When Harry Met Percy

I've finished reading all of the Percy Jackson books.  They are fun, though I don't think the ending was very exciting.  It was still good. 

I averaged about a book every 6 weeks.  That seems like a very long time to read a book.  I also had to wait for the last book to come out in paperback in late January.  I cheated and picked up the hardcover at the library, but of course couldn't finish before it was due.  I was kicking myself for not grabbing the Scholastic copy at the school book fair when I saw it.  That is one of the cool things about having a school aged child, you can get books in paperback that are not released for sale to the public. 

LG loves to help during photoshoots.

There are five books in the Percy Jackson series, though Rick Riodan has a couple of other series including another Camp Halfblood series.  I don't have any desire to read them.  The Percy books are fun, but I think that I am done with Riodan.

I guess that will free up my reading time for Rowling.  I took full advantage of vacation time during Ski Week last week.  It's nice when you have an extra two hours a day because you are not walking to and from school.

I'm already on Harry's fourth year of Hogwarts.

That is the other thing that is cool about having access to the Scholastic book program.  I got the entire collection in paperback for $43.  Not a huge steal but cheaper than Amazon.  Plus no sales tax or shipping charges.  Because the Scholastic program goes through high school I can find most NYTimes best sellers.  I just have to use the book fairs for older aged books since things like The Lovely Bones isn't going to be in my kid's flyer.

It is very fun reading these books for the very first time and not having to wait for the next one to be released.

That's right, I've never read them.  Okay, I did read one. I read the Sorcerer's Stone back in the 90's when the book was first released, I borrowed it from my cousin.  I've also seen some of the movies.  I thought that I had only seen through to the fourth movie, but talking with Senora I realized that I have seen the fifth one.  I didn't follow it very well.  I am not sure if that is because I hadn't read the book or if there was just stuff going on around the house.  I've always waited until the movie came out on TNT or ABC Family or whatever channel it is that shows the Potter movies.

Oh, and I've played the Lego Harry Potter game.  There is far much less detail in the game so it is easy to follow the basic storyline.

My opinion is that the first two books are pretty close to the movies.  I enjoyed getting more details from the book with the Prisoner of Azkanban.   Now I am really loving the Goblet of Fire, I'm a third of the way through it.  This is my favorite Potter movie and the only one that I have seen twice.  The first nine chapters of the book take 10 or 15 minutes in the movie version, so I feel like it really is new to me.  Like I never knew that the Quidditch World Cup was already over when the attacks happened.  Just stuff like that making me love it.

We are back in school today so between walking to and from school I'm writing a post and mopping the downstairs floors.  I expect that my reading, knitting and puzzle building freetime will drop off.  With the Potter books getting fatter and fatter I hope to be done by summer.  There is still Spring Break!!!

Fresco Mitts II

Here are the Fresco Fair Isle Mitts I mentioned on Saturday.  These have been shipped to my BFF, Kelly, in Idaho where I imagine in the last week they have already seen plenty of wear.  Partly because it's cold up there and partly because they make her look fabulous.  Okay, she's already fabulous and that is why I love her.

Technically I finished these mitts in August of 2009, but I had made a mistake.  I had made two major modifications to the pattern.  The first is that I increased they length by on repeat in the pattern to give Kelly's fingers more protection from the cold.  Second, I added a purled seam trying to copy the Endpaper Mitts.  This worked out so-so.  I should of just used the black as the seam instead of alternating between the blue and green.  Also, I placed the seam at the end of the palm chart, but this put the seam partly onto of the hand.   It wasn't upsetting enough to frog anything, so I continued on.

Here is where the mistake came into play.  With all the rotating WIPs that I was always working on, when I got to the colorwork of the second mitt, I forgot to put the seam in.  I didn't notice this until I was finished and fished out the other mitt to put them together.  The seam is very noticeable and makes the mitts look different.

Grrr.

My first thought was to make another match for each of the mitts and then I would have a pair for myself.  I'm not sure that I really want to make this pattern a third time?  I kinda would rather make a different pattern with different colors.   This is the second pair of Fresco Mitts (the first ones) in the same colors.

I also may not have enough black yarn.  So far with the black I've made two pairs of Fresco mitts and  two pairs of striped mitts for Kelly's children.  I probably do have enough of the black yarn to finish a whole other pair of mitts with the extra repeat, but I really would hate to take the risk and not have enough.

So the Fresco Mitts sat in a bag waiting to be worked on for a year.  I started once and knit two rounds and back into the bag they went.  I just wasn't feeling up to starting all over.  Then I thought about frogging back all the colorwork and reknitting it.  That would solve the possible shortage on black yarn problem.

When Senora came down for a visit I was able to finally figure out a solution.  Kelly said she didn't care if they were a little different and just to send them to her.  Senora concurred.  "Okay," I thought and I was officially without a WIP to work on.  I then organized my stash as Senora knit away and we chatted about our kids.

Sending off these mitts in "as-is condition" still didn't sit right with me.  Out of nowhere I came up with another new solution.  I undid the cast off, dropped the seam, then picked it up as knit stitches instead of the purled stitches.  This took about 20 minutes, if only I thought of this a year ago.

As you can see this is a dramatic improvement and would not be noticeable to the non-knitting eye.  And to the knitting eye, it just looks like my project has a little laddering.  (Laddering is when there is a small gap in the cloth where the double-pointed needles meet in a project.  It looks like ladder rungs.)

Kelly says that she can't tell which is which, but after reading this post she may.  I didn't get great pictures of the colorwork with this pair.  (You can check out better photos of the colorwork on the first pair).  It was a cloudy day and I didn't have a hand model so these are taken with the timer on my camera.   The camera was also more interested in LG playing in the background and kept focusing on her.

Hey, can you guess what I am reading in the picture?  I'll give you a clue, I'm on the chapter called The Forbidden Forest.

Jaw Dropper

It's a busy morning, but I wanted to upload some pictures and am taking the time to write a quick post.  We are getting ready for Ski Week, because in SoCal one Spring Break is just not enough.  BG will be out of school all week and I've got the girls' days filled with busy.  It starts this morning with french toast.

I do want to share a jaw dropper before I cast on my next project because....

Are you ready for it?  Why don't you sit down.

Wait you are at the computer and probably already sitting.

Then put the palm of your hand up and hold your jaw.  No really.  I told Senora to hold her jaw and she didn't.  I think the force of her jaw dropping strained a muscle.

Here it is, I have no WIPs.  In all the years that I have been knitting and putting projects aside for later, I have finally finished up all my WIPs.  There is not an end to be sewn, a corner to be blocked, and second pair to be made.  When I cast on my next project, it will be the only thing that needs to be worked on.

A huge part of reaching this accomplishment is deciding what to do with a pair of mitts and sending them off in the mail last week.  I'll share those on the next post, hence the pictures I wanted to upload. 


My next knitting goal will be to knit down my stash.  I have no idea how many yards I have, but I'll take a photo some day and show it to ya.

And just so that there is a photo on this post, I leave you with a shot that DH took.  We had gone out for dinner as a family by the beach and finished up in time to catch the sunset.