Summer Roundup (pt.2)

Whaddya mean I never wear pink?

So due to the uncooperative weather conditions that were this past weekend (gloomy, overcast skies that prevented me from doing self-portraits in my room), I decided to push the WIPs/FOs/almost FOs roundup post to the third instalment instead. In their stead will be future WIPs/FOs/almost FOs! Also, a list of and small discussion about the titles I've been reading and the movies I've been watching.

Just a little forward to this stash enhancement. I think I can justify myself: if any of you live around town and are up-to-date with the LYS happenings hereabouts, you'll have heard the news that Lettuce Knit is closing. Not moving, like Eweknit and Knit-O-Matic, but closing. They'll still be around as a brand, which I'm glad to hear, as I've noticed them over the years through projects like their gay sweater and the fact that they addressed body image issues by actively started stocking larger quantities of yarn in the same lot. Now. While I'm sad to see them go, I'm also perfectly willing to help them clear their shelves a bit in the closing weeks (see their site for details). Which leads me to this little stash update.

The shockingly pink yarn above is madtosh tosh dk (having just finished the Orne Cardigan, I am pretty pleased with the thought of having more tosh dk in my stash) in "torchere", a scorching shade of pinkish red that borders on profanity. Just my type of pink. No moderate baby pinks for me, no. (I don't even wear pink! At all! I cannot properly recall the last time I wore pink... except for those overalls/jumpsuit I used to love as a child, which was either bright pink or bright orange. I don't remember. But does it really matter? There will be pink in my wardrobe once again, in the near-ish future!) I'm seeing it as a boxy cardigan or jacket without much shaping. Cables or some sort of texture, and dropped sleeves, perhaps? Definitely positive ease. I only have the 6 skeins, though, so I'll have to think hard about how to make them work into a positive ease cardigan/jacket with possible yarn-eating cables!

Endless potential.

On the other hand, I snatched 3 skeins of Cascade Ecological Wool to knit myself a Maple Shade Coat, apparently errata-laden as it is, but now that I've looked through my queue and library, I'm wondering whether this might be the time to knit up a Belfast Hoodie for myself (it's been in my queue and Patternfish cart for years). Or even, in the event I can't do cables due to yardage restraints with my hot pink SQ above, an Aidez. The possibilities are endless! And as for motivation, in case I needed it, I know whatever I choose to knit will practically knit itself, considering the bulky/aran weight of this yarn.

I forget how many blue-gray/blue-brown combos I have in my stash.

And as for these two lovelies... I'll admit I kind of went on automatic and put them into my basket without much thought as to what they'd become. I'd be more than happy to use them singly for maybe shawls (or a Hitofude Cardigan, as I see someone has made one out of one skein), but I did get these two thinking of stripes or colourwork of some sort. Forgetting entirely, of course, that I have also the blue/grey pair of Americo Sedoso, as well as the blue/grey pair of SMC Select Highland Alpaca Fino. Oh, and, to some extent if I so chose to use it like that, the blue/grey/other grey pair/trio of madtosh lace. Am I overdoing it a bit?

Now as for the reading list, since I don't have any pictures of these books - I've returned them to the library, which I'm finally making good use of, despite having worked there for years - it'll just have to be a list. I tried to get my act together in July, when I figured my lack of general motivation was getting a little too far ahead of where I could feasibly control it, so I turned to books. I'll list them in order of the month.

July

1. Thermopylae: the battle that changed the world (Paul Cartledge)
2. Thermopylae: the battle for the West (Ernle Bradford)
3. The First Clash (Jim Lacey)
4. First Love (Turgenev)
5. Dracula Untold (movie)
6. Sailing the Wine Dark Sea: why the Greeks matter (Thomas Cahill)
7. Mr. Selden's Map of China (Timothy Brook)
8. Olive Kitteridge (BBC miniseries)
9. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Solzhenitsyn)
10. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Jules Verne)
11. A Student of Weather (Elizabeth Hay)

Some burgeoning interest in classical times.

August

1. A Fraction of the Whole (Steve Toltz)
2. Goodnight Mommy (movie)
3. What Maisie Knew (movie)
4. The Iceman (movie)
5. Compliance (movie)
6. Deadfall (movie)
7. House in the Sky (Amanda Lindhout)
8. Alone in the Classroom (Elizabeth Hay)
9. The Greeks: portrait of self and others (Paul Cartledge)
10. Beyond Good & Evil (Nietzsche)

Nietzsche was a pain to get through, I must admit. I read a quarter of the way through Thus Spoke Zarathustra and gave up after finishing BGE, which was infinitely more readable. I'll pick it up again someday. A lot of movies.

September (so far)

1. Night Film (Marisha Pessl)
2. God Against the Gods  (Jonathan Kirsch)
3. Ernest & Celestine (children's movie - I would recommend it* edited to add that I find the attitude towards atonement for their crime towards that family, whom they did in fact harm financially if not bodily, is rather ambivalent and sends somewhat mixed messages. Somewhat like the way Jack and the Beanstalk doesn't really teach any lessons in morality. I do find it odd that there was that loose end though, in this case.)
4. Mommy (movie)
5. Into the Woods (movie)
6. The Spartans (Paul Cartledge)
7. A Short History of Myth (Karen Armstrong)
8. Late Nights on Air (Elizabeth Hay)

I feel as though Into the Woods could have been so much better! So incredibly much better! I've got no idea how, exactly, but the beginning was very promising. As for the books, you can see I'm slowly making my way through Cartledge's books. I think I'm very lucky in having chosen to read his Thermopylae first, to get myself started back into reading: he has a very easy-to-read style of writing, almost casual and very amusing, and one of the things I really look for is whether I get along with the author in terms of the style of writing. If I can get into a good rhythm reading a book, regardless of whether I like what they're saying, I'll probably finish it. On the other hand, even if you make a perfectly good argument, if it's written horribly and I can't make head nor tails of it, or even if it's simply not engaging due to its style, I'm sorry to say that I would put it down. As I did Nietzsche, from whom I know I have so incredibly much to learn. It'll happen someday.

And here's a list of books I'm working my way through as of right now:

1. Hiero the Tyrant and Other Treatises (Xenophon)
2. Scaramouche (Sabatini) - haven't really made much of a dent in this or the ones below just yet, but I've borrowed them, so it's just a matter of time.
3. The Rise of the Greeks (Michael Grant)
4. Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things (Randy O. Frost) - is it of any significance that this is making it into the post about adding to my stash? Oh, and see also my hunt for a loom.
5. The Rome that did not Fall (Stephen Williams) - have not yet borrowed this due to the number of items I have out already, but again, on my list.

That's all for now. I think I'm keeping along at a good pace, yeah?