Book Club: The Lost Days of Agatha Christie

The highlight of my week — if we’re counting the last seven days and not just since Monday — was hanging out for the day at Frame and Fiber in Point Pleasant, NJ, last Thursday. Paige (the owner) and Allison are so much like Jac and me that it’s a little scary. I’m not even sure the world was ready for the pure condensed sass of all four of us in one room, but we took the risk that our combined sarcasm might congeal into an actual sentient being and set up a pop up shop for the first day of the New Jersey Wool Walk.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bhwl5eEHeJp/?taken-by=doctor_llama

Fun fact: The New Jersey Wool Walk is not intended to be walked. Some of the shops on the “walk” are 50+ miles apart. It’s only four days long, and you definitely can’t walk it. I guess maybe you could ride a horse. Technically, that horse would be walking, but that’s as close as you’ll get. I support their alliteration choices though. I can’t even tell you how many times people have demand to know why my yarn isn’t 100% llama wool. I get it, but llama wool is a mixed bag. While I’m told nice llama wool exists, it’s usually scratchier and more expensive than similar options, like alpaca. “BFL & Beverages” just doesn’t have the same ring to it though. Anyhow, I support your alliterative, if somewhat misleading, naming choices Wool Walk.

NOTE: BFL is short for Bluefaced Leicester, which is an adorable breed of sheep from Britain that has a roman nose. The fiber is more durable than merino, making it best for socks or even garments that you plan to be hard on.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BhwvpQanm0y/?taken-by=lattesandllamasyarn

Turns out Frame and Fiber hosts a knitting on the beach group weekly over the summer. So basically, don’t expect me to do anything on Tuesdays starting in June. I’ll be knitting on the beach. It’s gonna be magnificent. I’ve been trying to spend more time at my local knitting stores in general. I’m the type of person that wants to get out, but I don’t actually get out much. I’m not great at the actual leaving the house stuff. But I’m trying. Anyhow, if you couldn’t make it up to Frame and Fiber last week, but are Jersey Shore adjacent come knit on the beach with me this summer. I’ll post more details on a future book club post once I know the exact times and locations and what not. As a fair warning, most medical professionals advise against looking directly at my skin when it’s exposed to sunlight, since the extreme paleness combined with natural light creates a small scale solar flare. Wear sunglasses.

This week I’ve been reading…

So, if I’m being 100% honest, I failed to finish a book this week. I intended to read The Lost Days of Agatha Christie by Carol Owens. I tried to read it, but I was bored. Instead, I rewatched the first season of the Handmaid’s Tale in anticipation of season two. This isn’t a Friday Night Knitting Club situation. The Lost Days wasn’t a bad book. Hell, it might even be a good book. The first 30 or so pages that I made it through were well written. The premise is interesting. I think it was just boring for me. Like, I know that in this equation, I’m the problem. The book is from the perspective of a therapist who is working with Agatha Christie to recover her memories of what happened during the days that she went missing in 1926. She actually did go missing and I loved reading Murder On the Orient Express last week, so I thought it would be the perfect follow up. Here’s the thing though, I actually was a therapist for awhile after college. I have an MS in Counseling and worked with severely at-risk children before leaving to become a doctor. Ultimately, I chose yarn over Med School. Life is funny that way. But what is relevant here is that Carol Owens’ book read like a grad school lecture. Those were interesting the first time. I think if you did not go to grad school for counseling and you like Agatha Christie, you will probably like this book.

Absolutely every single therapist-in-training in their early 20s goes through a phase of being really proud of yourself. You know the clinical names for things. You work all your psycho-babble into everyday conversation, desperate for some unsuspecting bystander to ask what Atelophobia meant so that you can practice your “therapy voice” when you tell them. So I’m reading this book, and that smug 22-year-old starts creeping back into my internal monologue, and I had to nope on out of there so that I would still have friends at the end of the week.

I started another Dresden Files book, I’m on track to finish re-reading the series before the new collection of short stories comes out in June. Next week, I need a little mental vacation, so I’m taking literary me-time to read the first two volumes of The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. I’ve read them before, but now I have the hardcovers and it is scientific fact that reading the hardcover collection is a different experience from reading the individual issues.

Currently on my needles…

I had a very productive knitting week! I’m most excited about our next MKAL, which we’ll have formal details on in the next two weeks, but I already spoiled the yarn we’re using. I like to work up a fresh sample about a month before each of our MKALs, so that I can do a final check on the clues. It’s important that clues be enough to keep knitters satisfied, but also doable in a week. When we write our patterns, we do them as a whole finished pattern and then break it down to clues. This way I’ve taken the clues for individual test drives, in the actual time frame that the MKAL will run during. I am having a blast working on this one. It’s got mosaic stitches and double knitting done with two contrasting gradients. So you get fabulous colorwork with tons of colors, but you never have to cut your yarn. No ends to weave in except for cast on and cast off! It’s a nice easy and portable summer project. So here is a great big spoiler of that!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BiABQ8vnjn7/?taken-by=doctor_llama

I’ll probably drop a few more smaller detail spoilers before the MKAL starts, and we’ll have some tutorials on Mosaic knitting and carrying a color up the side of your work when you have several rows of the other color.

I’ve also been stashbusting with a pair of YinYang Kitty Socks by Geena Garcia.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BiCwc6RnNgg/?taken-by=doctor_llama

I did the noses and eyes with intasia, and the ears with duplicate. In retrospect, I probably should have just done them all in duplicate stitch. Intarsia in the round can be a pain in the butt.

~Megan-Anne

I’m thinking of taking Mabel the Merciless to Philadelphia Comic Con tomorrow. Will any of you be there? I’ve been waffling on it, what with how I’d have to wear pants, but I love seeing Jay Justice and we could get our picture taken with Brent Spiner. If any of you will be there, I’ll be more motivated to put on my pants and go downtown.