Yarn Along in a Yellow Raft

Joining Ginny and her reading peeps this morning on a Yarn Along ……

With the ringing in of a new year I have joined a reading group at my local library. This monthly group had already voted on the 2013 reading list by the time I joined  but it looks like a very interesting list so I’m sure I will enjoy many hours of great reading.

The first book is titled A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, a novel written by Michael Dorris. On the back cover several newspapers have described it as, “Dazzling”, “Spellbinding”, “Memorable…Marvelous”, “Vivid, Intense .. Straight from the Heart.” It sounds promising, doesn’t it?

The novel is a saga of three generations of American Indian women. It starts in the present day and moves back in time. I’m presently reading the story of Rayona, a fifteen-year-old part black teenager searching for a way to find herself. I’ve met the two other women briefly, her mother and grandmother. As the back cover conveys, there seem to be several haunting secrets, betrayals and dreams and I’m anticipating the unraveling of these showing me why these women act the way they do.

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to continue knitting my way through Sock Knitting Master Class. None of these socks have been ho-hum socks and I have learned new techniques from each well-known designer. It just so happens that I am knitting a yellow sock (because you know the raft is yellow) and am carrying it in my blue Lancome bag (because after all, water is blue you know.)

The first master sock of 2013 is Slip-n-Slide and the designer is Chrissy Gardiner. Chrissy uses slip stitches in which a horizontal strand of yarn is lifted a few rows later to make a little ‘tent’ design. Although the pattern is not too terribly difficult it is a little tedious. It won’t be a fast knit but it will most certainly result in a lovely little sock.

So how about you? Have you read a good book lately?