Spiral

This is the silliness I've been at lately. What is it? It's a knitted spiral. No, it's not quite a cushion. It's a .... comfy. It's a grown-up stuffed toy. It's oddly comforting to hold against your tummy while you sit on the couch watching TV. It's great fun to knit, stuff and stitch together. (Basically, a tapered tube, knit for as long as you like, then tapered in again, stuffed, rolled and stitched). I'm planning to add some of these .....

as soon as I find a needle-threader. (Yes, I got new glasses, but no, they are not powerful enough for the eye of a fine needle).

Where did the idea come from? From HERE. It's knitting, but not as we know it. I'm looking forward to making twisted things, odd things, maybe even quad socks (four odd socks, so that no matter what happens, you can wear any two of the four). I'm not planning on experimenting with knitting with spaghetti, though, no matter what the book says!

100 books

I met a new-to-me Blogger, Julie Marie,today. The title of her Blog caught my eye - CelticWoman. Among the posts she made this month, she had a list of 100 books, which I've borrowed, and marked as follows:

Bold the books I've read.Italicize the ones I want to read.Cross out the ones I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole. (Since I don't know how to cross out, I put an x by this one.)Put a cross (+) by the ones on my bookshelf.Put an asterisk (*) by the ones I've never heard of.

I might have done something like this before, but I'm settled on the couch, and feel like just checking, so....

+1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
+2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
+5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
+6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
+7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
+8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
*9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon
*10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
+11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
x12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
+13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
+16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
*17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
+18. The Stand (Stephen King)
+19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
+21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
+23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
+24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
+25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
+26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
+27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
+28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
+30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
+31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
*33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
+34. 1984 (George Orwell)
+35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
*36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
*37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
+38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
+40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
+41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
*43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible (not read in full????)
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
++48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
+51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
*53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
*56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
+57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
+59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
+60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
+61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
x64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
*65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davies)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
+68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
++70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
+71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
+75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
*76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
*81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
*84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
+86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
+87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
++88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
*89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
*91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
+94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
*96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
+97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
+99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
+100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

I'm embarrassed. There are quite a few I've never heard of. Some on my shelves not yet read. A half-read bible (without italics, you'll note). AND, despite my clearing and culling over the past few months, there are a few books of which I have two copies (++), and quite a few which should have been consigned to the charity-shop boxes.