Question 11

11) Who is my favorite fictional character?
(NOTE: published fictional character)
a) Mary Russell
b) Dag Redwing (later Dag Bluefield)
c) Ivan Vorpatril
d) Ista dy Chalion
e) Miles Naismith Vorkosigan

Good heavens, is it Thursday already? How did that happen? I have no knitting photos (again) because I've hardly knit at all this past week. I'm not entirely sure why, but I'm leaning towards blaming the cuckoo clock. I've been very, very tired since we got it hung up. It's closer than I'd like to my bed (then again, everywhere in the house is closer than I'd like the cuckoo clock to be), and I think that it's twice-hourly festival of noise may be disturbing my sleep. It doesn't wake me up entirely, but I think it might partially. Perhaps I'll get used to it.

I do have a bit of knit-related content, if anyone's interested. I've been subscribing to Interweave Knits for about a year-and-a-half now -- since shortly after I began knitting so much. Several knitbloggers recommended it, and I enjoyed the free trial issue enough to subscribe. The articles are interesting and informative. There's almost always a pattern that I want to make. I even like the ads. I usually flip through it quickly and then spend 3 or 4 weeks reading it at a far more leisurely pace. Basically, if you're new to knitting magazines, give this one a try. (If you're not new, you probably already get it.)

In contrast, I received my trial issue of another knitting magazine today (which I'm not naming because I didn't like it at all). I found the articles frustrating, for reasons ranging from bad grammar/vocabulary to insulting and patronizing tone to sheer idiocy of the author. As far as I could tell, their yarn feature's theme was "pink," which is a nice enough color, but not really enough to connect 20 very disparate yarns. A couple of the patterns were nice, in a "That's pretty, but I don't know anyone who'd wear it" kind of way. A couple of them were just insane. I don't know people who'd be caught dead in the same room as those items, much less wear them. For example, there's a "capelet" that's made out of 1 strand of heavy worsted held together with 1 strand of yarn that I'll call super bulky only because I don't know of a thicker category. The recommended gauge is 1 stitch or 1 row = 1 inch. The pattern uses size US50 needles. Those have a diameter of 25 mm! (For comparison's sake, a reasonably thick wool sweater would be about 5-6 stitches or 6-7 rows to the inch, on US7 needles, which are 4.5 mm in diameter.) And this capelet is photographed with a "little black dress" type of outfit, hairdo, etc. It reminded me of nothing so much as a show poodle, like this. *shudder* Although I think the poodle pulls it off better.

I had to laugh a bit at how uniformly horrible it was. I did get 1 useful piece of information out of it though. You see, Interweave Knits had an ad for a company that does craft cruises, with classes in knitting, crochet, mixed media, and other crafts available on the "at sea" days of mainstream cruises. I was looking at their website, checking out the knitting cruises in a "if I win the lottery in the next 6 months" kind of way, and I liked the look of 2 of the cruises. However, the instructor for one of those cruises wrote an article in the second magazine. Having read it, there's no way I'd take a class with her as the instructor, much less a cruise-worth of them. So if I win the lottery in the next 6 months, I'm definitely signing up for the cruise to Bermuda. Heck with the one to Canada & New England.

(If anyone's really interested in the bad magazine, leave a comment and I'll contact you with the name of it.)

Answer to Question 11: Mary Russell. She's the wife and partner of Sherlock Holmes in the books by Laurie R. King. Yes, his wife. And she reads Theology at Oxford. It's a very interesting series.

The rest of the characters are by Lois McMaster Bujold. (You remember her, right? The answer to my favorite author?) Miles Naismith Vorkosigan is the protagonist of most of her Vorkosigan saga/series. Ivan Vorpatril is his cousin. Ista dy Chalion appears in The Curse of Chalion and is the protagonist of Paladin of Souls. Dag Redwing/Bluefield is the male protagonist of the Sharing Knife series. (He takes his wife's last name when they marry, as is the custom among his people.)