Luna Beginnings

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I've been doing quite a bit of reading lately. I now have 2 books left in the 9 book Sookie Stackhouse series. I'm normally a very slow reader, however I'm zipping through this series because they're all quick easy reads. If Charlaine Harris had written 52 books in the series, I would have absolutely no problems with completing them all if I were participating in the 52Books52Weeks challenge. I'd prolly finish them all in under half a year. Anyhow, I won't be able to get to the last 2 books right away as they're currently checked out at the library.

I thought I'd change gears and try a different series by Ms Harris. I started a bit of Grave Sight and had some trouble changing gears and getting into the new voice and story. I find myself rereading the same parts over again because I can't seem to stay focused on the story.

I'm still playing Tiger Woods 10. I'm working my way through the Tournament Challenge and have completed all the Easy and Medium challenges. I've just started the Hard ones, and boy are they hard!

And I find I'm addicted to this numeric puzzle even though I am not very good at solving them. I play them on my iPod. I was stumped on the one pictured above for the longest time. I eventually completed it -- don't ask me how many attempts it took -- and apparently not very quickly. The applet told me I finished it in ~25 minutes, which turned out to be faster than 3% of other players. Ya know what that means? 97% of you could prolly do it in under 25 minutes. Yeah, I'm a slowpoke. That puzzle site has a difficulty level for everybody, I think there are 7 or 8 different levels so you're sure to find one that is a good match for you.


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1st repeat: rows 1-34

This is the beginning of my new big project, using the splitty purple yarn which is driving me nuts. There are some strands that tend to snag & get pulled out, then it's nearly impossible to blend them back in. I'm worried about the "delicate" care needed with any garment made with this yarn. I feel like I'm cheating here because I've actually made this shawl before in red. I love how straightforward the instructions are, and it is also a bit easier this second time. Well, almost...

I'm pretty sure I did a shoddy job at the PCO beginnings. Unzipping wasn't too bad, however I seem to have a bumpy ridge along the side where I picked up stitches. Can you see it? This is at the top center of the shawl and will prolly not be very noticeable while the shawl is worn. Yet, this ridge still bothers me. I think it might be because I picked up 2 strands instead of 1 strand along the edge?

2nd repeat: 1-14; (15-34) x2

Here's what the shawl looks like after completing the 2nd repeat. I'm on my 2nd hank of yarn at this point.

The plan is to finish this and have it blocked before my cousin's wedding in mid-Sept. This shawl is slow going since I tend to work on it while listening to an audio book. Unfortunately I've been reading a lot of printed books these days, so less knitting accomplished.

The red version I made came out on the short side, and that was 3 repeats long. I'm pretty certain I will knit more than 3 repeats, maybe 4 or 5 repeats. I haven't decided when I'll stop. I realize that the shawl will stretch during blocking, and I'll have to guesstimate what the final size will be.

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I've been playing around with Facebook a bit more lately. I've been on it for a long time and would log in about once every few months. I'm trying to get better at it and log in more regularly. I discovered LastFM on Dianna's profile page and took a closer look. It's kinda like an online radio station. Listened to some new songs. Added the widget to my FB page.

You can search for an artist and it will play songs by that artist plus other songs by (other similar) artists you might like. It's kinda nifty to discover new music you might never have heard before. It works fine when you look up artists such as Muse, Fischerspooner, Francis Cabrel, etc. However I can tell you it comes to a grinding halt when you look up Mozart. So no luck getting it to play Mozart k575 for me. Oh well.

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