What a year this week has been. I got an early start to things last Saturday when I sliced a nice chunk out of my finger while trying to make dinner. The obvious take away is to stop making dinner. My nerds have been getting dinner every day. They’ll get spoiled if I keep this up.

This week I’ve been reading…

The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

Spoilers for Mistborn: The Final Empire Below

In Part 2 we see Vin starting to relax into her place on Kelsier’s crew, and she begins to trust them in small measures. She is training under Sazed -a Terrisman- to infiltrate the upper echelons of Luthadale society and sow discord. I love the relationship between Sazed and Vin. Sazed is a Terriman Keeper, which means he owns and can use magical thumb drives called Metal Mines containing the collected knowledge of his people. Keepers add to that collection by learning about subjects that interest them, and for Sazed that is the memories of all known religions, which were wiped out by the Lord-Ruler when he rose to power. The Terrisman people have been oppressed like the Skaa, and bred and trained to be perfect servants. That training makes him an ideal coach for Vin’s nobility training. 

Vin attends her first ball, which is being held at the Keep of the most powerful Noble family: the Ventures. While there she meets Elend venture, the bookish heir to his family’s fortune. It’s fairly obvious from the first meeting that these two are destined to be together. 

After the ball, the story takes a very sudden turn. While reluctantly bringing Vin with him to break into a secret room in the Lord Ruler’s palace, Vin is nearly killed. That mission failed and Kelsier still doesn’t know what was in the room, though Vin managed to steal a large book on her way out the door. What’s really important here is that we are starting to see that Kelsier is more of an anti-hero than morally pure saviour. He’ll do anything to overthrow the Lord Ruler, even if people like Vin die in the effort. 

Currently on my needles…

Not a whole lot guys. It’s rough over here. I suppose though that it’s more accurate to say there are piles of things on my needles, but this week they haven’t gotten any closer to a cast off. I had no idea just how much I use my left thumb while knitting, but apparently it’s a real work-horse of a finger. At the start of the week I couldn’t knit at all. As of now I can manage about 1-2 rows before I have to stop, and I do not cope well with having my knitting taken from me.

On the other hand, I’ve gotten to explore what kinds of crafts I can do 1 handed. Turns out, I’m pretty decent at needle felting with just one hand. Pinning my piece down to the foam is less efficient than holding it still, but I’m not able to get through the day without stabbing something with a pointy stick, so it does the job.

Behold! It’s a Christmas Corgi!

I’ve got a kit to make a Christmas kitten and Christmas fawn too, so I’ll probably make it through the healing process without resorting to stabbing something that isn’t made of wool.

~Megan-Anne

“My behavior is nonetheless, deplorable. Unfortunately, I’m quite prone to such bouts of deplorability–take for instance, my fondness for reading books at the dinner table.”― Brandon Sanderson, The Final Empire

Full disclosure, we are using affiliate links to a new site called Bookshop. We get a small commission if you decide to make a purchase through our links, but more importantly, those purchases will help support independent bookstores.