rafting roundup for 2023!Winter
I posted my 2022 crafts roundup and cited new goals for 2023:
One friend has requested a shawl; I'd like to try something fancy (before next Christmas!). I'd like to try yet another complicated Kate Davies pattern. And finish the blanket/wrap I started last year!
I didn't do any of this, except that I finished the wrap! I also knit a new hat featuring a moth and baked piña colada cookies, and made mantı! The same post features cake, paper dolls, sewing projects, earrings by a friend's daughter, and me trying espresso with a lemon twist!
Spring
Knitting with Our Flag Means Death-inspired wool!
Chocolate cake baking class with Samba Schutte!
Summer
Cookies from a recipe in a story!
Autumn
Still working on the Our Flag Means Death scarf
Birthday cake and a new baby blanket!
Cupcake baking class with Samba Schutte!
Mostly, I was writing! Update coming soon. Meanwhile, a short snip from Larksong:
Larksong is set in Montreal, July 1914.
In chapter 1, Alice, after her grandmother's funeral, arrived at the family cottage to take care of her grandmother's aviary, only to find that her parents had already leased the cottage to another family for the summer.
The only way she could have one more summer in her favourite place was to surreptitiously take on the role of governess to the two young girls...
In chapter 2, we met George, laid up at the hospital with a broken leg. Instead of joining his friends on a Grand Tour of Europe, he's being sent off to recuperate at a rented cottage in the country...
In chapter 3, we returned to Alice's point of view, and saw her bonding with George's younger sisters. Then she got a surprise -- George was arriving at the cottage that very day!
In chapter 4, we had a hint that Alice finds George attractive and interesting -- but also unbearably rude.
In chapter 5, they had their first argument.
In chapter 6, they argued once more, but the stakes were higher: war is on the horizon.
In chapter 7, George attempted a rapprochement. The chapter ended with him asking, "Why don't we both go sit in the parlour?"
In chapter 8, Alice had some feelings stirring...
In chapter 9, during their first evening together, they began to suss each other out over a card game.
In chapter 10, we reached the end of the evening, with harsh words from George, but a détente of sorts before they went their separate ways for the night.
In chapter 11, we started the next morning in George's point of view, with his dawning realization of his attraction to Alice.
In chapter 12, we saw that this realization did not lead to greater friendliness.
In chapter 13 (which I mistakenly also labelled as 12!), a new complication arose, in the form of the arrival of George's rather rude brother.
In chapter 13 (hopefully I won't make any further numbering errors!), George was busy with inappropriate (as he thinks) thoughts of Alice.
(I've skipped a scene where Alice takes the girls down to the lake and needs to pretend with a neighbour, Mrs Chase, that she is not a governess, but simply helping out with the girls. Then, while Alice is distracted, trying to spin her web of half-truths and discussing the threat of war on the horizon, Lucy gets up on a rickety boat tied up at the dock and fell off into the water.)
In chapter 14, on returning from the lake, Alice and the girls overheard an argument that ended with this outburst from George to his brother Albert: "I don't need your tales of self-pity. The question is, what are you going to do about it, now that you've f***ed it all up?"
In chapter 15, we witnessed the fallout from the argument, then shared a moment between Alice and George in the garden.
In chapter 16, Alice left George and resumed her governess role, and decided not to join George and Albert that evening in the parlour.
In chapter 17, Alice went out early the next morning, to find George rowing on the lake, and joined him.
In chapter 18, we viewed the early morning idyll from George's point of view and considered the age-old art versus artist dilemma.
In chapter 19, we close the morning with Alice's point of view...
She hadn't gone back down to the parlour last night. Alice would have, but not Miss Underwood. Especially not in front of Albert.
Then, this morning, since the moment she'd run down to the dock, she'd been Alice. Herself, clambering into the boat. Herself, talking with George as an equal.
So captivated by his charm that she'd forgotten her role.
She could not reply now as Miss Underwood without crushing him. The only thing to do was to sidestep the issue.
"Are you all right to stand?" she asked quietly, then made a show of checking her watch and gasping, widening her eyes. "I must see to the girls! They'll have been awake for ages. There's breakfast and the morning's lesson. And I've not fed the birds, or–"
"Go on, then." He waved her off.
She took two steps, hesitated, glanced back to find him grasping the bollard.
"Oh, that'll never work." She skipped back to his side and held out her hands. Someone somewhere among the early risers was likely gathering grist for the rumour mill, but it hurt her to watch him floundering.
He slipped his palms onto hers, gripped–warm and sure, strong hands engulfing hers–and she hauled him up until he'd gotten his good leg underneath him.
"However did you get into the boat in the first place?" she asked as she passed over the crutches.
"Let's just say I was glad no one was around to watch–or listen. Get along now, before they send out a search party."
Their gazes met. The green of his eyes sparkled, sunshine glinting off the lake, hiding the profound depths.
She spun away, before she might linger and reveal herself even further, and sped up the path, not running because he was watching, he must be watching, oh if only there'd been time and they could have walked back together, but the girls–the story she'd woven about herself–and the birds–the last link to her former self–before George–and all of her other duties, none of them would wait, and they pulled her along up the path, while her mind–her heart?–lingered on the lakeshore, left behind, bereft.
My latest project, a scarf with wool from Finland!
Travel roundup post coming soon!
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