Yathrib is nearly finished. My goal is to have it, and Nabati (the fingerless mitts), ready to beta knit by the end of May. A dear friend is going to knit a couple samples for me, of a striped stole and a cabled shawlette, and then I hope to have those ready to beta knit by the end of June or beginning of July. The last part of this collection is a dolman type sweater that I am really working to have ready for beta in September or October. It's a lot, but I am excited about all of them.

As a little break from design work, I started a cowl designed by Linette Grayum. Her designs are always so cleverly made and the construction on every one I have made is interesting and suited for the project perfectly. This pattern will be available in about a week, and then you can knit it, too. Her sample was knit with a hand dyed yarn, and I'm using a semi-solid. It would be gorgeous in a tonal, as well. Super quick and easy to follow pattern, and great for a single skein of worsted in a fun colorway. As you can see, I am using the leftovers from Rih to knit it, and it will be good to have a coordinating, but not exactly matching cowl to go with my hood.

I'm also nearly finished with The Diary of a Country Priest and still reading The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew with the kids. I finished The Women in Black (among a spate of brain candy mysteries - see my sidebar), which I enjoyed. A couple of the books I read, though, were a little disappointing. The Other Americans started well, and there was pleny in it that I enjoyed, but seemed to cram in all sorts of immorality and politically correct nonsense that didn't even really fit with the story. It was like the author was checking some list of items that needed to be included. The Arabic Quilt had a lot of potential, and could have been wonderful. Instead, it had the characters preaching at the reader. When authors (television shows, movies, plays, books, any of them) do this, it shows that either they are unable to craft a story that will convey their message or they don't trust their audience to get the message so they have to hammer it at them explicitly. I really wanted to love this book, so it was sad that the author manhandled it so much. It is unfortunate that a non-Arab author wrote a better story in the same category, Mirror, by Jeannie Baker. It isn't the same story, but conveys the message _The Arabic Quilt_ did without insulting the reader.

Linking to Unraveled Wednesday.

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Labels: Books, Design, Governor Inslee Needs a Frozen Fish to the Forehead, Homemaking, Knitting, WIP, Yarn Along

// posted by Ranee @ Arabian Knits @ 10:18 PM