Posted by Som
Sat, 07 Jan 2006 01:49:00 GMT
Christmas was a real boon for my crafting supply stash this year. In addition to a self-healing cutting mat, a pair of nice dressmakers' shears, and a copy of Sashiko, my husband also gave me some lovely kimono scraps from Ah! Kimono:
With a bit of kimono fabric, I put together my very first kanzashi hair ornament:
It's simple and a little rudimentary, but I like it.
I also received a big ol' honkin' sack full of cotton fat quarters from my mother:
Those will come in handy for purse interiors, lap quilts, and some fabric balls I've been dying to make.
And I got a Barnes & Noble gift card from my sister-in-law. I purchased Mindful Knitting, Omiyage, and Kafka on the Shore. Expect reviews of those books, and Sashiko, at a later date.
So I should have plenty to keep me busy in the coming year: a sashiko duvet cover and pillows for my bed, projects from Omiyage using those kimono scraps, and learning to use knitting as a focus for meditation. And hopefully - hopefully - I'll get around to blogging a little more often.
If I have the time in between all these projects, that is.
Posted in stash, books | Tags gifts, kanzashi | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Som
Sat, 07 Jan 2006 01:31:00 GMT
Whew! It's been a while since I've updated my poor, neglected little blog. I'm updating twice tonight: once for the knitting gifts, and again for the crafty gifts I received.
Although I knitted gifts for five different people this year, I only managed to get photos of the hats and scarves I gave my daughters. To my grandmothers, I gave the Airy Scarf from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts. I started and frogged and restarted that scarf for three days before I realized that the instructions were wrong; to anyone who's interested, you should cast on 23 stitches, not 22. I have plenty of fingering-weight yarn leftover, so I'll probably make another one for myself and upload a photo of that sooner or later.
For my grandfather, I knitted a pair of fingerless mitts. It was my first project on double-pointed needles, so I'm pretty sore that I didn't get a snapshot of them before I gave them away. I have plans to use that same pattern for some longer striped fingerless mitts for myself.
The projects I did get pictures of are hats and scarves for my two little girls:
Yes, little Izzy's hat is missing a pom-pom. There was an incident involving my in-laws' dogs. I don't want to talk about it.
These projects are super-quick and super-easy, and I've never received more compliments for something I've knitted. If you'd like the pattern, click "read more" below.
Read more...
Posted in knitting, books | Tags gifts, patterns | no trackbacks
Posted by Som
Sun, 27 Nov 2005 10:09:00 GMT
My mother and I have become unlikely book-buddies. I spent much of my life thinking that the only things we had in common were our cheekbone structure and fondness for live blues. But after I moved to Boston, we started trading books. I think I'm the one who kicked it off; I brought a few down for her to read on one trip: Memoirs of a Geisha, The Poisonwood Bible, some Flannery O'Connor, and a Lee Smith novel whose name escapes me. These days, it's become a regular routine: I buy something at the bookstore, plow through it, and hand it over for her to read, and she does the same for me.
Her most recent offering is Amy Tan's latest novel, Saving Fish from Drowning. The only other Tan novel I've read is The Bonesetter's Daughter, which was thoroughly delightful, and I had been looking forward to reading Saving Fish.
The novel opens with a newspaper account of eleven tourists gone missing in Burma/Myanmar. The narrator is a Chinese-American woman who was supposed to lead the tour group, but met an unexpected demise before the novel even begins. She follows the tour group, narrating her displeasure at their numerous faux pas and stupid mistakes leading up to the disappearance.
It's difficult to get into the book. The first (very long) chapter recounts the narrator's childhood, and it sets the tone for the rest of the novel by being detail-heavy and long-winded. There are long passages - pages and pages, to be honest - with no dialogue or action, in which the characters reminisce about their pasts.
The characters themselves are another problem with the book: I found none of them to be particularly likeable. The narrator, being dead, knows their most intimate thoughts, which she shares with the readers. And yes, the unlikeable stuff brings an element of realism to the novel, but I'm of the opinion that it was too much of a good thing.
Saving Fish has its good points, too. I knew nothing about Burma before I read it, other than the fact that it was once a British colony and is located somewhere near China, and that someone they call The Lady won a Nobel Peace Prize and was subsequently put under house arrest. Tan goes into great detail about the Burmese people, their way of life, even their textiles (which I especially appreciated.) The educational aspect of the book more than makes up for the pages and pages of reminiscing that I skipped over.
I'd say, overall, that it was a worthwhile read. The plot and Tan's vague foreshadowing kept me going despite what seems to be an attempt at a character-driven novel in which the characters aren't terribly likeable. It's not a feel-good book - everybody doesn't end up blissful in the end - which I always appreciate. I'll have to see what my mom thinks of it; she hasn't read it yet, but I'll hand it off to her so she can read it on her trip to Portland next week.
Next on my list to read: The Joy-Luck Club. The movie was good, but the book is probably better.
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