Another Ta Dah, Finished Project, Roses and Books Oh My

 

Falling Leaves is drying after being laundered.  This was the easiest project so far this year, as these were all crocheted squares (no knit squares), and while all are not granny style squares they were fairly close to the same size, so that required a bit less work on my part.  This ghan is a bit more narrow than I like, but working with the squares that I had this was the way to make the pattern of squares work.  It's unusual for me to have so many similar squares to work with.  My daughter and hubby like symmetrical things and so they liked this one..........me, I've gotten used to working with some of this and  that and sorta prefer the less symmetrical designs.  Either way, it will keep someone warm.  All the afghans I put together from pieces parts are donated to Homeless Shelters.

The before picture, though turned the other direction.  This ghan didn't change much as I worked on it.  Forgot to mention above picture it's edged with really dark green, though it may look black in the picture.

This one is the next project, though after looking at it awhile, I moved a few squares since this picture.  This will probably be the most tedious of the ghans so far this year, as the squares are really different sizes, some are squares, and some are rectangles and some are knitted.  I'm not sure I have enough of one color to do the edging and sizing for this, so may do a bit of a design/pattern with edging in order to use multiple colors....we'll see how it goes.  Current plan is to edge the middle row both horizontally and vertically in brown and do the 4 corners in the dark green, lighter green, and or blue left over from the previous ghans.  Trying hard to use my stash and not buy more, particularly after the work my daughter and I did over Christmas to sort and roll and donate 41.5 pounds of yarn.  Buying would add to the stash and that's not the goal.  Soooo, we'll see how this goes.

More gorgeous roses.  These white roses are tipped in pink and are so pretty.  Hubby brought this home yesterday.  I missed taking a picture of the last roses he brought home that were purplish.  

Post World War II, Paris and it's people are trying to rebuild.  Families are separated, missing and or dead and somehow life must go on.  The captivating story of two strong women from the same family generations apart finding a future with the commonality of a small neighborhood bakery.  A most enjoyable book.

Set in 1916, an intriguing story with a World War I nurse.  She finds herself in the middle of deadly secrets as she carries a personal message from a fallen solder to his family.  Lots of surprises in this book.  I'm not typically a mystery book lover, but found this book hard to put down.  I also didn't know befpre reading/listening to it , that it is  book #1 in a series, so now I need to find the listing of how many books are in the series and get them on my list.

I've read/listened to a good number of Kelly Rimmer's books and always enjoy them, and this was no different.   Though set in 1970/current day we're transported back to the cold war, double agents, injuries and danger.  Family loyalty vs patriotic duty with some very tuff decisions to make.  

Purple Haze in Stages, Falling Leaves, Exercise and Books!

 

Purple Haze.  Hubby mentioned this name, so I went with it .  Does it remind you of Jimmy Hendrix?  Here it's laid out to dry.

Here it is in stage 2, I've edged the squares to even up sizes, and tied the squares together to begin joining them.

Here it is before anything was done.  It changed quite a bit, and I did move a few squares around after edging.

Waiting in the wings is Falling Leaves.  This is most unusual in that I had enough donated squares to make a pattern.  The green squares aren't quite the same size of the orange and variegated, and the yellow aren't granny squares; but this one should require less work to size things up to join.

February was a pretty good month in terms of activity.  My mileage went from 115.48 miles in January to 127.83.  I went for 10 actual purposeful walks in January and 15 in February.  Hubby fixed up the bike from Goodwill so I managed to get 6 bike rides in afterwards.  Planks are both up and down.  They're up in that I increased from 45 seconds x 4 to 50 seconds x 4 partway through the month; but my total repeats are less.  I did planks 17 days in January and 15 days in February.  Sadly I neglected to document 2 days in February...so don't know what I did those days.

Help Me to Find My People.  I returned this to the library only partially read.  I tried several times to get into it; but found it bland, and very repetitive.  Lots of stats and references to other books and authors exploring how slaves felt being sold, being separated from the families.  They felt bad.......I don't think you need stats to know that.  They felt fearful, they felt useless.  It's not rocket science.  Everything about slavery was horrible.  Most people know that, except for White Supremists. 

Hush Harbor was frightening, thought provoking and difficult.  An uprising because cops killed a Black American who was un-armed.  Sadly, we've witness this is the news far too often.  This book shows a group of people fed up and fighting back.  I found it chilling, but highly recommend this book.

Kinfolk........small town life in Alabama, a dysfunctional family. An un-educated girl finds a family can be more than blood.  It's a heartwarming story with some dark undertones of what people live with.  It's read by the author which made it even more enjoyable.  Highly recommend this book.