Recommended

Today I visited a new craft emporium. It's mainly sewing-based, but it did have a rather nice selection of buttons, and they do crochet classes, so I think it counts as knitting-related enough for this blog. It was lovely. I think I might want to sew things. (Because I need another hobby that I don't really have time for.) But it got me thinking about recommendations, because I first heard of this place last year when a friend said that she had heard about it and that we should go. (I think we didn't get round to it because at the time it didn't do tea and cake, which are obviously necessary to complete the crafting trifecta.) Then this year a very lovely colleague of mine did a dressmaking course there and was waxing lyrical about how good it was, and they now have a tearoom, so off I went. With my mum, who is also skilled in the ways of buying pretty, crafty things she doesn't need or have space for. (Nature or nurture?) So how many recommendations does it take to get someone to act on the recommendation? Generally, if you recommend something once I'll file it under "interesting" and think no more of it, until someone else recommends it, even a significant amount of time later, when I will literally think twice about doing it. (Or I'll file it until such time as I need whatever it is you've recommended, but everyone knows that craft shops are a constant need.)

Case in point, a while ago a book called The Gracekeepers was recommended on the radio. It sounded like something I'd enjoy, so I filed it under "interesting" and then thought no more of it. Until it was mentioned in an episode of the Books on the Nightstand podcast (another double recommendation), at which point I thought "Yes, I thought that was interesting before. Must read." (Books are a constant need too.) So now it's on my TBR list. (Still currently on the mental list rather than the physical pile, but it's just a matter of time.)

So if everyone is like me and needs two of them, how do recommendations get started? Well, like this I suppose. Round the corner from the lovely craft emporium, I happened to have parked my car outside a little yarn shop. And obviously we had to go in, because... well, I don't need to explain this to you by now. Pretty, crafty things. And it turned out to be one of the best yarn shops I've ever been in, with lots and lots of extremely pretty, crafty things. Let the chain of recommendations begin.

Throw(n)

I'll be honest, 3 rows in, one pattern repeat (6 rows) doesn't seem like much of a challenge. I did design it to be deliberately easy so I had some hope of achieving it this week, but I'd also offer in my defence that I am a madwoman and decided to make the thing 180 stitches wide, because... well, it's supposed to cover a sofa. It takes quite a long time to complete one row. Anyway, I'm halfway there, which is good because work and social life are probably going to steal a couple of nights, so I figure pictures to celebrate. (A picture, anyway.) The camera doesn't like twilight very much so the colour isn't quite right, but you can see the pattern. Big, basic, simple. But as I'm knitting, I'm thinking about the sofa with the throw on, and the person I'm making it for snuggled under it, and there's some of that, invisible, bound in every stitch. 180 of them, multiplied by... quite a lot.

Rut or run?

So I've been reading the aforementioned Faye Kellerman books for over a month now. I think I'm on number 10, and while I can't say I'm bored of them yet, I am starting to wonder what constitutes a reading rut, and whether I might be in one. As readable and enjoyable as the books are, reading them one after the other does highlight the repetitive little details and phrases that form an author's stock style. I suppose if you read them as they were published in the 1990s, then after each interval of a year or so you might need reminding that the main character was once shot, or that he gave up smoking. But I basically live with this guy (yep, this is what my social life has come to), so the reminders can grate a little. Then again, sometimes it's nice to have that familiarity - like an old friend at the end of the day. I wonder what will happen when I run out of books, and that friend becomes just another acquaintance, one of the many characters that we readers love and let go all the time. Will I miss him? Actually, I've had The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall (one of my favourite authors) to read for a while now. It might be time to meet someone new.

On the knitting front... well, the demands of work have kind of put paid to that for a little while, but I'm setting myself a challenge to do at least one repeat of the sofa throw pattern this week, because it's sitting next to the sofa mocking me. Plus it gives me a reason to update the blog more often. Updates and photos to come.