How do I come back from this?

 I debated not posting at all, but it has been a month and I don't want to leave anyone hanging.

And I'm probably about to say something like "I don't have an enormous amount to share" but what I really mean is "I didn't take very many pictures of the things I have to share"-- also, my focus has shifted a lot in the last few weeks and it's really difficult to encapsulate it all in a single blog post.  And that makes me want to not even start, but that just makes it more difficult for future me.  I do try to be nice to future me, she's nice.  she thinks fondly of past me, which is current me.

Moving on.

I haven't worked on my cross stitch really at all in the past month.  It's there, haunting me.  But I don't really miss it.  The season of vanilla knitting and reading is upon me and I am powerless to stop it.  I wouldn't want to.  This is one of the best seasons.

I suppose I have to start from the beginning.  about a month ago I got yarn for a baby sweater for a dear friend of mine who is having a baby (obviously).  I casted on immediately, because babies are pressing and they need sweaters and they grow DAMN fast.  It's a very cute pattern and it's a very cute sweater.

See?  CUTE! And not vanilla.  Well, it's vanilla now.  The yarn is knit picks stroll, and it's the exact color of a pumpkin pie.  The pattern is fossil frenzy.  I used that double knitting jacquard technique for the very loooong floats.  It knit up super fast.  At the time I was knitting this, I was watching through the entire library of Jenny Nicolson's videos on youtube.

I am currently on the second sleeve.  It's straight knitting, like a sock.  In fact, it's a similar stitch count to a sock, and the length is similar to a foot.  baby knitting is super nice.

Anyway.  Somewhere in there, during Christmas, my brother came to visit.  We watched a lot of movies and shows and my brioche sweater came out of hibernation.  I was on one of the sleeves and realized I could finish it if I got to knitting it.

And look at that.  You can't tell, but it's a lovely oversized sweater.  I even blocked it.  I'm wearing it currently.  The yarn is berroco comfort DK (I think.  I'm probably wrong). I bought it to make Zac a sweater like 3 years ago and never did cause Zac doesn't really wear sweaters and I was tired of knitting for someone who doesn't like wearing my knits.

Anyway, this came about last year when I wanted to start a new thing and I wanted it to be brioche.  I believe I called it 'the age of brioche.' good stuff.

Well, with that done, I now am down to 3 sweaters.  (again).  bb sweater, crochet cardigan, and the nightshades sweater.

And new year happened, so I casted on a new thing.  My favorite podcaster, the fat squirrel speaks, started a make-a-long for the new year, and my LSG group always does a NYE cast on.  so I cast on a shawl.  This is a garter and mesh simple triangle.

This is a few days worth of knitting while reading.

The crochet cardigan is still there and gets love occassionally, it's not mindless and so it's not my go-to.  I have to watch what I'm doing, I can't crochet without looking. Anyway.

I actually haven't done an enormous amount of knitting in the last 2 or so weeks.  I have read 3 books.  3! that doesn't sound like a lot to some people, but the entire year of 2022 went by and I only read 5 and a half books.  (they were long-ass books, but still).  I decided to drop the enormously stupid idea I had of actually making it through the sword of truth books.  I've tried a few times over the years.  I did finish the series about ten years ago for real.  And then since then every few years I feel like joining Richard and Kahlan and their libertarian wet dream.  It's bad.  It's real bad.  The whole thing is bad.

Amy knows.

I asked her what she was reading, cause I was just absolutely sick of how bad these books are.  She told me she was reading the Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir.  It's a sci-fi quasi-fantasy involving necromancers and space travel.  There's some really interesting delves into big ideas like grief and loss, love and stuff.  It's dark, with some dark humor.  oh! and there are lesbians.  The covers of the books like to talk about the gay necromancers, but ffs, I read three (of four, the fourth isn't out yet) and it's not a main plot point.  Representation is good, but it's not how I would characterize the books.

Anyway.  I asked some other friends what I should read.  I'm feeling fantasy, and romance.  And I didn't know even the first place to begin.  I knew I didn't want A Court of Thorns and Roses.. that shit was awful.  But, it was the correct genre.  I wanted something like that, but written well.  Anyway.  I got a lot of recommendations and now my To Be Read pile is getting quite long.  I'm digging it.

House stuff.  There's some house stuff.  I haven't started painting, but I did buy paint.  And we got some stripper for the banister.  Zac wanted to stain the wood that's underneath and it really was transformative.

Before:

After:

See?  transformative.

That took a whole weekend.  It was going to take a lot longer, cause the stripper Zac got at first was terrible and we were going to end up scraping most of it off manually.  He got better stripper and it worked a LOT better and faster.  And we finished the entire job during his 4 days off!

Ok.  that's the lot.  Sorry about neglecting you all.  I kept thinking about making a post but not really knowing where to start.  Hopefully I'll come back in a few weeks and I can get a more normal posting schedule established again.

Cheers!

ope.  Bonus finished socks: