I've been terribly lax about reviewing books for a while now, in part because I've been thinking a lot about audiobook reviews instead.  So let's clear the decks.  Or at least start to clear the decks.

The Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
I've read a number of graphic novels over the last year or so in my ongoing attempts to read all of Scott's books as well as all of mine.  This is the standout.  By far.  Most graphic novels aren't actually that well written.  I appreciate the combination of visual art and story, but not that many people do it well.  These guys do.  The film of this book is due out very soon, of course, so I'd recommend that anyone who intends to see the movie read the graphic novel first.  Books are better than the movies made to copy them most of the time, and this is a very good book. 

Old Dogs: Are the Best Dogs by Gene Weingarten
I'm a sucker for dogs and a big fan of Gene Weingarten, so I read this in the car on the way home from the bookstore.  I was not driving–I should point that out.  This is a little book of beautiful photos and lovely writing about old dogs.  I love it. 

The Story of Chicago May by Nuala O'Faolain
I read this on my trip to Chicago all those months ago.  O'Faolain died last spring of cancer, and her passing made me terribly sad.  She was a brave, talented writer and I hate to think we won't have more of her work to read.  Her biography of the infamous May Duignan is interesting and intriguing.  As is her style, O'Faolain looks beyond the details of May's actions for her animus.  We see May as a prostitute and con artist, but also as a rebel and gender warrior. 

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
A very different Chicago story, and another book I read last winter in preparation for my trip west.  This book has obviously received a lot of attention, so I needn't say much.  I liked Larson's path woven through the World's Fair and Mudgett's scheming and back again.  Mudgett's evil is overwhelming at times, so the trips back to the world of architecture and landscaping are good respite. 

Jeanne and I have been working away on Books For Ears for a little over a year now, and it is a blast.  I’ve talked less about books here because I’ve talked a lot about books there.  It’s really interesting to me to see how the two of us choose and review books, and what we each look for in books.  Check it out if you haven’t yet–I’d love to see you there.

A small locker-hooked rug finished:

A bug new, hooked rug begun:

I’m using leftover and recycled yarns  for this, which is great fun.

And, finally, a huge linen scrap quilt top finished:

Excuse the flash and stray threads and skewed seams . . . Hot damn, am I glad this is done.  It’s 103″ on each side, which is truly–and unreasonably–big.  But I had all this linen, see . . .  It’s far from perfect, but I’m still in love with it.  The colors and texture in real light and up close are far more pleasing, and I love thinking of all of the garments I made for friends that left the scraps to make this.  I don’t know how I could possibly quilt something this big on my machine, and there is no place in my house where I can actually lay it out flat to set up the quilt layers, so I guess I’ll start researching local long-arm quilters.  And, you know, saving up so I can afford to hire someone to quit this beast.

Like many spinners, I have fiber I don’t intend to spin.  Some of it is stuff I used to like to spin but don’t anymore, some of it is felting fiber that I haven’t felt the need to felt, and some of it is raw wool that I only have little bits of here and there.  While I was at Rhinebeck, Jeanne DeCoster proselytized a bit about locker hooked rugs, and then I found one of her kits at Carolina Homespun, and I figured I’d give it a whirl.  I think I have a crush on locker hooking, friends.  I may be saying that because this little rug is just so green, or possibly because I can imagine using up all of the fiber I don’t want to spin but can’t bear to waste this way.  Sweet, no?  I’m nearly done now–this project flies.  If all goes as planned, the bound, washed, blocked rug will serve as a well-appreciated cat bed.   Unless I make it into an odd but very warm hat for myself.

Also, I took Shelia’s mitten class at the KR retreat, and I’ve made a fair number of mitts already, so I figured I should add an additional dimension to my class project.  I made these, using some orange worsted from Elann and a pencil roving some kind person put in the stash lounge.

I think that counts as a cross between licing and thrumming.  The inside of the mittens is, well, tentacular.

It’s actually a bit annoying.  I’ve only had a few opportunities to wear these so far, but I predict that I’ll snip all of those connections and work a bit harder on felting down those thrums.

The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson

Boy howdy, how I loved this book.  My brother David turned me on to Stephenson a few years ago.  He loaned me a copy of Cryptonomicon, explaining that I had to at least read the stuff on a fictional language spoken on a fictional island between Scotland and Iceland since I "like all that linguistic stuff" or something to that effect.   And, of course, novels aren't indexed, so I poked around, couldn't find the right bit, figured I should read the whole thing, and fell in love with the novel after three or four pages. 

In this instance, Scott picked up The Diamond Age (rather than reading Cryptonomicon as I'd suggested–people and their silly free will), started reading it, and immediately began informing me over and over that I would love this book.  Which made me want to steal the damn thing from him, of course.  It's bad to taunt me with books, you know.   Some strange little part of my brain is pretty well convinced that all the books in the world are mine, which is part of the reason I'm so offended when I read a bad one and so wary of loaning books out if I have any affection for them whatsoever.  Some people have dreams of striking it rich so that they can buy boats and fast cars and fancy jewelry.  I just want to be able to freely give away extra copies of books I love and never have anyone take my personal Precious away.  Yes, I know that's nuts.  I don't care.

I don't want to say much of anythig about the plot, since I know so many people love to be surprised by every page.  Suffice it to say, The Diamond Age is set in a alternate future, wherein nation-states as we know them have basically been replaced by commercial/social phyles such as the New-Victorians, who are a community of well-educated, English-speakng, wealthy people who profit primarily from nano-tech but value handmade, Victorian-influenced goods and fashion.  Stephenson fans (who have already read this) will recognize the universe of Snow Crash, several decades on.  The main character, Nell, is an impoverished kid who accidentally becomes entangled in a major Neo-Vicki project.  Chaos ensues.  Nell is wonderful.  La la la.  I promise to spoil nothing.

I love that Stephenson writes women and girls so well.  Sadly few male writers do, and much of sci-fi suffers because of that.  I also love some steam-punk just about wherever I can find it, and the neo-Victorians and the craftsmen who supply them make my little craft-loving heart pitter pat.  And most importantly, I love Stephenson's use of language.  The man is precise, his vocabulary is huge, and he really thinks about his work choices.  It's rare enough to find that, but when it's paired with such inventive plotting and  world-building the results are astounding.  I know I'll read this book again, and I'll probably keep an eye out for used copies I can distribute to the needy. 

I've been hemming and hawing for far too long on this one, and I just can't do what I want.

I's love to talk to you about xeriscaping, but it's winter here and my garden is showing no evidence of any of my experiments in xeriscaping.  Virginia can be a tough place to xeriscape, because xeric plants do well during our droughts but rot at the roots during our wet, swampy periods. 

I would talk to you about xenoliths, but I gave away my rock collection years ago.

I'm a fan of xylography, but cannot practice it if I want to keep all of my fingers.  

Part of my worried self kept focusing on excision and extinction, because I did worry so about our dear xanthic Yarrow.  But, post-excision, Yarrow is doing quite well.  And he's also managing to do a lot of evil.  And he deserves his own post.  

As I mentioned, I made some socks for me;

And I made some socks for Scott (which are much bigger than mine, despite appearances,  and also have little clothes-pin dents, which please and annoy me by turns) ; 

And I received a gorgeous clapotis Ruadhan made for my birthday, and which I cannot stop wearing;

And a beautiful scarf Purlewe made with yarn from Martha.

I feel so fortunate to have knitting friends who are so kind to me.   We knitters really love to receive hand-knits, though I don’t think it happens that often.  It should.  It is a wonderful thing. 

Scott likes this pair of socks, which is a relief because the first pair I made him were in a sock-yarn that did not pass muster.  These are a merino silk blend, and thus soft and warm and itch-free. 

I’m still working away on a couple of patterns, so my current knitting is under wraps.  Some quilting time has passed rather well, which I’ll try to show you soon.  I also keep making those blasted bags, but need to really knuckle down and find a better way to photograph them for Etsy.  The winter sun isn’t visiting me often, and my  studio is always too dark, and I can’t very well drive to Mathom’s End to borrow Phalen’s studio every time I make a few bags to sell. 

Take note of the Winter Solstice this weekend, friends.  We’re about to start getting more daylight again, which most of us need.

I am truly starting to miss daylight.  I have things to photograph, and I can't get find any daylight. 

I made a lovely, soft, simple pair of socks for Scott. 
I made a lovely, soft, simple pair of socks for myself.
Two friends gave me beautiful knitted gifts.
I've been sewing like mad. 
I lucked into a pile of pre-felted sweaters for upcycling, thanks to the serendipity of freecycle and my friend Carol.
I'm well into another silk shawl, this one for Spirit Trail. 
I've started on something charming for Knitter's Review

Sigh.

Unfortunately,  I did get some rather disconcerting film . . . from a plumber.  We get to replace part of our sewer line.  Our house has settled onto the line and snapped it.  Blasted pipes.  That I won't share.  We have some decent stop-gap options for now, but some nasty equipment will need to make a nasty hole in my garden, and there's no avoiding it. 

The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke

I was so taken by Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell that I knew I'd read whatever Clarke I could find.  I always worry when I like a book that much that I'll judge the rest of the author's work too harshly.  Thankfully Clarke's wit, creativity, and talent shine through in her short stories as well as her magnum opus. 

In these stories, Clarke focuses on stories about women who practice magic.  We get hints of such magicians in her earlier novel, but she has the space in these stories to really flesh out women practicing magic in her alternate Britain.  A few of the stories shine more brightly than the rest, but I enjoyed them all.  I'm likely to read these again, and am particularly interested in hearing them in audiobook format.

When I get right down to it, I do it for the love of wool.  Crewel is my favorite form of embroidery.  A desperate need for wool socks brought me to knitting.  I love to sew wool,  knit wool, spin wool, quilt wool, and wear wool.  I love sheep.  I love the way wool accepts dye.  Wool wool wool. 

All of which I need to chant to myself to ply up some of my handspun.  I hate plying.  Hate hate hate it.   This, thankfully, is a jumbo bobbin full of two-ply fingering weight I spun up and then sat on for ages.   I knuckled down and plied this and some other, deeper blue wool I'd spun even longer ago last weekend.  And during that plying binge, I whined, stamped my feet, cursed, tried to bribe Scott into plying for me, and made a lot of empty threats involving my wheel, my wool, matches, and accellerants.  This handspun wool yarn is all clean now, skeined and draped over my drying rack, waiting to turn into something lovely.  And different, green, better wool singles are winding onto my bobbin inch by inch.  All the while, I'm trying to pretend someone else will ply that once all of the roving is spun up.