Gearing Up

As I mentioned before, this is an off month for the HPKCHC. This doesn't mean I haven't been knitting though! I finished the wedding gifts I had been working on:

I also started a new project, which I'm not going to blog about just yet because its for a swap. This means I only have 3 WIPs, the project I just mentioned, the Invisibility Scarf (which is my easy knitting) and my brother's vest. The vest will be my detention knitting starting tomorrow. I'm going to try and participate in WIP Wednesdays, which means on Wednesdays I concentrate on my WIPs rather than new projects.

Wanna see what I have planned for next month? (DISCLAIMER: none of these photos are mine as I haven;t made these items yet!)

These are the projects I am hoping to make in September. Pretty ambitious, eh? I know I probably wont even start all these, let alone finish, but it gives me a place to start tomorrow when class prompts are posted. From the top: Flourish bookmark, Sell Your Sole socks, Bunny Blanket Buddy, Shalom Cardigan, and Bakersfield. All but the shawl are free patterns! I have to wait until my paycheck comes in to buy the pattern for the shawl... which actually might be a good thing since I want to see if it fits into a class prompt first!

Knitting progress (with proof!)

I've been really bad about taking pictures. Well, to be honest I'm always bad about taking pictures. I blame it on the fact that my mother is a photographer... I've never needed to worry about taking them! I also definitely did not inherit her photo taking skills. But knitting is one area of my life that I feel strongly about taking pictures of, so here's what I've been working on!

First up is a finished object. This is the first of two towels that I will be giving some good friends for their wedding at the end of the month.

Please excuse the completely wrong time stamp on all these pictures. The batteries must have been taken out at some point and I didn't realize it when I was taking them.

Here is the second towel, about 40% done.

Its hard to get an idea of the green, because it shows up a bit funny in the pictures, but I really like these two colors. I also really like this project. I made both of them out of Knit Picks CotLin yarn, which I'm a pretty big fan of as well. I plan on making (designing?) some washcloths to make with this stuff at a later date.

Lastly, I'm still working on the Gryffindor House scarf. This project is mt mindless knitting, so I take it in the car or pick it up when I am watching TV.

The other projects that are still on the needles haven't been touched in a while, so I didn't photograph them. I plan on working on my brother's vest regularly (at least once a week) come September to finish it by Christmas. My socks are... sitting. I haven't decided what to do with them yet. And I've got a couple projects just waiting to be cast on, but more about those later!

Reading away

Well I've been terrible about keeping up with the blog. My apologies. Last I posted I was scurrying to finish some projects by the end of the month and getting ready to leave on vacation. I'll have to do a separate vacation post (sometime soon!) because I haven't gotten the photos off my phone yet. I will recap my knitting progress though (though I don't have any photos of that either).  I was able to finish one of my full size socks and a mini sock out of my Sunshine Yarns Snape. I'm not thrilled with either. The regular sock is a bit to large- entirely my fault. I over accommodated for my slightly large ankles. I'm pretty sure I'm going to frog and restart, but I haven't done so yet. The mini sock is fine, but I think I cut it a little short since I didn't have any measuring tools with me on vacation. Since this is the swatch for my OWL (hopefully) I want it to be perfect, so I may redo that as well. I finished the green dishtowel and I'm currently about 25% on the second (in a nice linen color). I've been working almost exclusively on this because its for a wedding at the end of the month. I'm also hoping to make a dishcloth too, but we'll see. What other projects are still WIPs? My brother's vest still sits about a quarter done. Once September hits that will be my detention knitting for a little while. The only other project that is still on the needles is my scarf I plan on selling. This is nice mindless knitting that I do while watching TV or riding in the car. I am seriously considering perpetually always having one of these going!

You're probably wondering why I'm blabbing on about knitting when the title is about reading. The knitting part did go on pretty long, didn't it? I've been doing lots of reading thanks to my Nook. I realized I haven't blogged much about what I'm reading, so this is a bit of a catch up post. Here are the books I've read so far in 2011: The Mists of Avalon, A Great and Terribly Beauty, Faerie Wars, The 5 Love Languages, Shop Smart, Save More, The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy, The Last Olympian, and I reread Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I wasn't super impressed with the Mists of Avalon, A Great and Terribly Beauty, or the Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy. Mostly they just didn't interest me or weren't the type of book I felt like reading at the time.

I really liked Faerie Wars- its the first book in a series and I plan on continuing it! I think there are five in the series and I want to read the second one as soon as I clear a few more books off my "to read" list. I haven;t read any books based solely on fairy folklore, so its been interesting. The second book is called "The Purple Emperor". I think it might be next on my list after the current read.

 I was sad to finish the Percy Jackson series, but I have a couple other Rick Riordan books queued up. I REALLY enjoyed that series. Even though it was written for a younger age group I still related quite well to the characters and the part mythology plays in the series interest me also.

I'm currently rereading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Katie Couric's book "The Best Advice I Ever Got". I'm only about 50 page sin so far, but its pretty motivating. Stay tuned for a vacation recap and pictures!