books you find with suddenly a couple of pages on general and special relativity, and what happens as you get faster and faster?


Now I'm reading Valis. It is quite an "old" copy, from the first paperback edition in the UK. I really like K Dick, his books always make me think, and that is never a bad thing. Plus, I get to play the "guess how many drugs he was on when he wrote this chapter" game. Seriously :)

B is for books

I cannot live without books.
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)

I love books. I "read" books much before I learned how to read, and I cannot think of a time when I've not had a book or more on the go. Always reading.

I love books, and I find it very difficult to go into a bookshop and not come out with at least one. I grew up in a house filled with books (triple stacked, in every corner, in good-quality boxes in the attic when we ran out of space), and that's how I want to continue mine to be. I would love to have a place big enough to have a dedicated library.

For this entry, I went around my flat and took pictures of all the books I could see. It so happens that the only room without books is the bathroom, although I always carry mine there. The study contains 4 1/2 Billys mostly filled (3 fiction and 1 1/2 non fiction), and there are books in the bedroom (waiting to be read), in the kitchen (cooking books) and in the living room (mainly knitting, but some others as well). There is also still space for more books, so clearly I need to go out and get more.



I love books, and few things give me more pleasure.

I read and I dream

I know, I have been rather quiet lately. I have had a couple of rough days, and not a lot of knitting done (although that is purely to blame on The Chronicles of Amber; it is a huge book, so I can't carry both my knitting and my book with me in my bag, and at the moment the book is winning). Some mildly interesting things have happened, though.

I bought the book Sensual Knits, which arrived on Tuesday on the mail. I really like it. I would like to make so many projects out of it (nearly all of them!), but I think I have narrowed down my choice to 2: the Sayuri (a kimono-style jumper) and the camisole and cardi set (all Rav links). They both look beautiful. I am thinking of making the camisole and cardi in some pretty grey, to give it that air of immortality and make it a classic I can wear to work until I wear the threads thin. I am not sure what colour to make the kimono, though. I like the blue of the default picture in the book, but maybe I should be more adventurous with my choices of colour (says the person with the bright green tee and the orange cardi).

Tomorrow my new computer will be delivered to me. I still have not thought of a name for it, but lately the name of Steven/Stephen is starting to ring in my head. It just feels a bit too boring, next to Sherlock, Spudtrooper and Lazarus. I need something with a bit more of an exotic ring to it.



I had a dream last night, as every night. I dream a lot, especially now, and this is a prime example of my dreams. I don't always remember them, especially in any kind of order; I remember "blocks", but when I try to put them together the dreams get mixed up, especially with dreams that happened in the same places. But I remember this one in order, so I thought I'd give you a piece what happens in my brain.
This dream involved being in the aftermath of some generic Armageddon/apocalypse/nuclear war type thing. "We" needed to go inside a high-school-AND-military building (a concrete block), to get something important. This "something" turned out to be the cutest baby pig (pink with some black spots), which farted fluorine. It ran away and we chased it. Then the feds/CIA/generic men-in-black arrived, and chased us and the pig (I think they wanted the pig, I seem to remember that it was useful in our barren wasteland of an Earth) through rooms full of white gas (fluorine from the pig). Then? Then it got weird.
The building got locked and one of the men in black turned into a psychopath and proceeded to chase us one by one. We spent many years in that building, chased by this psychopath. Not so much running and trying to outwit him. He had found a way to suck the life from people and pass it to others (make them younger, amongst other uses) and to transplant animal skin onto people. Also, let me tell you that crawling atop magazines stored vertically is remarkably difficult to do silently.
After many years, my original, pig-chasing group teamed up with the feds, and we tricked the psychopath and run to the building exit. Only I took the wrong turn and ended up in the lair of the psychopath. Oops. He wasn't there, but his family was. Did you know he had a family? It was weird. The dream then kind of merged into another, which involved metal and bars, but the locked-building is what I can remember.
This is how my mind dreams, all night long. Every. Single. Night. It gets boring after a while

Will post tomorrow from my new computer!