Knitting and Books

I did a lot of knitting this weekend while listening to an audiobook.  The book was The Mistress' Daughter. I first heard about this book some time ago and was really interested in the story. It is a memoir of the author's life and deal with finding out that her birth mother was the mistress of a married man.  The book starts off very good but just past the middle of the book she starts repeating things as it's five to seven years later and her character is flashing back to things that happened in the beginning of the book. If I were reading the book rather than listening to it, I may not have been so annoyed with it but when you are dealing with audio you tend to remember more and not need to be reminded of the past that just happened two hours ago.  Part of the book discusses people she found during the search of her genealogy. It got really bad as she was discussing dead people that really didn't add any interest or purpose to the story.  And some of these dead people weren't even related to her.  She just wanted someone to remember them so she threw them in.  Towards the end of the book, she lists a bunch of questions that she would ask her father if she had him sitting down for a deposition.  Those questions went on for more than half an hour.  Just question after question.  No conversation.  Just questions.  I fast forwarded through this as once again as this added nothing to the story and repeated things in question form that had happened in the book.  Sadly, I would not recommend this book to anyone.  If you read it, the first and last bits are lovely.  The bit in the middle, not so much.  I considered reading more books from the author (A. M. Homes) when I was enjoying the book but I'll have to really think about that considering the outcome.

Okay, on to the knitting.  

Using some leftover wool yarn, I made the coaster that I need for my bedside table.  I had a little bit of three colors left so I striped them.  I very happy with how it turned out.  Now I can set a glass of ice by the bed at night and not have to worry about a puddle forming during the night.  And since I still have some of the purple yarn left (this stuff refuses to die!), I will probably do a smaller one for my desk.

I managed to finish another one of the burp cloths for my friend Ching Sia.  I still need to get the applique sewn on.  So this makes six of the seven.  I will cast the last on some time this week and hopefully be ready to mail this weekend.  It took over a month to finish this one.  Let this be a sign to all of you.  If you think it's a good idea to knit a whole week of something, it's not. You will get bored long before you finish.

The procrastination scarf is finished.  I decided not to do a super long scarf because I think this is the perfect scarf for wearing with a blazer.  I'm not entirely happy with this as that means I'm left with one ball of the gray Geode and quite a bit left of the red Cascade 220 which may become another coaster.  For close up pictures of the scarf, check out my Ravely project page or my Flickr pictures.

I saw some really miserable looking people out Christmas shopping in Kohls this weekend.  The holiday season has barely started and already the unhappiness is surfacing.  I'm wishing all of you a very happy holiday season.  I don't want to see you looking unhappy walking through the mall spending way too much money for a bunch of people that may not appreciate it anyway.  Just my thought.  Be blessed.