Since I’ve been knitting my log cabin blanket, I’ve become re-interested in quilts in general (a common side effect of log cabin knitting, I think). I went through a brief obsession with quilts as a kid (probably because of a book I read–I think it might have been a picture book, but I can’t remember the title), but nothing ever really happened with my obsession, besides a quilted pillowcase. But I recently discovered the website for the International Quilt Study Center, (it happened to win a prize in that freelance project I was editing a couple of weeks ago) and the interface is really terrific. The image above is from some of the examples that come up for “log cabin.” You can spend quite some time playing with its explorer feature. I also found a really cool knitted log cabin quilt on Ravelry (registration required), by a user named Bubbie Ann (she has a Flickr photo of it here, as well).

I like taking photos of flowers, though the photos are not as beautiful as in real life. This is the border of a lawn in my parents’ neighborhood in San Francisco–there’s some freesia on the bottom, and poppies, tulips, and ranunculus (ii?). 

I’m still knitting squares. I’m really loving garter stitch these days. Simple and easy and SQUISHY. 

(This picture is from this site.)

Over the weekend, we walked by the Strand’s outdoor book stalls and Adam bought me The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, not believing I would really read it. Well, I read the whole thing, and now I need books 2 and 3. I have to say I wasn’t particularly addicted, because at least book 1 was a little, um, [cowering from LOTR-fan hate] boring. I like King Arthur-y stuff, but the Fellowship of the Ring story, in my opinion, was lacking in psychological motivations for any of the characters. I mentioned this to Adam, and he was all, “IS DESTROYING THE RING TO SAVE THE ENTIRE WORLD NOT ENOUGH MOTIVATION?!” I’m like, well, okay, but so? I mean cute little Frodo (I am refusing to imagine him as Elijah Wood, rather picturing him kind of like an Ewok) is going through all this stuff, but why? I think this book is in dire need of some of my favorite plot elements: 1.) family revelations; 2.) psychological motivation (preferably with a shocking secret); 3.) romance.

1.) Family revelations are when people turn out to have long lost relatives who have been key characters. The ultimate family revelation movies are Jean de Florette and its sequel, Manon de la Source. Also, I must begrudgingly point to, of course, “Luke, I am your father,” in Star Wars. But you know, Oliver Twist, Portrait of a Lady, hell, the BIBLE, are filled with family revelations. Somehow I doubt Gandalf is going to be related to Frodo.

2.) Well, the new Star Trek movie I recently saw tried to give some origin/backstory to Spock, and I feel it was sufficient. Batman, etc. But Frodo has a cute happy life in the Shire–there is no real reason why he has been chosen to carry The Ring. (Except that he is so cute and happy that he can’t be destroyed by it, I guess.)

3.) Duh. From the relentless publicity of the LOTR movies, I am guessing that Aragon and Arwen are in love, but I think this book could benefit from more female characters in general. I mean, these faerie folk things normally throw a sop to lady readers with a major heroine (Jane, in The Dark is Rising; Princess Eilonwy, in The Black Cauldron; Hermione, in Harry Potter), and I think this book could really use a  major lady character.

Okay. I am going to try to get book 2 and will report on that when I am done, though I assume most of my readers are already familiar with LOTR, and not in need of my commentary.

Trying to knit a square a day. Here are the latest two squares.