Book Review: Girl Genius by Kaja and Phil Foglio

I have to confess an addiction to Pat Rothfuss's blog. He is a spectacular writer, and his blog is well written and funny. At any rate, after reading his recent post about Girl Genius, I proceeded to the Girl Genious website and spent the next week immersed in the comic every spare minute I had. Literally. There were times when I opened up my laptop to read just half of a page. :) I am desperately sad that I've read everything there is for now, and I'm going a little crazy in a corner of my mind that the story is not yet finished.

I cannot say anything about Girl Genious that Pat didn't say, except that, when I have $22 that's not immediately due to pay some bill or another, I'll be buying that first book, and I won't be sending it to Pat to take him up on his guarantee!

Chicks with Sticks Continued...

I'm still working from The Chicks with Sticks, but I skipped the knit clutch pattern because (I'm sorry, chicks) it's one of the very few projects in the book I wasn't enthusiastic about, and I don't even use all the handbags I have.

I moved on to the Dirty Girl Washcloths, which I was excited about because they use purl stitch as well as knit, and the patterns are simple but cool (as well as useful!). I finished the first washcloth and knitted about 15 rows of the second when I realized that my stitches were twisted because I had been wrapping the yarn clockwise instead of counter clockwise. So I tore it all out and started over. Last night, I got to the point where I was when I started over, and it looks so good!

I can't wait to try out the basket weave stitch and then use these stitches on other, bigger projects. I'm sad because the book is due back to the library on Thursday, and someone else has already reserved it. I guess I'll just have to make a purchase this week. :)

The Chicks with Sticks Guide to Knitting, and My Camera Woes

My lack of a camera is getting more annoying than a shirt that keeps riding up to your waist. I want to take my broken camera to Best Buy tonight, but I don't know if I'll have time. We're trying to get the house clean and put together for my partner's parents to come over (they're arriving tomorrow and staying with us for 10 days), and that so far has meant a whole lot of work and not much time for anything else. If my warranty doesn't cover it, I want to get a new camera, but new camaras cost money, an item which I am lacking in any quantity.

I recently borrowed The Chicks with Sticks Guide to Knitting from the library, and I'm so excited about it! I already crochet, but knitting is just so much more versatile, and all my favorite patterns are knit. I have to admit to having been intimidated by knitting, but The Chicks with Sticks goes through everything in a fun lesson-like format. Each lesson has a project or two at the end, and most of the projects are super-cute things that I'd love to make. So far, I love the book, although their instructions for casting on seem to be missing a step, and I had to look for an online tutorial to show me how to do it. I might actually buy my own copy, since you can only keep a library book for so long.

The first project in the book is a simple fringed scarf; it's supposed to be knit using a worsted-weight wool yarn and a sparkly lace-weight yarn, but after discovering how lacking JoAnn is in the yarn variety department (next time, I'm going to the little yarn store downtown), I decided to knit mine with only one chunky Lion Brand yarn. It's called Charlotte Blue:

See, this is where the camera trouble comes in; I want to show you how far I've gotten in just a few episodes of Top Chef and Gossip Girl, but all I can do is provide stock photos of my yarn. :( I knit while my partner watches TV, and I'm pretty happy with how quickly it's going. (In a side note, I should admit that there's a deeply-hidden part of me that loves shows like Gossip Girl, even though the rest of me knows I should be ashamed of said love. This last month is the first time I've had TV (other than DVDs) in three years, which makes it even more addictive. :))

Book Review: The Magician's Elephant, by Kate DiCamillo

I hope that your holiday weekend was wonderful and relaxing, or at least busy with things you wanted to be doing!

I was busy, but happily. One of the things I did over the weekend was read The Magician's Elephant, by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Yoko Tanaka.

I loved this book. It is the story of an orphaned boy who lives with a soldier who fought beside his father. The boy is told by a fortuneteller that his sister lives, and in order to find her, he must follow the elephant. That same night, a magician conjurs an elephant, which falls right through the ceiling of the theater he is performing in.

The Magician's Elephant is a story about magic, and what is possible when you believe. Kate DiCamillo does not need flowery language; her writing is beautiful without pretension. The voice she uses throughout the book is simple, funny, and touching, and she does it all deftly. Yoko Tanaka's illustrations are perfect for the story. All of the illustrations are in black and white, and they capture the magical tone of the story. This story has had me asking, What if? Why not? Could it be? ever since I put it down.

First Custom Piece: The Deer Skin Journal

A couple of months ago, a friend of mine asked me if I could make a journal out of deer skin. “Why not?” I said, thinking it would be similar to leather, but thinner and maybe more supple. When I looked inside the bag she gave me several weeks later, I found myself to be holding a bag full of the scraps of home-cured, fur-still-on deer skin that were left after the hunter had made a vest out of the skin.

I’ve spent the time since then looking at other books, journals, etc., trying to get an idea of what to do with the mismatched scraps. On Sunday, I finally bucked down, pulled out the scraps and some bits of matching leather I already had, measured it, turned it upside-down, wrapped it around a text block, photographed it, and generally brainstormed. What came out of it was a rather attractive and original journal that perfectly fit one of the ~5”x7” text blocks I had already put together.

I used two pieces of the skin that matched fairly well, one for the front and one for the back, and then used a piece of supple light brown leather for the spine.

I sewed the headbands by hand, which I’ve decided is one of my favorite things about binding, and it’s especially cool because it’ll keep this journal strongly together.

The paper I used for the end pages and flyleaves is the same map paper I used to make my friend’s journal for Christmas. I do love it, but it’s a little too weak for the job of end pages, really. It folds and buckles, but that's actually kind of cool too because it makes the paper look even older.

I’m really pleased with the way the journal turned out in the end. Just a couple of final touch-ups to make sure that fur is going to stay where I put it, and it’ll be ready for its role as wedding gift to the hunter groom. :)

Odd and the Frost Giants, by Neil Gaiman

I read Odd and the Frost Giants, by Neil Gaiman yesterday. It was another quick read, but far more enjoyable than the last one. Neil Gaiman is a master of writing, and I say that because it is rare that one person can successfully write in so many different genres.

Odd and the Frost Giants is about a Viking's son who just doesn't fit in (which is fun, because I just watched How to Train Your Dragon - if you haven't seen it yet, you should, regardless of how old you happen to be). After his father dies, his mother marries another man in the village, and during one particular winter that was just lasting far too long and after putting up with more than enough taunting, Odd decides to leave. He takes some supplies and goes back to the hut they lived in when his father was alive. From there, he learns exactly what's causing the extra-long winter and decides to go on an adventure to fix things.

I'd forgotten what a pleasure it could be to read a well-written children's book. Odd and the Frost Giants is simply written, and while it is at all elaborate, Gaiman wrote everything that needed to be in those pages. I could practically see Odd and his mother, the bear, fox, and eagle, and the frost giant. I can't imagine that there will be much criticism of this book. I hope everyone finds the time to pick it up.

The Child Thief, by Brom (and Green Angel, by Alice Hoffman)

I sat outside in the sun and finished The Child Thief on Saturday. It fits into the "fairy tale" part of the Once Upon a Time Challenge, but mostly I read it because it's Brom. As should be expected when you open a book by Brom (or look at any of his art), The Child Thief is filled with magic and darkness. It's not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach, as Brom has no qualms about describing graphic details or including horrific scenes. There are many of those, as the story is about a boy who steals children, takes them to his fort on Avalon where they become the Devils (the Lost Boys of Peter Pan) and where they train so that they can fight his war against the monsterous captain and his crew in a centuries-long attempt to save Avalon. Brom finds the sinister in Peter Pan and brings it to the forefront of the story, weaving it so skillfully with the magic of the tale that you finish the book feeling like you just read the true story of Peter Pan. The Child Thief is like the gritty truth Brom revealed by pulling back all the years of candy coating.

Green Angel was a library book sale purchase, and I expected much from it when I sat down to read it this weekend. It's a short book that can be read in one sitting, but I can only recommend it for the beauty of the prose. The way Hoffman put words together was beautiful, but it was almost as though she focused so much on the words that she forgot what the words were saying. The story was choppy, and I felt that most of the time the narrator told me what happened rather than showing me. I also found it difficult to identify with the main character, in spite of the fact that ten years ago I was an angsty, shy, withdrawn teenage girl myself. This book may be one of the few books that goes back to the library in a donation box.