Author Archives: Anna

Recent adventures in crafting

I finished a scarf/shawl thing. It is too bad it is going to be too hot to wear it for many many weeks.

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It is a Color Affection made of Wollmeise, and it is awesome! I love that yarn.

I love it so much I bought some more!

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These are We’re Different skeins – slightly off standard versions of the Suzanne and Verhext und Verratzt. The Verhext und Verratzt WD might be my favorite skein of Wollmeise yet. I love the purples!

Speaking of purple things, I’ve been cheating on my knitting by working on an Amethyst Princess of Gemworld cross stitch project. Here you can see Prince Topaz and Lady Turquoise, along with a headless, bisected Prince Garnet:

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Amethyst and the Weirdoverse – Wrap-up

I accidentally blew away most of the images on this blog and have been adding them back to my Amethyst posts. I just realized that I hadn’t actually finished covering the very odd time Amethyst popped up in the Convergence/Book Of Fate/Weirodoverse crossover issues in the 90s.

Amethyst does appear briefly at the end of Book of Fate 8, where she takes a bath, evilly.

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She shows up again to flirt with Fate in an ill-fitting purple bikini.

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Other things happen, and eventually Fate gets sent to a future alien plant to hang out with Lobo!? I was really not paying very close attention at this point, but Amethyst does show up again as an old lady.

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And that’s about it, for Amethyst appearances in this obscure corner of the 1990s. I do plan to cover some of the Amethyst references in Legion of Super-Heroes soon.

First Quarter Reading Update

I’ve been slacking on doing my reading lists, which I do find useful when I want to look back and see what I’ve read over the year. This is a partial list of what I’ve read from January 2013-May 2013:

YA
The Giver and Messenger Lois Lowry – We are reading a ton of Lois Lowery for my YA book club this month.
Graceling and Fire Kristin Cashore – Throughly enjoyed the first book in the series, but the switch to a different country in the same world with a complicated and detailed backstory left me a little bit unenthused by the second volume. Both were well-written, and I probably will check out the third volume in the series at some point.
The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight Jennifer E. Smith – This was cute, but in terms of young romance in a foreign country, I much preferred Anna and the French Kiss. The timeline here in the characters getting to know each other was so compressed, I didn’t feel like I got a very full picture of their personalities.

Romance
Something About You Julie James
Irresistible (Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, #3) Mary Balogh
The Capture of the Earl of Glencrae (The Cynster Sisters Trilogy #3) Stephanie Laurens
Twice Tempted (Night Prince, #2) Jeaniene Frost
The Inconvenient Duchess (The Radwells #1) Christine Merrill
The Other Side of Us Sarah Mayberry
Temptation and Surrender (Cynster, #15) Stephanie Laurens
Potent Pleasures (Pleasures, #1) Eloisa James
Winterblaze (Darkest London, #3) Kristen Callihan – This was a fun historical paranormal romance series. Looking forward to the next book!
Firelight (Darkest London, #1) Kristen Callihan
Moonglow (Darkest London, #2) Kristen Callihan
If I Fall (The Blue Raven, #4) Kate Noble
Revealed (The Blue Raven, #1) Kate Noble
The Taste of Night (Signs of the Zodiac, #2) Vicki Pettersson
The Scent of Shadows (Signs of the Zodiac, #1) Vicki Pettersson
The Promise in a Kiss (Cynster Prequel) Stephanie Laurens
Devil’s Bride (Cynster, #1) Stephanie Laurens
The Ideal Bride (Cynster, #11) Stephanie Laurens
Skies of Fire (The Ether Chronicles, #1) Zoe Archer
The Forbidden Lord (Lord Trilogy, #2) Sabrina Jeffries
The Pirate Lord (Lord Trilogy, #1) Sabrina Jeffries
The Dangerous Lord (Lord Trilogy, #3) Sabrina Jeffries
Spiders Bite (Elemental Assassin Series #1) Jennifer Estep

Manga
The Story of Saiunkoku, Vol. 9 Kairi Yura
Crimson Empire Vol 1: Circumstances to Serve a Noble QuinRose
Tiger & Bunny, Vol. 1 Mizuki Sakakibara
Pepita: Takehiko Inoue Meets Gaudi Takehiko Inoue
Kare First Love, Volume 1-6 Kaho Miyasaka
Otomen, Vol. 15 (Otomen, #15) Aya Kanno
Dengeki Daisy 12 (Dengeki Daisy, #12) Kyousuke Motomi
Mobile Suit Gundam: THE ORIGIN volume 1: Activation Yoshiyuki Tomino
Paradise Kiss, Part 2 Ai Yazawa
Demon Love Spell, Vol. 2 Mayu Shinjo
Vagabond, Vol. 10 (VIZBIG Edition) Takehiko Inoue
Please Save My Earth, 1- 6 Saki Hiwatari
Kekkaishi, Vol. 14 (Kekkaishi, #14) Yellow Tanabe
Kekkaishi, Vol. 17 (Kekkaishi, #17) Yellow Tanabe
Barrage, Vol. 2 Kouhei Horikoshi
Barrage, Vol. 1 Kouhei Horikoshi
Jiu Jiu, Vol. 4 Touya Tobina
Oresama Teacher , Vol. 13 Izumi Tsubaki
Kamisama Kiss, Vol. 12 Julietta Suzuki
Skip Beat!, Vol. 30 Yoshiki Nakamura
Strobe Edge Vol. 2 – 4 Io Sakisaka
Paradise Kiss, Part 3 Ai Yazawa
Library Wars: Love and War #9 Kiiro Yumi

Super Mega Update Knitting Post

I keep meaning to document more of my knitting and I always end up forgetting to take pictures and update Ravelry. Here’s a summary of some of my recent knitting projects.

Big Boy Blankets – I made my kids some baby blankets out of some “superwash” wool that ended up felting so much I threw one away and have one nice felted wool bathmat. So I made them some new blankets, out of some acrylic/wool blend yarn that will hopefully not have the felting issue:

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And here is the other one:

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I can’t get a full shot of these as I don’t feel like standing on a chair. They aren’t super-big, definitely enough for a throw for a five year old but too small to actually use as a bedspread on a twin size bed. I could have made them larger, but the people I was making them for requested that I stop because they wanted their blankets done 🙂

I made a hat! Margene gifted me with the nice yarn (which I think was a nifty manos silk/wool blend) in a destash! This was the free Mairead hat pattern and it was quick and fun to knit.

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Some projects in progress:

I’m going to finally be done with my Color Affection fairly soon.

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This is made with some of the Wollmeise from my stash, it is always nice to find a great pattern to highlight some lovely yarn.

And because Cheryl spent some time contemplating and discussing Entrelac before making this scarf, I started thinking about another Entrelac project too.

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I have 3 skeins of this semi-crazy Koigu colorway, and am going to slowly stripe in some slightly more subtle Koigu once I get beyond the halfway point. We’ll see how that turns out. This is my lighter-weight mindless at home knitting project, now that those blankets are done. I should learn how to knit backwards with this project, but I don’t really mind turning all that much.