I almost forgot

With all my jazz about lacework, I completely forgot to mention the actual goal I finished in crochet!

If anyone has seen My Neighbour Totoro, I hope you fall desperately in love with the creature I made in the picture below for my darling Kyleman [who went as ballistic over it as a ten year old on a sugar high].

The link for the pattern can be found here.

lacework

A little while ago, after purchasing a Vogue knitting magazine with many wonderful, wonderful patterns in it, I decided to try my hand at lacework using a semi-easy pattern to create a parachute top. All was going well for my 104 stitches until I realized I forgot to check the gauge properly and calculated I had about 15 stitches too many because of my chosen yarn.

But hey, I thought, it's a parachute top so if it's a bit baggier than what it says, that can't be bad, right?

Except then in an attempt to reduce a stitch in a place where I knew I was an extra stitch, I accidentally moved the entire pattern over a wee bit. Oops. And although I don't think it's totally noticeable unless you a) look really hard or b) are a much better knitter than I am and can otice things like that right off, I figured it's close enough to the bottom that it won't really matter. But I'm still in debate [and utter agony] about ripping it all out and starting again with smaller needles.

If I had shown my gram this, she already would have ripped part of it out and told me to restart [how do I know this? Because she's done that to me before with a sleeve]. Oh, the agony! I'm sure there are plenty of knitters out there who have had to restart monstrous projects before. It's just so....so.....painful.

And so the lesson of the day is always check your gauge before you get too enamored.

Jane Austen book club of one

I frequently get urges to reread favourite books. A lot. There is a certain series [Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen, if anyone really wants to know] by Tamora Pierce, that I am pretty sure I have read at least 4 or 5 times. And those are not small books [just as a side-note: yes, these books are classified as "teen fiction"; I, however, at the great age of 21 find these books to still be deliciously wonderful. Dianna Wynne Jones's Howl's Moving Castle [this book is the inspiration for Studio Ghibli's movie of the same title; which I think of as the one book-to-movie adaptation that was utterly wonderful and didn't positively suck balls] is another example of a book that I've read more than twice.

And being the true English-y, nerdy girly I am, I am rereading all of the Jane Austen books I have read while interspersing the ones I haven't read in between. I am essentially, as the title of this entry says, a Jane Austen book club of one.

I've even gotten Kyleman somewhat interested. Ok, that's a lie, but he has made different inquiries to how my book is going - whether to just hear me fumble through a plot description [something I am never good at] or not, all I care is that he will listen to me ramble about Austen and her characters. The main one right now being Emma from, well, Emma.

I had tried reading Emma before and ended up getting a couple pages in, giving up and not touching it again until I had to return it to the library. Then a while ago, I found a copy of it at Value Village and somehow got it into my head to buy it. What can I say, I'm a true lover of Austen and it was Value Village, what was $3 for another potential love of my life?

Sometimes I find I have to give books a little time to settle and me a little time to grow into it and when I try to reread them WHAM! Helloooooo love!

Emma and I still had a little disagreement though. While I was more prepared to dive into it, Emma did not seem that willing to have me. Until WHAM! the middle of volume 3, I fell in love before I even realized it.

And that's one of the best feelings in the world.