An F, an FF, and a WIP

I hope everyone had a nice weekend. We were very relaxed around here, enjoying a Spring-y mix of sunny and warm-ish, rainy and chilly, and (of course) overnight frost. The weekend seemed to last an extra day, but at the same time it wasn't long enough.

I finished a wee thing yesterday:

It's from a recent Cross Stitch Crazy magazine. There are a bunch of small, colorful blackwork-style designs. I really like them, so I'll probably do more.

I also finish-finished a thing:

I finished the beading on this a week or so ago, but I just decided what to do with it yesterday. It's from a Mill Hill kit called "Tombstone," and comes with a magnet, but I left off the magnet and instead made a beaded hanger and backed it with felt to make it a little ornament.

I've also been working on something I started last weekend. Apparently even in the Spring I'm drawn to Halloween designs, because I'm doing another one:

It's a Satsuma Street design. The model is partly what sold me on the design, so my plan is to eventually finish it into a pillow as similar to that as I can get. But the design is bigger than I was somehow expecting, so I don't think I'll have it finished by Halloween. I like it though.

I also started my first actual knitting project (i.e., something that's not a dish cloth) - I picked up some inexpensive yarn and am making a scarf. So far (fingers crossed) I haven't made any mistakes. My plan is to knit a damn scarf and if I can manage that without it looking like a mangled, moth-eaten mess, I'll...well, probably knit another damn scarf, but with different kinds of stitches added in. My goal is to one day make a sweater. Or a little stuffed animal thing.

AND, a book I've been waiting on since last September was finally released. It did not disappoint. It's a fantasy (with some SF sensibilities), called "The Edge of Worlds" by Martha Wells.

Incidentally, if anyone out there enjoys truly original, deeply engaging SF/F with amazing world-building and characters who come alive regardless of how human-like they are (or are not), you NEED to track down this woman's books. For human worlds, look for "Death of the Necromancer" or the Fall of Ile-Rien series. For worlds that aren't human but are brilliantly crafted and just as easy to get into as any human-world story, look for the Books of the Raksura (start with "The Cloud Roads," partly because it's the first book and partly because it's amaaaaazing).

She's hard to find in stores, but you can find her on Kindle, and via Amazon (various countries) or BNN.com.