Cute Knitting: February 2011

Summer children's hat crochet patterns

children's hat decorated with blue fish motif

children's cottage built from green to blue crocheted hat patterns

Teaser Tuesday (25)

Yay for "Teaser Tuesday" from MizB of Should be Reading!!

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser Tuesday pick:

" My own heart was my weakest muscle, never exercised, never even flexed.

Suddenly, I understood that it still miraculously worked. "

p 53 "Falling Under" by Gwen Hayes

"Moonstruck Madness"
by Laurie McBain

Publisher: Sourcebooks
Release Date: Feb 1, 2011 (first published 1977)

Source: sent by publisher

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Summary from goodreads.com:

She's one thing by day, something else altogether by night...

After escaping the slaughter of her clan at a young age, Scottish noblewoman Sabrina Verrick provides for her siblings by living a double life, until the night she encounters the Duke, and her secret and all she holds dear is threatened...

He's so disillusioned, he's completely vulnerable...

With his inheritance at stake, Lucien, Duke of Camareigh, sets a trap for the Scottish beauty with the piercing violet eyes, never imagining what will happen when the trap is sprung...

As their lives become irreversibly entangled, Lucien and Sabrina become each other's biggest threat, as well as their only salvation...

My Review:

This book was originally written in 1977, and wow, have times changed for historical romances! And boy am I glad!

Lucien is not the type of hero who should be put on a pedestal. Most of the bad things that happen to our heroine are his fault, but he wants to be praised when he fixes them again. The book timeline goes a little like this: fight (and we're talking Ronnie and Sammi on Jersey Shore style fighting, not playful banter) jump into bed, fight, jump into bed, repeat. This style of story just isn't for me. I understand that a lot of readers are into alpha males, even though I'm not, but Lucien is another breed altogether.

The part of the book where Sabrina has amnesia and actually believed she was in love with Lucien was my favorite part. This was a happy, loving romance! But of course, it was based on forgetting all the unforgivable, deal-breaking things that Lucien had done.

Main Characters: 2/5
Supporting Characters: 3/5
Setting: 3/5
Romance: 1/5
Uniqueness: 3/5
Cover: 4/5
Writing: 4/5

Bottom Line: This book was definitely written in a stylized way, that I really don't see used any more. I'm sure there are readers who like to read about this rough sort of love, but it's not for me. This book made me appreciate the world of today's historical romances even more!

Since the book was published in 1977, I wanted to post the original cover:
(cover pic from goodreads)

I adore this cover!! I love this illustration style, and I can't resist a book with a horse on the cover. I love the gothic feel, like the heroine is going to meet a handsome heroic stranger on a dark spooky night. I'm not sure this is really an accurate portrayal of the story inside the book, but I'd definitely pick this one up.

"Fallen Grace" Review

"Fallen Grace"
by Mary Hooper

Publisher: Bloomsbury
Release Date: Feb 1, 2011

Source: ARC sent by publisher

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Summary from goodreads.com:

Life has been nothing but unfair to Grace Parkes and her sister. Penniless, the two orphans manage to stay alive—but only barely, like so many on the streets of Victorian London. And Grace must bear a greater heartbreak, having become pregnant from terrible circumstances and then given birth to a stillborn baby. But the infant's death sets Grace on a new path, bringing her into contact with people who hold both riches and power. A great fraud has been perpetrated on young Grace and her sister, and they are the secret recipients of a most unusual legacy—if only they can find the means to claim it. Mary Hooper's latest offers Dickensian social commentary, as well as malicious fraud, mysterious secrets, and a riveting read.

My Review:

Poor Grace and Lily have been through so much! Every horrid thing that could possibly happen to them does happen. They are orphans, they are both abused by a benefactor at their workhouse, Grace become pregnant, and her baby dies. And these things all happen at the very beginning of the book, so you can only imagine how hard times become as the story moves on. The story never has a dull moment it hops right along from one scary adventure to the next.

I was most intrigued by Grace's work at the Unwins. The Unwins were in the funeral business, and wow was that a shady business in Victorian London. This book was a real eye opener to how much these business took advantage of those were mourning and in an emotionally weak place. All of the 'neccessities' of funerals were invented in order to make more money. Grace herself worked as a mute. What is a funeral mute, you ask? She stands there and looks spooky, sad, and beautiful to add atmosphere to a rich person's funeral. Can you get any more creepy!? It's really sad the lengths that people like the Unwins went to in order to prey on grieving families.

Grace truly is an admirable character. She perseveres through all of these hardships and survives with her values and morals intact. Her hardships have toughened her up, but they haven't broken her down. And through it all she takes constant care of her sister, too.

Main Characters: 5/5
Supporting Characters: 4/5
Setting: 4/5
Romance: 3/5
Uniqueness: 5/5
Cover: 3/5
Writing: 4/5

Bottom Line:This book is a tale of hardship, but it's a story you won't soon forget.

home again

Somehow I thought that Spring might have

arrived while I was away in Florida...

instead, it doesn't look any different outside now

than when I left.

From 80 degrees to 8,

sunshine to gray,

shorts & sandals to Carhardt overalls & boots,

morning walks to cozying by the woodstove,

sightseeing to chores,

I've quickly adjusted back to the usual

Winter routine--difficult,

but still it is good to be home.

I had a wonderful time in Florida and was able to

visit St Augustine and Marjorie Kinnan

Rawlings Cross Creek;

be back with some pictures soon.

~Deb

Knit cardigan and knit tunic pattern

Baby Shoe Making

girls laying crocheted sandals

Little Hints...

There are two fun new children's patterns that are coming out shortly...

These new designs are very special to me. I look forward to sharing them with you soon.

You and your little one will love them.

Illustrations provided by JillZielinskiDesigns.com

Article and video on jogless stripes, part 1 of a series

Circular knitting, as you know, is actually a spiral. Therefore, if you change colors to make stripes, the knitting will "jog."

Jogging stripes

A couple of years ago, in the summer 2009 issue of Interweave Knits, there was an illustrated article by TECHknitter (that's me!) about avoiding this problem with two different kinds of jogless stripes:

barber pole (helix)
slip stitch jogless (two variations)

Under the contract signed with Interweave Knits, the copyright reverted to this blog after a time. TECHknitting blog is now free to re-publish the article as it was originally written and illustrated for submission. However, the article was rather long, so it will be run as three separate posts.

Today's intro installment contains two things:
First, here's a link to a previous post in TECHknitting blog covering the slip stitch variations. This post contains everything about the slip-stitch jogless method which was found in the Interweave Knits article--only the illustrations are different.

Second, here is a link to a video done by Interweave Knits' editor Eunny Jang, showing how the TECHknitting jogless stripes are done. The video covers one of the slip stitch variations (stationary style jogless stripes), as well as the helix (barber pole) jogless stripes. Unlike later videos done by IK, this one does not mention then (then-concurrent) TECHknitting article, but it IS based on the article--the techniques are identical. I think Eunny does a great job of showing the techniques (and even if you already know how to make these stripes, the video is worth watching to see how incredibly fast Eunny knits, and using a unique style, too).

The next post in this series contains that part of the IK article relating to barberpole (helix) stripes. This is all-new material for TECHknitting blog because there has never been a post on barber-pole stripes before. Helix stripes can be made as narrow as a single round, and are therefore very useful for narrow jogless stripes. (Click here to be taken to the second post.)

The third post in the series will contain that part of the IK article relating to slip-stitch jogless stripes--the material which is identical to the previous TECHknitting post mentioned above. The only reason to reprise this material is the different illustrations. In other words, although the previous TECHknitting post on jogless stripes and the third part in this series are to cover the identical ground, yet each has different illustrations, and sometimes a new and different illustration is capable of shedding new light.

* * *

This is the first post in a series: the second post is: Helix (Barberpole) stripes.

* * *

-TK