November Reading List

I get less and less coherent every month. I spent a lot of time playing Coral Island this month instead of reading

Books I read

• The Orphans of Raspay - Another Penric books, honestly constantly delightful - physical library book
• Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor - all of her books are fucking amazing and I love them so much. This one is about someone doing her best to learn and grow during hard times - library e-book
• Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White - incredibly fucked up and amazing. Serious religious trauma stuff. But incredible. library e-book
• Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold - aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa so goooooooooooooooood library e-book
• Grave Expectations by Alice Bell - I loved this wacky murder whodunit book about a couple of dorky weirdos who aren't very good at it but do what they can anyway library e-book
• Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse - really enjoyable, mostly enjoyed the setting and the details, meh on the obsession with a mentor who abandoned her library e-book
• Alex Wise vs. the End of the World by Terry J. Benton-Walker - definitely aimed at the pre-teen, young teen market but still an enjoyable story with a good plot library e-book
• System Collapse by Martha Wells - muuuuurderrr bottttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt library e-book

Re-read

• The Clockwork Boys by T. Kingfisher - so good! so good

DNF

• Blood Debts by Terry J. Benton-Walker - I found all the characters fairly unlikeable and not relatable at all (to me!) I think this book was not for me library e-book
• Masters of Death by Olivie Blake - I think this is a popular book but I put it down after two chapters because the tone was meh and I didn't like the explicit sex details as told by a third person in the room (weird!) library e-book

November Crafting Update and December Goals

November crafting goals

• spin alpaca, skein, wash and label yarns - spun another bobbin of alpaca, ~10 of 24oz spun. Didn't do the other stuff. Did finish the singles of my traveling spindle project which has been on the spindle for at least two years now. Almost forgot about the merino roving whoops. I spun up and plyed about 8 oz of merino blend roving to make mittens for my sister for Christmas, details below
• knit on sweater - knitted some
• crochet mittens - finished one mitten, working on the second. I need to figure out how I'm going to add the fleece lining
• chart tablet woven bands for gifts, finish current band and start gift bands - I think I worked on it a bit but haven't finished the current band or done the other stuff
• warp new weaving project - warped, threaded, sleyed and weaving! I'm about halfway done the actual weaving and it looks cool as hell but I'm going to wait to post pictures until I finish
• process fleece - worked on the mohair which is now at the top of the line
• wash one sheep fleece and the mohair fleece - done! I washed a merino fleece without felting it at all and the mohair fleece (mohair fleece needed so many rinses)
• Work on jacket - quilted the jacket pieces but stalled out when I realized I don't own sewing scissors and need to get some to cut through the three layers.

Only one photo this time since I didn't really finish much.
This is the merino blend roving. I got it as a gift from my mom two or so years ago. I don't actually know where she got it but it's very commercial top blend of merino and like, bamboo or silk or something. Not my taste. I spun another similar blend that she got me into yarn that I gave away to a friend. But Z liked the color and I like a challenge so I spun it up. The mittens are going to be fingerless mitts so Z can use them at work, so they also need to be durable, unlike merino blends which are soft and pill and make a mess. So I took the two ply Coopworth that I spun up extremely fine and hard, and spun it into the singles with a lot of twist to give it strength and structure. I knitted a couple of rows to make sure it would retain enough elasticity (it did) and then spun the rest and have started knitting already. The merino blend mostly had the coopworth embedded in it, not like a corespun or coiled yarn. It's basically impossible to see because it's black and the blend is so dark. You also can't feel it in the plyed yarn which is super cool. The yarn is slightly thicker than worsted so I'm making a lot of progress on the mittens very quickly (for me). Lots of ply twist and I narrowly won bobbin chicken. If the mittens start to have wear, it should just be the merino blend that wears off but the structural integrity of the mittens should be fine because of the coopworth inside, so it should be easily re-lined if it all wears away.



December goals

• spin alpaca, skein, wash and label yarns
• knit mittens for gift
• crochet mittens
• tablet weave gift
• finish weaving current project and maybe warp on new project
• mohair garment in a year - currently combing fleece
• 100 days of spindle spinning - starting Dec 1st, based on instagram
• work on quilted jacket
• wash a fleece?