Baking and Knitting and Strawberries and ROW80

raft post!

I've not not been writing, including a final round of copy edits for Druid's Moon, but I've also been knitting quite regularly!

 

Among other activities...

Apple pie and cookies!

Brownies and cherry muffins (cherries from the cherry tree in our landlady's garden!)

Walking to the strawberry field...

Through the vines...

Strawberries!

So many!

Open house at the winery up the road

Checking on the kirsch in progress...

Memorabilia!

Our village, 200 years ago

We bought the carved stone from Marilyn Designs...

...and coloured it!

In other news, we've been designing LEGO dinosaurs!

A sewing project at school

My latest project

Using up some of my leftover yarns with the Dathan Hap pattern

Ancient Christmas ornaments!

From the late 1950s, early 1960s

Pysanka! I didn't make these; they're by author Marsha Skyrpuch. I had a chance to make real Ukrainian Easter eggs years ago (with traditional dyes and the real melted wax and instruments) at a friend's house; it was really fun and I'd love to do it again

Starting a new project, to make goods for a solidarity breakfast to be held at my daughter's school...

...potholders by me...

...and bookmarks by E!

The complete collection!

As for my upcoming ROW80 goals, I'm back to participating in the monthly exercises on thelitforum, and I need to revise my query for Captive of the Sea, after some great feedback on Nathan Bransford's blog!

Which fruits and vegetables are in season where you are?

Blogging From A to Z April Challenge!

or the first time since 2017, I’m doing the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge!

In 2017, I collated all my blog posts up till then

In 2016, I focused on JRR Tolkien and the Inklings

In 2015, I featured books I’d read based on a reading challenge

In 2014, I didn’t have a theme!

 
In 2013, I collated all my Twitter favourites up till then (it was a LOT easier to organize Twitter back then)

In 2012, I listed all my favourite books

This year I’m going to focus on fellow authors and bloggers!

 

I’ll cover all the guest posts, blog hops, cover reveals, interviews, and more, that I’ve featured over the years (mostly sorted by surname, with some sorted by title). Please share your favourite blog hops and blogging events and book covers in the comments!

Plus a photo (or a few) for each day, taken by my daughter (or of her!) on a visit to the canton of Schwyz (one of the founding cantons of Switzerland, in 1291)!

This year's A to Z team is:

Arlee Bird (founder) at Tossing it Out

J Lenni Dorner (captain) at Blog of Author J Lenni Dorner

Zalka Csenge Virág at The Multicolored Diary

John Holton at The Sound of One Hand Typing

Jayden R Vincente (spreadsheets) at JR Vincente Erotica Writer

Anjela Curtis (graphics) at AnjelaCurtis.com

And now... Z!


The trip is over! Back to baking and knitting (and writing and blogging and...)...

Author for Z
Nicole Zoltack: Masked Love
Nicole Zoltack: Bernard Pivot blogfest

Who is your favourite author or blogger or musician beginning with Z?

IWSG Day, Olympics, Ulysses, and the Newbery Medal

elcome to Insecure Writer's Support Group Day!

This month's question is: Is there someone who supported or influenced you that perhaps isn't around anymore? Anyone you miss?

The awesome co-hosts for the February 2 posting of the IWSG are Joylene Nowell Butler, Jacqui Murray, Sandra Cox, and Lee Lowery!

I'm lucky in that I haven't lost any of my direct supporters. But my grandmother's marriage was part of the inspiration for the love story of Rosa and Baha in Out of the Water, and she passed away a few years ago. Their names are directly taken from my grandparents' names, and I had to give them alternate names when sharing the novel with my mother.


This year marks two centenaries: of Ulysses and of the Newbery Medal.

A new recording of Ulysses is in the works. It would be such a different experience to hear it rather than read it!

I blogged about reading Ulysses a while ago:

" It took me a year - I read a chapter each Sunday (or so). After each chapter, I read the corresponding chapter in Stuart Gilbert's James Joyce's Ulysses: A Study. Is it really possible to read Ulysses without any help at all? I haven't tried Finnegan's Wake yet... A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is still my favourite of his writing."

A long time ago I also blogged about knitting during the Olympics. Now we have Tom Daley, who knits during the Olympics. I can't wait to try one of his patterns!

I may try Olympics knitting again this year, as I've got an easy pattern for a Gryffindor scarf that I've just started on!

Abebooks has a list of all 100 Newbery Medal winners. They all look so interesting! Some of them I know of, but haven't read yet. I can't believe I've only read 16 of them!

These are the ones I've read -- and reread! (I've read other books by Lloyd Alexander and Jean Craighead George, but not the winners):

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, 2009
The View from Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg, 1997
The Giver by Lois Lowry, 1994
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, 1990
Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary, 1984
Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt, 1983
Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson, 1981
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson, 1978
The Grey King by Susan Cooper, 1976
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien, 1972
Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars, 1971
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg, 1968
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, 1963
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare, 1959
The Cat Who Went to Heaven by Elizabeth Coatsworth, 1931
The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting, 1923

I also feel like I've read The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli, 1950, but it must have been a long long time ago. I wish I'd kept book lists as a kid! I'll have to reread it to make sure.

Which of the winners have you read?

Crafts of 2021 Roundup

rafting roundup!



November baking and a new blanket

October 3D Tolkien puzzle! and other non-knitting crafts...

September baking and gardening!

August baking (bread!) and knitting!

June and July: Words With Friends fun

Then there are these two from December (this reminds me of back in the day when I once shared screenshots from Farmville):

Baking and Worldwide Knit in Public Day!

Baking and knitting and yoga!

May baking and knitting and mantı!

April baking and knitting!

Baking and cooking and knitting and the Did This Year Actually Happen pandemic calendar (inspired by Amanda Palmer)

February and March baking and knitting!

Jemi's brownie muffins!

January: the 2020 roundup

And for 2022? I have a cowl to finish knitting and my daughter has asked for a Gryffindor scarf, but otherwise, I don't really have any crafting goals, except to try one of the more complicated Kate Davies patterns. The new club, Argyll's Secret Coast, starts soon!

Also, when I've saved up to pay for the shipping, I would dearly love some playing cards feature the anthology in which I have a story!

Here are the most recent crafts:

Tolkien puzzle!

I received this as a gift in 2002, and this is my second time completing it since then!

Bread by me, hats knit by a friend!

Knitting...during the annual reread of The Lord of the Rings

Another exciting thing this year was giving my daughter one of our older digital cameras. I shared some of her photos here and here and here.

This is the latest batch!

What kinds of crafts will you be working on this year?