In progress now.

   This is my first blog post, I'm going to try to post once a week, about what I'm making, what I'm reading, what I've been watching and sometimes my family too. I don't know how good my writing will be, but I'm doing this primarily for me, although anyone that reads my blog is very welcome indeed, and I hope that it is helpful or interesting rather than useless and dull!

   Anyway, this is what I'm working on right now:

On my needles;-
   A rather shimmery Demiluna Shawl, which is a free pattern on ravelry. It's a lovely shawl pattern for knitters of all skill sets (even relative novices like me). I'm making it for my Mum as a birthday present for her birthday later this month. She likes to Ballroom dance, so I thought this would be nice to put around her shoulders between dances on cooler nights or in heavily air conditioned rooms. The white should go with most dresses and the shimmery yarn and eyelets should make it pretty enough to work with her nice dancing clothes. You can't really see the subtle shimmer in the photo though.

   Once I got the hang of the cast on it was plain sailing. The cast on was the hardest part, apart from my losing count several times on the p3, k1 rib, I kept wanting to p3, k3 instead and had to pick back a few times on the first row.

   I'm currently working on the garter rib edging, which means I'm fairly close to being done, although you work from the centre out, there are an awful lot of stitches to knit each row now. I've enjoyed working on it, and I think I may one for myself too!

On my iPod;-
   A really rather wonderful audio-book called "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" by Rachel Joyce and read by Jim Broadbent. I am almost to the end now and I don't want it to end. I've been really enjoying it and I have found myself talking to the characters at times while listening, which is a good sign that I'm thoroughly engrossed. It's a story about love, friendship, redemption, kindness and about a journey that's so much more than the actual physical walk. It makes you understand why people used to see pilgrimages as something profound long ago. The act of doing something on such a scale changes you. It's not so much about getting from A to Z, it's so much deeper, but I won't say more because I don't want to spoil anything.
   Mr Broadbent reads the story perfectly, he doesn't really put on voices, he does accents but his voice changes only subtly when he reads dialogue. I like that. I often find a narrator doing "voices" distracting. He has a nice voice, very pleasant to listen to.
   I highly recommend it.