So, you’ve been wondering how many knitting and spinning books I have, right? Dying to know who would win my extra copy of Mason-Dixon Knitting?

Well, congratulations, Pam! She guessed on the nose, 204 books. Two hundred four.

The range of guesses was interesting, too, from 85 up to 345.

Do you want a closer look?

All my knitting and spinning books are on this one bookcase. (The one next to it is devoted to other crafts and all my writing reference books. The cookbooks are near the kitchen, and except for a few in the hallway next to the bedroom, the rest of my books are all downstairs. I still need to figure out how to catalog all of them, but I think it’s in the 2000-2100 range for total number of books–down about a third from before we moved last November.)

Anyway, here’s the top of the bookshelf.

That’s lace books, sock books, DVDs and spinning books on the top shelf. Basic how-to kind of reference books on the second shelf.

The middle shelf is devoted to pattern books, and the fourth down is for stitch dictionaries and more pattern books.

The very bottom, hiding behind the chair is where I keep all my Vogue Knitting magazines (going back to about 1987), and knitting-essay type books, as well as some of my less-favorite pattern books, that I might not really plan on using any time soon, but don’t really want to get rid of either … which is why they’re on the most inaccessible shelf.

So, Pam, I’ll need your address, please, so that I can send you your book!

Oh, and in Today’s Spinning?

That’s about 4 ounces of that never-ending roving of mine from 2005, that I told you about here. Such pretty stuff, and I still adore the color. It’s not quite so purple in normal light–it needs direct sun or a camera flash to bring it out. Mostly it just looks like this beautiful, medium gray with a hint of purple. I love it.

I’ve also finished the body of my sweater and am working on the hood. I just have to finish that and knit the inside of the pockets and this baby is done!

We’ve had a great weekend, too. The weather, miraculously this summer, cooperated for the second weekend in a row, and we took Chappy to the park on Saturday, where I neglected to take a single picture. (Sorry.) He had a wonderful time, especially walking on the horse trails with their extra-interesting smells, and the chance to get his feet wet in the stream. He completely zonked out after we got home, though–and so did I! I had a nice nap on Saturday afternoon–though my eyelids gave me very little choice.

Today, we had blueberry pancakes for breakfast, and I baked a cake. I made it up myself–a Pineapple-Coconut-Lime cake with coconut-flavored frosting. It came out pretty well, if I do say so.

I didn’t get as much writing done as I should have, but I’m blaming Homefront for that. Do you remember that TV show from 1991-1993? With a young Kyle Chandler? I adored it and still regret that it’s not available on DVD. It IS, however, available on YouTube, and frustrating as it is that the quality is not ideal and each episode is broken into five or six parts to keep the videos short enough for YouTube, I’ve been loving rewatching it. (And yes, I find that I still love Ginger’s hairstyles as much as ever.)

I’ve also been reading about World War I and the immediate social aftereffects as research for my new book, the sequel to my After-Titanic story. You know, because (1) I’m enjoying the characters so much, I want to see what happens next and (2) I’m assuming that After Titanic WILL get published, and having a sequel coming along behind is never a bad thing.

It’s partly because of the WWI research that I got the yen to rewatch Homefront, in fact, even though it takes place after a completely different war. Many of the issues are the same, though not all–no Prohibition to speak of, for example. But still–the idea of men returning from war and expecting things to be the same when in fact they’ve changed is an intriguing (if sad) one.

Which reminds me … I should really be writing that right now, shouldn’t I? So, if you’ll excuse me…

Tags: General, Knitting/Spinning // 5 Comments »