A Knitting Update and My 2025 Reading Plans

It’s been longer than I like since my last post. Things have slowed down as far as traveling, but there is still lots going on every day. Most of that lately is just catching up on the household and production work. Let’s start out my update post with my knitting progress. After that I’ll get to other goings on.

Knitting

In my last post I was still on Clue 2 of the Go Go Dynamo Shawl. I began Clue 3 sometime in the second week of October, I think. I thought the brioche was slow. The short row triangles in Clue 3 took FOREVER. I finally got that completed this past week sometime. So, yeah, that was around six weeks to get that accomplished.

I have started Clue 4, finally, and it is progressing much faster. Part of the reason for that is that there are much less stitches. It is now proceeding from the middle of the shawl towards the top. The rows are getting shorter and there is not all the back and forth happening.

There is an additional edge that can be added at the bottom. I haven’t decided whether or not I will be doing that yet. The primary determiner will be yarn supply. If I still have plenty of the balls I am using, I will consider it. On the other hand, I may just be DONE regardless. We shall see.

Last Festival

The last festival on our schedule for 2024 was November 8-9 in Fayetteville, AR. The NWA Fiber Festival was founded in 2023 and I attended both years. I am looking ahead to seeing this festival grow in an area that is a new market for me. I expect to return next year.

I experimented with a different booth setup because there was a pole in the front of my space. That was also where the electricity was. It again took a little canoodling, but I liked it. I plan try some other arrangements next year.

Preparing for 2025

We are making festival plans for 2025. I have booked a few new ones and will be returning to many of our favorites. I haven’t updated the schedule on the website for 2025 yet. I will be getting to that sometime in December.

In the wood shop, Yarn Swifts are in production. Jerry started working on this batch in late September. All the bases and arms are completely finished. He is now making the dowels. I spent a week in November sewing bags and preparing the tags.

I will be starting to assemble, bag and store the Oak and some of the Walnut today. We have enough dowels ready to get started while he works on the rest.

I will be ordering more yarn for dyeing some time in December or January. I am planning to get the restock dyeing done in February. The days are starting to lengthen enough by then. It’s hard to get enough done in the day in December and January. When you depend on daylight hours outside to work by and get the yarn dry, more is better.

Reading Plans

While I am on the topic of plans for 2025, I will share my tentative TBR list. I always have a list in my head. Sometimes I lose focus. The books I wanted to get to don’t happen. So, this morning while I was having my quiet time with my coffee and my Kindle Scribe (LOVE this thing BTW!), I made a check list.

Now, this is just to remind me of what I really want to get to in the coming year. I am still somewhat of a mood reader. This is mainly a pared down list of my higher priority books that I already own. This doesn’t mean new books can’t jump to the top. I can decide to do that. :-)

I included a good variety of books I haven’t read, and re-reads of classics. There are plenty of shorter works and chunky reads. I love both! Again, it depends on my head space and mood at a given time. I am sure about one thing. I want to start War and Peace on January 1. I plan to do a slow year long read. I want to just live in that book while also picking other ones for variety. I am excited to start!

I have only read War and Peace once. I did some background reading this past summer to prepare for this re-read. I read a History of Russia and a very thorough and interesting biography of Napoleon. I think my read through this time will benefit from the additional historical familiarity. (not an affiliate link, but I do recommend these).

Closing

This has been brief, considering how much time has elapsed, but I covered the basics. I hope to get back to a more regular schedule of 2-4 post a month.

I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving celebrations!