Friday Fill-Ins and Dish Rag Tag

Well, our team was not the last team to complete the relay race on Dish Rag Tag, but we certainly were not first either. Though the box did not get lost, it was misplaced for a week or so, but it magically reappeared and we proceeded to move it along. Go Cotton Conquerors! Everyone worked well together and tried to encourage whoever had the box along the way. It was a good team and I enjoyed working with the group; it was fun and I can't wait until next year's race.

I forgot to mention that I read the new Maggie Sefton book, Fleece Navidad, the other night, I enjoyed it as much as her other books. She will be in town next Saturday to sign the book. I can't wait to met her.





1. One of the best concerts/plays/movies I ever saw that I really didn't think I'd like was Mama Mia, I laughed, I cried, and I sang.
2. Grace’s Skillet Supper is a recipe I recently made (or meal I recently ordered) that was delicious!
3. It's time for a nap.
4. A marguerita on the rocks is quite refreshing.
5. If I never hear the word freakin again, it'll be too soon.
6. To one side of the curving road was a bridge, and on the other was a deep gully.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to sleep and knitting (in no particular order), tomorrow my plans include finishing the desk we built in the loft and knit and Sunday, I want to read and knit!

Woweee!

Wow, look what I just received! Isn’t it beautiful? This is the first hand knit anything apparel that I have ever received and it is gorgeous. Thank you Grace, I love this shawl. And in her gracious way, she included some extras, a pair of good smelling tea lights and a magnet with my initials that fits into my office perfectly.

I have started reading Brisingr by Christopher Paolini, the sequel to Eragon and Eldest. They are fantasy books, but for some reason I find them interesting.
The problem is I am still working 7 days a week (at least until October 1) so knitting and reading time is very limited. I have started a new dishcloth for my swap partner, a sweater for me, a sweater for my oldest daughter, a scarf for my other daughter, and a hat for her boyfriend. Now I just get to feel pulled whenever I either read or knit, if I am reading I want to knit, If I am knitting I want to read, I just cannot make up my mind. Maybe I will give both up and sleep :-)

I found another contest that Rita, at Keeping Knit Simple, is having, you can go here to enter it. She wants everyone to leave their best tips, she says "Funny is not only accepted but encouraged." Go ahead and giver her your best and funniest tips, and please tell her I sent you.

The Big Read

I found this list on Amber's blog and thought it was a fun idea.

The Big Read is an National Endowment for the Arts program designed to encourage community reading initiatives and of their top 100 books, they estimate the average adult has read only six.

*Look at the list and bold those we have read.
*Italicize those we intend to read.
*Underline the books we LOVE .

Share this list on your blog, too, if you like.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I have read 56 of the hundred that are on the list and plan on reading another 6 or 7of them; however I am surprised by books not on the list. Let’s see, no Mark Twain, Jack London, or Stephen King (who everyone must admit, is the King of scary books). And while I adore Gone with the Wind, I do not think that Margaret Mitchell was that great of an author (and would the book be so popular if the movie wasn’t). I was glad to see that so many of Jane Austen’s books were on the list as they are great.

How many of the books have you read? How many more do you plan on reading?

Prizes, Pix, and I am Bad/Rude

I am a bad/rude person, sometimes. I won two contests this summer and never posted about them and I am very sorry Jane and Aunt Kathy

Jane of Grammiknits had a 400th post contest in July and I was one of the lucky winners and this is what I won - a great market bag. I love it and use it all of the time, I find it especially handy at the farmer’s market. Thank you Jane, I am sorry I am so bad/rude.



Aunt Kathy of Aunt Kathy’s Place had a contest that ran for most of the summer (with weekly prizes) and I won this yarn and needles. Aren’t they great? Thank you Aunt Kathy, I am sorry I am so bad/rude, again! I haven’t decided what to make yet, but I will let you know. Any suggestions?



SURVIVOR - GABON
Survivors Ready is set up on Ravelry and I got in; I am on Team 7. Every one is assigned two people to support for the entire season (I have been assigned to Bob and Jessica) and which ever Team member's players win, gets prizes from the rest of the team (ranging from $15-$20). This will be fun, but I do not think I will be the winner on my team :-)

Here is the picture of the collapsible hat I finished Sunday,and I have already started a matching scarf, which is moving along quickly. I like the roll brim instead of the normal ribbing and it will fit well, so this one is a success.


Monica Ferris is an author who has been around awhile and she writes needlework adventures. The hero of the book runs a needlework store where she meets and greets people from all over town. Her books are fun, sometimes a little twisted, but great for reading at stoplights when your wrists hurt too much to knit. I just finished reading “Framed in Lace” and “Knitting Bones” and enjoyed them both.