Fiber Fool

I hate to disappoint you all, but the review of New Pathways for Sock Knitters by Cat Bordhi will not be appearing here on the blog. It is for publication. I can tell you though that I bought my own copy this week even though the review copy has not yet been returned. I just couldn’t bear the thought of not having this book nearby whenever the urge might strike to learn a new sock construction. The first printing is sold out so your best bet of finding a copy before October is at an LYS.

To the left is a pair of the Little Sky Learning Socks from the book. These are knit top down with the gusset spreading out centrally over the front of the leg and star toe - no kitchnering for those who dislike grafting! I think these are just adorable and already my mind is whirling in circles with ideas of things to do with this sort of construction.

The other adorable pair of socks is the second learning sock - Little Coriolis. Note how the spiral of the socks go in opposite directions! *sigh* Ah, I love mirrored symmetry! As with Little Sky I have ideas rushing around in my head for this construction as well. There are not enough hours in the day for sock knitting and my back/neck can’t handle the hours of sock knitting I wish I were doing right now.

Pattern: Little Sky and Little Coriolis Learning Socks
Designer: Cat Bordhi, from New Pathways for Sock Knitters
Yarn: Lion Brand Cotton Ease, 113 Cherry Red
Needles: US 5 Brittany Birch DPNs
Mods: These are slightly smaller as my gauge was 6 sts/in rather than the samples in the book which were 5.5 sts/in. Other than that, no mods as the point was to learn new techniques.

Notes: I really, really suck at the figure-8 cast-on called for in the Little Coriolis pattern. For toe-ups using sock weight yarn where I am set up to knit the socks on 2 circs I think I’ll stick to my handy dandy Turkish cast-on. The second Little Coriolis has a slightly improved toe, but I still knit it twice and it still isn’t quite right.

I also love this heel. It appears to give the fit of a heel flap and gusset, but there is no picking up of stitches, just decreasing the extra “wing” stitches away. It is interesting though because the top down socks look like a traditional toe-up heel flap and gusset and vice versa for the top-down version. I can’t wait until I knit some of these in my size so I can see what the fit of these unusual constructions feel like. However, the Panda Cotton socks and Fountain of Youth socks need finished up first. It’s so hard to not cast on though!

When last I wrote about what I was reading I mentioned that I was going back in the Miss Julia series by Ann B. Ross to read book five that I had accidentally skipped (Stop You’re Killing Me has the appropriate dates associated to the titles, but book five and six are reversed in their order in the list there). I did so, but was disappointed. Miss Julia Meets Her Match was my least favorite read of the series so far.

I cannot say for sure what contributed to my disappointment in this title. Was it the writing, the fact that I knew what the ultimate ending would be, or was I just simply wasn’t in the best mood to be entertained by it? I do find that to most enjoy this series one should be in the right frame of mind to most appreciate Miss Julia’s attempts at keeping her unusual “family” towing the line of prim and proper Southern living. My lack of enjoyment of this title could have also been attributed to reading it too closely to book six. This is one of those series that has a pretty apparent formula. In such cases I find it best to have plenty of time between readings of the books. I’ll be waiting at least a few months before moving on in the series. Since there are only two other titles in the series already published that isn’t a bad course of action anyway.

Let’s move on to more enjoyable reading experiences, huh? Maybe about 6 weeks ago or so I got an e-mail from Audible.com about an author that was “hand picked by James Patterson.” I still don’t know exactly what that means, but the author they spoke of was Chris Grabenstein and his first novel was Tilt-a-Whirl. I popped on my library’s web site a while later to see if they had it and sure enough they did so I checked it out.

In this first book of a series we are introduced to Danny Boyle, a part-time summer cop at the tourist town of Sea Haven, New Jersey. He carries no weapon and chauffeurs around and ex-MP, John Ceepak. Their regular morning routine is interrupted by a blood sprayed young girl screaming in the street outside their breakfast joint. The story just gets crazier from there, with many twists and turns until the final conclusion. I found it very well paced and liked the point of view chosen. I also greatly appreciated the unexpected turns of events that kept me guessing. I will definitely be reading the other two titles (so far) in the series.

At the end of this week I didn’t get out to the library right away so I pulled out the latest Cleo Coyle Coffeehouse Mystery, Decaffeinated Corpse. Up to this point I’ve checked all the titles out from the library, but this title is not appearing as on order and other books have come out since this release that are on the shelves so I went ahead and bought it a few weeks back and I’ll donate it and hopefully it’ll end up on the shelves. I don’t know if perhaps someone else has been buying the others rather than the library purchasing them?

That said, this series is improving with time. While somewhat formulaic in nature, Coyle has really mixed up her formula in this book. Clare Cosi, manager of Village Blend is back to NYC after a summer in the Hamptons. Despite the concerns of her ex-husband, Matt, and her NYPD detective friend, Mike, Clare is back to her usual sleuthing. How can she resist when the ultimate outcome could damage the 100 year reputation of Village Blend? I don’t want to say too much though. There are the usual tips and recipes in the back as well as fun facts about coffee sprinkled throughout the book. I’ll be excited to read the next installment which I’m guessing will be in about a year or so.

There were also two titles I forgot to record and mention. They are no longer very fresh in mind so I don’t have too much to say about either. I picked them up used at Anthology in Loveland when Chris was visiting back in June. They are both the introductory books in series and I will be eventually reading at least a few more titles in both series as I enjoyed them. I’m pretty sure they were both really quick reads. I think I read them back in early-ish July but am not certain of the dates. The titles were Aunt Dimity’s Death by Nancy Atherton. I know I devoured that one, I think in less than 24 hours. The second book was Thyme of Death by Susan Wittig Albert and while I don’t think I went through that one quite as quickly I really enjoyed it as well.

Remember, I’m fiberfool at Shelfari. On recommendation from others I’m also trying out LibraryThing and am also fiberfool there, though I haven’t completed rating or tagging my catalog there. Look me up if you are on either of those!

I started Six of One by Rita Mae Brown as I was awaiting the availability of Harry Potter. It was one I checked out upon recommendation from DH. He had read the synopsis of the Miss Julia books I have been reading and thought it sounded like something I would like. I’m kind of a sucker for southern fiction. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was that Southern Fiction class I took back at UND my final year??

Six of One is the first in a trilogy (with Bingo and Loose Lips) that follows the lives of the Hunsenmeir sisters, Julia and Louise. In the first installment the book is split between 1980 and the era of the World Wars. We get glimpses into how Julia and Louise developed some of their personality and why they often find themselves at odds with each other. Most of the book takes place in the first half of the 20th century, with only short looks at their relationship “now” (being 1980).

Those who dislike character driven plots should not be scared way from this book, however. While there is no burning plot line the book is a joy to read. Brown spends much of her words in dialogue which is philosophical, witty, pithy, and almost always quite entertaining. There are points where the book felt like it dragged a bit. Being set mostly during the wars there were definitely heavy times going on. I found more humor in these parts when I was in the right sort of mood. But if you enjoy well written dialogue, quirky southern characters, and tales of a sisterly relationship this is a must read.

I do feel I need to make one disclaimer - if you are in any way offended by homosexuality you’ll want to give this trilogy a pass. There are no real explicit descriptions of sex and such, but a long-term lesbian couple have a fairly major supporting role in this novel. Okay, maybe another disclaimer, this one only a half one though - it can be hard to keep track of the characters in this book. Many share names that begin with the same letter and several are also referred to with nicknames and in some cases even multiple nicknames which can make it a bit of a challenge to keep everyone straight until you have a good feel of their character.

Following Harry Potter and Six of One I read the newest William Kent Krueger novel, Thunder Bay. Thanks to the newsletter from Stop You’re Killing Me I got on the reserve list at the library quite early and I checked it out on Thursday before the rain hit. I started it on Friday afternoon and finished it early on Saturday morning. Yes, I found it that good! :-)

Thunder Bay is the seventh Cork O’Connor novel. Many of these novels share a bit of formula, but WKK never fails to mix it up a bit by varying the setting and the pacing of his novels. In this novel we return to the fictitious town of Aurora near the iron range of Minnesota. Once again Cork has hung up his Sherrif’s badge, but this time he has obtained a PI license. When his Annashanabe healer friend, Henry Meloux, is hospitalized Cork agrees to help him uncover a secret from his past over 70 years ago. As usual Cork runs into trouble while trying to solve the mystery and he often finds himself at odds on how to balance his family obligations with those of his work. In this novel we see some personal growth in Cork which was refreshing.

Some felt the prior book, Copper River was somewhat of a disappointment. I still enjoyed it, but Thunder Bay was an improvement. Perhaps it was just because he was once again centered at home in Aurora? I don’t know. But if you were disappointed by Copper River, don’t give up on the series.

What’s up next? I have a couple more books out from the library. One a mystery and another Miss Julia book. I decided to break up the mysteries a bit (though some classify Miss Julia as mystery, it is much different than most of the mysteries I read) so I started Miss Julia Meets Her Match, but haven’t had much time to read it as we are getting the house ready for company and I’ve been canning and such this weekend as well.

Of course everyone else has been reading the final Harry Potter book. However, our pre-order has not yet arrived at nearly 6pm on Saturday! And DH will be reading it first. So, because I ran across spoilers when reading blogs last time I will not be reading blogs until I get my chance to read the book. I think we are on the verge of giving up our Amazon Prime order arriving and may see if we can locate a copy locally. This is one problem with a Saturday release. If something goes wrong with your delivery you have days to wait to get stuff straightened out! *sigh*

This week though I did get a book read, Snow Blind by mother-daughter duo P.J. Tracy. It is the fourth and most recent installment in the Monkeewrench series featuring Minneapolis detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth who are backed up by the Mokeewrench geeks.

In this installment a mild Minneapolis winter breaks out of its rut and a couple bodies are discovered at festival attended by scores of families. Soon it appears copycats are popping up elsewhere, but all the clues keep leading back to a sleepy small town north of Minneapolis. An inexperienced new sheriff gets to deal with one of the cases on her first day and she had previously never left the dispatch desk. With the aid of one of her deputies and Magozzi and Rolseth her seemingly never ending first day comes to a head.

I enjoyed the book, though not as much as the third book. Here the Monkeewrench gang only made a few brief appearances, never playing a very significant role in the plot. Grace and her cronies and their interactions with themselves and Magozzi and Rolseth are the most entertaining to me.

I also decided with this fourth read that these books are very formulaic. That shouldn’t be too surprising for mass market murder mystery/thriller book. However, they glaringly followed the same prescribed path as the previous books. They all seem to open with the reader witnessing the minutes leading to the main murder and then we’re off and following the detectives around. Even following the detectives around is pretty predictable if you’ve read the previous books very recently. The last one I read was a coupe months ago yet the similarities were still very obvious. Due to that I am glad that I’ve got up to them. As far as I know a 5th book is not coming up on release in the very near future.

Oh, and if you are Shelfari, I’m over there as well as fiberfool. I mostly have only cataloged my fiber arts library and the books I’ve read so far in 2007, most of which are library books. But look me up so we can exchange reading recommendations.

It has been a long, long time since I last posted about what I was reading. It doesn’t mean I haven’t been reading, it means I’m lazy (backed up partly by the silence that tends to follow a book post). With the aid of my library activity record I brought the sidebar up to date a week or so ago, but thought I’d maybe make quick mention of the fiction I’ve been reading lately…

The last fiction read I made note of was back in early March, which was Copper River by William Kent Krueger (who has a new title out the end of this month, BTW). I haven’t been devouring books lately, I’ve just been too busy, but there are still several to mention.

I have been slowly catching up to the most current of the various food/drink niche mystery series…

• The Blueberry Muffin Murder by Joann Fluke - The third in this Minnesota set culinary mystery series. It is typical of the previous books. Nothing earth shattering, but a fun read, especially if you know Minnesotans as Fluke nails her characters. 6/9
• Sticks and Scones by Diane Mott Davidson - Another in the Colorado-set culinary mysteries featuring caterer, Goldy Bear Schultz. 6/9
• Chopping Spree by Diane Mott Davidson - Again, a Goldy Bear mystery. This one had a bit more action to it. 7/9
• Murder Most Frothy by Cleo Coyle - A Coffeehouse Mystery featuring Clare Cosi, a divorced manager of Village Blend. This one mostly takes place in the Hamptons during the summer. 6/7
• Jasmine Moon Murder by Laura Childs - The fifth Teashop mystery featuring Thodosia, teashop entrepreneur and former advertising exec in Charleston. This was her first title to be released in hardcover. A VP of a large medical equipment company is done in at a Ghost Crawl in an historic cemetery. 6/9
• Chamomile Mourning by Laura ChildsAnother Theodosia mystery in Charleston. This time, a Poet’s tea results in a man falling from the balcony to his death. 6/9

I also checked out a few other books/series recommended to me by others:

• One Heart by Jane McCafferty - This one was a book club read for mom’s club. It examines the ebb and flow of the relationship between two sisters who are often in competition without realizing it. I found it an interesting character study. At points it was quite heart wrenching. 6/9
• Weekend Warriors by Fern Michaels - This series was recommended to me by this little Texan in my water aerobics class, Bobbi. The first Revenge of the Sisterhood book in which a group of women whose lives were wrongly impacted by the failure of the justice system seek out their own form of justice. There were some rather graphic descriptions of violence that surprised, given who recommended it to me. It was a fun read. I found myself laughing out loud many times. I think I’ll be giving the others a read as well. 6/9
• Hey Good Looking by Fern Michaels - My mom recommended this one, saying she wanted to call me in the middle of the night to tell me about it. I didn’t find it quite *that* compelling, but it was a good read and again I found myself laughing out loud a few times. It is a story of tragedy turning out for the better in the long run, with some bumps along the way. A fun southern fiction light romance/family drama.

I’ve revisited a few old series I had forgotten about and discovered a new one or two:

• Miss Julia Hits the Road by Ann B. Ross - A fun southern mystery series starring miss prim and proper Julia Spencer who has taken her former husband’s mistress and illegitimate child under her wings. In this one, Julia finds herself on the back of a motorcycle to raise money to save a low-income neighborhood for her housekeeper and her neighbors. This is the 4th book in the series. I had read the first three several years ago and was reminded of them by my MIL. 6/9
• Miss Julia’s School of Beauty by Ann B. Ross - The sixth book in the Miss Julia series. Yes, I accidently skipped the fifth because Stop You’re Killing Me had it listed before book 5 *sob*. This one cracked me up big time a Miss Julia is unsure where she is really married to Sam Murdoch or not. This leads to many euphemisms about “knowing” each other. I have never heard so many way to refer to sex without getting crude and it was made even funnier due to Miss Julia’s proper Southern lady demeanor. 7/9
• Everywhere that Mary Went by Lisa Scottoline - first legal intrique novel from Scottoline featuring an all-women law firm in Philly. I read one book by Scottoline several years ago and decided to look her back up. I’ll give a few more in this series a go. 6/9
• Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell - The first in a Swedish crime fiction series featuring cop, Kurt Wallander. A very intriguing mystery about a brutal murder of an elderly couple and some apparent hate crimes. 7/9
• Sex, Murder, and A Double Latte by Kyra Davis (audio) - A quirky murder mystery featuring a murder mystery author in San Francisco who thinks she is th next target in a series of serial killings. Mom and I picked this out from Audible as being a highly ranked unabridged mystery novel. I tossed it on my Nano and read it while spinning and gardening and such. I’ll be checking out other titles by this author. 7/9
• Hunting Fear by Kay Hooper - A fast paced thriller. The first of the fear trilogy in which psychic investigators are being taunted by a murderer. This was a fantastic book, though I had a feeling that there was a trilogy or something that preceded this one which might have been good to have read first, though certainly not required. 7/9
• Live Bait by PJ Tracy - The second book featuring Magozzi, Rolseth, and the geeks from Monkeewrench. This is not a series I had forgotten about, but I’m trying to pace myself so I’m not caught up, but it only works for so long. I read this one back in February, but I think I forgot to blog about it. I *loved* it! 8/9
• Dead Run by P.J. Tracy - The third in the Minneapolis-based Monkeewrench series from this mother-daughter duo. Another fun read, though not quite as gripping for me as book number 2. I did manage to hold off reading it until April or May if I remember correctly. 7/9
• Iron Orchid by Stuart Woods - The latest in the “Orchid” series featuring ex-MP Holly Barker and her dog, Daisy. Holly has retired from Orchid Beach and shows up in New York. I didn’t find this one as fun as the earlier books set in Florida, perhaps it was the setting or perhaps it was the loss of Ham appearing semi-regular in the escapades. Still a fun read though. Again, I hadn’t forgotten about this series, but was trying to pace myself. Seeing as there isn’t an announcement of a new one in the near future I didn’t pace myself too well. 7/9

I have also revisited some favorite non-series authors and read some new authors as well:

• Child of Light by Diane Bentley Baker - An interesting tale of a time traveling woman who spreads the knowledge of dyeing, spinning, and weaving through out the cultures of space and time. It is a self-published book through Xlibris and suffers a bit because of it, but it was a good read. You can read my thorough review of it in the Summer 2007 issue of Spin-Off. 6/9
• Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs - A debut novel about a single mother in New York who has run a knitting shop while raising her daughter. Don’t read this book if you are suffering from some undiagnosed medical troubles though. It caused me a few sleepless nights. It was well done and is to be in movie form early next summer. 7/9
• The Ghost Orchid by Carol Goodman - The latest literary suspence in paperback from Goodman. It is a bit different from her previous novels, though it is still very literary. It often takes me a bit to be sucked into her books, but when I’m done reading them I’m always saying “wow, that was a good book.” 8/9
• Irresistible by Susan Mallery (audio) - A feel good romance where single mother, Elissa and Walker Buchanan end up in an unsought romance in Seattle Washington. The second in a series I guess, though I haven’t read the first and it didn’t seem to matter. I think the other books concentrate on various members of the Buchanan family. 6/9
• How to Seduce a Ghost by Hope McIntyre - An interesting romance/suspence novel set in Notting Hill where Ghost Writer, Lee Bartholomew is having a hard time growing up. A new job turns her world upside down while her neighborhood is plagued with arson. I have the follow-up How to Marry a Ghost on hold at the library. 7/9

That catches me up for now. I’ve started the first Anita Blake book by Larrell K. Hamilton, but I’m thinking it just isn’t me. I think I’ll probably grab Harry Potter book 5 here soon so I can have it read before the movie opens next week. But, we’ll see. DH is reading it right now. Other than that I’m waiting for some titles to come into the library.