Knitting: Find Your Fade shawl.

When everyone was knitting Find Your Fade (and all of the other fade patterns that came afterwards), I had no desire to and never planned on making one myself. But then I found a set of four coordinating yarns from WIPyarns, and I started to rethink that decision. :) I thought about that yarn for the longest time, and finally splurged but didn't let myself cast on until I finished my black cardigan.

So it happened that I started knitting this shawl just days before my wedding. It was the only knitting I took with me on our honeymoon, and while I didn't do much knitting that week, I do remember working on it as we drove through the mountains from Tennessee to Asheville, NC to visit the Biltmore. And over the next few months I slowly knitted on it until it was finished in February, which means there are a lot of memories of our wedding and honeymoon and first months of marriage worked into this shawl. :) This project is pretty special to me!

I used the basic pattern but wanted a smaller shawl, so I made a few changes. I only had four colors, so I used a couple of them in more sections than the pattern called for. Also, I stopped increasing a little sooner so that my shawl would be narrower and shorter. (More specific details in my project page, linked below.) It's still a fairly large shawl!

The yarn was lovely, of course. I love how these four colors go so well together, and the yarn itself was very enjoyable to knit with. (I also made my Christmas socks from this dyer's yarn!) WIPyarns really has become one of my favorite hand dyed yarns lately.

And now, this girl who said she'd never knit a fade pattern...well, she's knitting a So Faded sweater.

Ravelry project page.

What I Read: February

February was a decent reading month! I read four books and enjoyed most of what I read. As always, click on the titles for my Goodreads reviews.

The Problim Children, by Natalie Lloyd. Natalie's books are must-reads for me! She writes sweet, magical middle grade, and this one was no exception. It's about seven siblings, with a little bit of mystery and a lot of quirkiness. Her first book, A Snicker of Magic, is still my favorite, but I enjoyed this one too!

The Rabbit Back Literature Society, by Pasi Ilmari Jaaskelainen. This one is translated from Finnish, I think? It was truly one of the strangest books I've ever read. I really loved some parts of it. The plot was interesting and there is a lot of magical realism (which I like!), almost veering into fantasy at times. But there's also some weird graphic sexual content that really took away from the story, in my opinion.

The Story of Charlotte's Web, by Michael Sims. Since I reread one of my old favorites, Charlotte's Web, last month, it seemed like a good time to finally pick up this biography of E.B. White. I really didn't know anything about him, other than the three children's books that he's famous for, so this was really informative for me! It was also a pretty easy read, which biographies aren't always. I enjoyed it very much.

Stuart Little, by E.B. White. And reading that book made me want to pick this one up! I know that I read it, or parts of it, when I was little, but I don't think I'd picked it up since then. It was okay. Pleasant overall, but it's no Charlotte's Web.