When you design a jacket with a zipper, can you please refrain from using bumpy cotton yarn with 12% nylon content? I have knit in cotton-blends, I have inserted zippers in knitwear, but I know better than do them both simultaneously.
p.s. I'm sorry I was so mean in the message I sent you. It wasn't your fault that instead of ordering the color "Terra-Cotta" I ordered "Natural", and found it was whiter than a KKK robe. I guess the yarn company and I have different ideas about what constitutes "natural." I was hoping for a more multicultural white, but that's not your fault.
p.p.s. And no, though I was naive enough to think you selected the ideal yarn for this project and ordered some yarn, I didn't cast on for the project. So I'm irritated, but it will pass.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Aha!
How we digress. I was just starting my (long overdue) Friday Bookshelf. First, I wanted to share an aha moment.
Just before bedtime last night, I was browsing the Daily Beast and saw an article -- Spilling My Family's Secrets, by Frances Osborne -- about a book I'd wanted read about her great-grandmother, Idina Sackville.
I rarely buy books until I've read them. I check them out of the library, and if the book is one I want to re-read, I will buy it. So when this book was first published last year, I put a library hold on it. But I was out of town when hold came to library, and when I realized the hold expired, my enthusiasm had waned.
Though I was half-asleep when I saw the article in the Daily Beast, I immediately perked up. I wanted to read that book and I wanted it now! So I went to overdrive, found it on the virtual bookshelves, and checked it out. Lovely!
While I was there, I "returned" a few digital ebooks that had not yet expired. (Books are returned automatically at the end of your checkout period). Heading upstairs I told me husband, "I just went to the library and checked out a few books and returned some old ones. In my pyjamas!" Then I got in bed and started reading The Bolter by Frances Osborne.
Just before bedtime last night, I was browsing the Daily Beast and saw an article -- Spilling My Family's Secrets, by Frances Osborne -- about a book I'd wanted read about her great-grandmother, Idina Sackville.
I rarely buy books until I've read them. I check them out of the library, and if the book is one I want to re-read, I will buy it. So when this book was first published last year, I put a library hold on it. But I was out of town when hold came to library, and when I realized the hold expired, my enthusiasm had waned.
Though I was half-asleep when I saw the article in the Daily Beast, I immediately perked up. I wanted to read that book and I wanted it now! So I went to overdrive, found it on the virtual bookshelves, and checked it out. Lovely!
While I was there, I "returned" a few digital ebooks that had not yet expired. (Books are returned automatically at the end of your checkout period). Heading upstairs I told me husband, "I just went to the library and checked out a few books and returned some old ones. In my pyjamas!" Then I got in bed and started reading The Bolter by Frances Osborne.
Alex Ereader by Spring Design
Judging by my irl conversations, I'm going to be blathering regularly about Alex, aka my Alex ereader by Spring Design, which I got in April. So here's an introduction.
The Alex has dual e-ink and LCD screens, so it is like a Nook with a driver's license. At $400, it costs more than superficially comparable ereaders, but has much greater flexibility in its functions. You can surf web check email, watch video, and add whatever 3rd party android apps you please. Smart phones are phones "et al"; the Alex is an ereader "et al". If you want an ereader and either don't have a smartphone (or find functions of a smartphone indispensable), then Alex is worth the extra cost.
For me the two deal breakers were: a no-glare screen for reading (knocks out sony), and ability to check out overdrive library books (knocks out kindle and some others). Having 3rd party apps is a perk, but a nice one! Especially the Knitting Stash app by Underhill Labs.
Regarding overdrive library ebooks, you do have to transfer the ebooks via your computer because Overdrive does not as yet support mobile devices for download. But when I'm browsing for books in a digital library, I'd prefer to have a full-sized keyboard anyway, and transferring files to Alex is not tedious.
More feedback on Alex (by me and others) is at mobileread.com.
The Alex has dual e-ink and LCD screens, so it is like a Nook with a driver's license. At $400, it costs more than superficially comparable ereaders, but has much greater flexibility in its functions. You can surf web check email, watch video, and add whatever 3rd party android apps you please. Smart phones are phones "et al"; the Alex is an ereader "et al". If you want an ereader and either don't have a smartphone (or find functions of a smartphone indispensable), then Alex is worth the extra cost.
For me the two deal breakers were: a no-glare screen for reading (knocks out sony), and ability to check out overdrive library books (knocks out kindle and some others). Having 3rd party apps is a perk, but a nice one! Especially the Knitting Stash app by Underhill Labs.
Regarding overdrive library ebooks, you do have to transfer the ebooks via your computer because Overdrive does not as yet support mobile devices for download. But when I'm browsing for books in a digital library, I'd prefer to have a full-sized keyboard anyway, and transferring files to Alex is not tedious.
More feedback on Alex (by me and others) is at mobileread.com.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Friday Bookshelf
Darkship Thieves by Sarah Hoyt / WWW: Wake by Robert Sawyer
I mention these books in tandem, because (1) I saw them both on John Scalzi's blog and (2) I put them in a single order during the Amazon/Macmillan fistfight, and (3) I read them back to back. Well, more precisely, I just finished reading Darkship Thieves and am currently reading WWW: Wake. But I'm a fast reader.
In WWW: Wake, the heroine has an argument with her teacher about whether Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is science fiction. The teacher says of course it's not, or it wouldn't be taught in school!
But what strikes me, moving quickly from Hoyt to Sawyer, as if I am stepping off an escalator in a department store from the lingerie floor to the techno section, is how flexible SF is these days. Darkship Thieves is practically a bodice ripper, albeit with a heroine who can seriously kick butt, and with bodices that can be repaired in a trice with something called vibro. Despite the adventure and tangential subplots, this story is as reassuring as any romance by Kathleen Woodiwiss. You know that in the end, the hero and heroine will sail off (in their spaceship) into the sunset.
Moving off the escalator to the electronics department, the livejournal narrative of an engaging blind girl -- who is neither deaf nor a pinball wizard, but is a whiz at math-- is interspersed with a gripping account of the H5N1 bird virus that is spreading alarmingly through rural China. I'm reminded of Caroline Cooley's taught thrillers. I'm not sure how the plots will intertwine,but since our heroine is getting an operation in Japan right now, and that virus is next door in China, I'm sure they will mix. And I will certainly keep reading. But SF has really wide universe and there's something in it for everyone.
I mention these books in tandem, because (1) I saw them both on John Scalzi's blog and (2) I put them in a single order during the Amazon/Macmillan fistfight, and (3) I read them back to back. Well, more precisely, I just finished reading Darkship Thieves and am currently reading WWW: Wake. But I'm a fast reader.
In WWW: Wake, the heroine has an argument with her teacher about whether Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is science fiction. The teacher says of course it's not, or it wouldn't be taught in school!
But what strikes me, moving quickly from Hoyt to Sawyer, as if I am stepping off an escalator in a department store from the lingerie floor to the techno section, is how flexible SF is these days. Darkship Thieves is practically a bodice ripper, albeit with a heroine who can seriously kick butt, and with bodices that can be repaired in a trice with something called vibro. Despite the adventure and tangential subplots, this story is as reassuring as any romance by Kathleen Woodiwiss. You know that in the end, the hero and heroine will sail off (in their spaceship) into the sunset.
Moving off the escalator to the electronics department, the livejournal narrative of an engaging blind girl -- who is neither deaf nor a pinball wizard, but is a whiz at math-- is interspersed with a gripping account of the H5N1 bird virus that is spreading alarmingly through rural China. I'm reminded of Caroline Cooley's taught thrillers. I'm not sure how the plots will intertwine,but since our heroine is getting an operation in Japan right now, and that virus is next door in China, I'm sure they will mix. And I will certainly keep reading. But SF has really wide universe and there's something in it for everyone.
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