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TagsOctober reads
I want to start a monthly roundup of the books I read each month, and though I realize it’s almost the end of November, I did take a photo to commemorate October, so here goes!
happy thanksgiving!!
It’s no surprise that Thanksgiving—a holiday devoted to food, at which I am the only one to receive presents—is my most favorite. In high school and college my parents and I always celebrated as a nuclear family, doing a full meal for just the three of us, which meant lots of yumminess and even more leftovers. After college I started cooking this meal with a close group of my dearest friends, rotating hosting and experimenting with somewhat nontraditional but still seasonal fare. Of late, I’ve been staying in New York, at a gathering of “strays.” The past two years the fabulous Lindsay hosted, but I was in charge of the turkey and gravy. She moved to Beirut this past summer, which means everyone’s coming to our place, plus a few new faces!
Three! Three!
Today is my birthday! and I am tickled that I am a multiple of 11 again. I don’t know why, but this seems special to me. Every time I mention it to Jason, he looks at me funny, like this could not possibly be a reason to like an age. But I keep saying “Dude! 33! Three! Three!” I love the rhythm of it. It’s way better, after all, than being a boring 32.
echo flower shawl
When my friend Emily asked me to knit her a wedding shawl, I was beyond excited: No one had ever asked me to make them something so important before! Many of my friends are not the “knit shawl at their wedding” kind of girls, but Emily has a real appreciation for handmade, and she told me that she especially wanted me to be “in” her wedding somehow, even if she wasn’t having attendants (hallelujah! no bridemaid dress for me!).
I threw myself into the planning by . . . giving Emily my Ravelry username and password and telling her to go for it. Actually, that’s not true, I sent her links to about 15 different shawls, plus my Rav name and password! I wasn’t sure what style she wanted—triangular? rectangular? lacy? textured? . . . so I gave her lots to choose from. Perhaps because it was first on my list and because I said “this one is gorgeous!” she went with what was secretly my top choice: Echo Flower Shawl by Jenny Johnson Johnen.
mitts for nanny
Back when I posted the Jury Duty Mitts (the Cabled Mitts from Crochet Today), I got an email from my grandmother, who my cousins and I call Nanny, asking if I could make her a pair of fingerless mitts, because her hands are often cold. She saw the post (yes! my savvy 80-something-year-old grandmother follows my blog) and realized how perfect something like that would be for her. I had no intended recipient for the mitts, so I said I’d mail her one of those pairs.
But, like a bad granddaughter, I never got around to it. And every time I picked them up, the scratchiness of that wool turned me off. I couldn’t mail those to her! So this weekend I finally took the time to make her something worth having.