Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

I loved this story from the first page.  It caught my imagination and didn't let go.  At present, the game playing sophistication of the book is fantasy, though it is verging on becoming reality, and before it does we should heed author Ernest Cline's implied warnings. 

By the year 2044, most members of society have become so caught up in the virtual world, that many people never leave their houses, they conduct their day to day life in OASIS, the online world.  When James Halliday,one of the founders of OASIS dies with no heirs, he starts in motion the ultimate game, which will leave the winner wealthy beyond imagination.  Wade Watts, and many others see this as a way out of the grinding poverty that affects far too many.

Wade may still be a student, but he knows OASIS and he understands games.  For years he immerses himself in the genre of the 80's that Mr. Halliday enjoyed.  He hopes that this knowledge will help him solve the clues and win the game.  Also competing to win the prize is a corporate group who with their winnings would turn OASIS from a free access world to one of fees making it inaccessible for many.

It was interesting to see Mr. Cline's view of what life could become as computers and virtual reality  technology advances.  We are already seeing less person to person communication and people use their cell phones to text instead of talk. 

Having lived through the 80's, I enjoyed reminiscing while Wade worked though the clues and followed the leads of Mr. Halliday's life.  Thanks to author Ernest Cline for writing this enjoyable and thought provoking book. 

Also by Ernest Cline:  Armada

Cover image courtesy Penguin RandomHouse Canada

Win Sock Yarn for Life (or so)

Our stitching friends at Yarn Canada have invited me to extend and invitation to enter their new contest.  You can win sock yarn for life, depending on how fast you knit.  I am pasting in the details that they sent.  Open to entrants from Canada and the United States.  Follow the link to enter.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Win Socks for Life! Well the yarn, you’re on your own after that.
(Vancouver, BC) “To be fair, it’s actually only a 25 year supply, so we can only hope the winner dies early to keep me an honest woman.” - Nikki Smith, VP YarnCanada.ca
After extensive research YarnCanada.ca discovered two key issues which continue to plague the world which we’d like to help bring to an end.

1. Some people have hobbies other than knitting (idiots)
2. Other (marginally insane) people buy socks at Costco 

“With one final blow we’ll give someone years of knitting and make it so they never need to succumb to Fruit of the Loom again.” - Robert Matherson, YarnCanada.ca
Don’t want to use all the yarn to make socks? That’s okay, no hard feelings.
Yes, some marriages may end as the winner ignores her husband in a multi-year knitting frenzy. But that’s simply a risk we must take. On the other hand, maybe getting non-terrible socks for Christmas could bring families closer together.
The prize will go to whomever can show how their life will most be changed by winning and what you will do with the prize.
Anything could happen:
“I’ll use the yarn to start a knitting business on Etsy!” - Beth C, Winnipeg
“My friends always get together to watch The Bachelor, but goodness it’s boring, now I’ll have something to do to keep me distracted.” - Janet G, Toronto
“Honestly I have no self control. With all that yarn I’ll knit non-stop, stay up for days and miss work. I’ll get fired, not be able to pay rent and get kicked out of my apartment. But… I’d have so many socks!” - Samantha T, Vancouver
“I’ll knit them all up as fast as I can and give them to charity.” – Nicole

Whatever the reason, let us know why knitting is important to you and how a lifetime supply of sock yarn would change your life.

Enter to Win a Lifetime Supply of Socks

Good luck to all who enter, both male and female and I hope the winner lives a long and happy life and out lives his or her stash. Contest closes December 7, 2016.

I don't have much to share this week, between extra work hours and working on a secret project, my time is pretty much consumed.  I do have a few pics of the secret project that don't give anything away.

 A large quilt requires lots of bobbins to be wound, this is just a few.  I like to use the same thread both in the top and in the bobbin, seems to work out better.  I am using King Tut because that's what my local shop carries.

 All layered up, this quilt is a bit of a monster to keep moving around.  It's 80x100 inches I need a new machine with a much bigger opening (it's on my wish list).

 This shows the layout of the quilt and the sashing.  I drew this up so i could plan out the stitch in the ditch for the sashing and keep the bulk of the fabrics to the left of the machine.  the blue lines show what was already stitched at that point, and for the final passes, I started at the dots in the upper left and stitched in a continuous line to the end near the 4 in the bottom left.

I'll try to have more photos next week, though my work schedule is getting crazy with extra hours due to Christmas shopping.  To all who have shopping yet to complete, please remain calm and peaceful when you are out and remember that the store clerks are human and deserve to be treated with respect.To enhance your shopping experience where ever you may be, please leave your children at home, they will be much happier and so will you and every one else.

Needlework Tuesday is a regular weekly post where I share the progress of my various needlework projects over the past week. I enjoy the encouragement that I receive from my readers and in return visit their blogs and cheer them on with theirs. You are welcome to grab the cute little mouse and create your own Needlework Tuesday post. Leave a comment with a link and I'll be sure to visit with you. I hope that you are having fun and making progress on whatever project is dear to your heart at this moment. 

Mister Linky is waiting below for a link to your needlework post.

Needlework Tuesday - Finished Aghan

 Finally, I have finished the giant granny square afghan.  Well, it was supposed to be giant, but my crochet tension is off and it was getting a bit too wonky. it just won't lay flat without a lot of manipulation so there was no chance I could make it larger.  Lots good when it is all push and prodded to look flat.  Daughter says it is comfy regardless of shaping.

 It is certainly bright and cheerful and the black adds some definition.

 All twelve squares are complete for the BOM that my guild is following.  Now each month I will be ready and will just have to grab the appropriate blocks off the wall.  Not sure about the sashing, though I have metre of strip fabric that matches perfectly.  I will have to play with it and see if it will work.

 This is the block that I substituted for the cake stand one that was part of the pattern.

The pattern is by Jill Majers of Apple Avenue Quilts.

Seeing some good progress on the socks. Still a bit of a struggle with the colour changes.  It's hard to keep the tension nice in the join area, not that my sister will ever see that when she is walking around while wearing the socks, but it still bothers me.  The top of the sock turned out nice.  not sure if it was worth the extra effort, but I won't really know until my sister puts them on and wears them for a while.

In case you missed my earlier posts about the socks, my sister gave me the wool for them, that's why I will be giving them back to her.  I had started this class and didn't want to shop for the wool for this pair.  Knowing that she has a far too healthy wool stash, I shopped in it instead of a store.  Kind sister that she is, she put a large basket of sock yarn on her bed and let me take my choice.

Needlework Tuesday is a regular weekly post where I share the progress of my various needlework projects over the past week. I enjoy the encouragement that I receive from my readers and in return visit their blogs and cheer them on with theirs. You are welcome to grab the cute little mouse and create your own Needlework Tuesday post. Leave a comment with a link and I'll be sure to visit with you. I hope that you are having fun and making progress on whatever project is dear to your heart at this moment. 

Mister Linky is waiting below for a link to your needlework post.

A Sunday Walk

 I was out walking today in Waterloo Park, collecting Pokeballs, and saw some lovely sites that I wanted to share.

There aren't peacocks roaming around here freely, so this would be unusual if it weren't for the zoo enclosure (which isn't visible).

 This handsome llama would not put his ears back up.  Seemed as though he realized I was waiting for the perfect photo op.

 There are brass plaques near several trees and I like the inscription on this one the best.

 Obviously this has been here for many years, but honestly, it's the first year I have ventured to this particular area of the park and I have found this.

This is the oldest school house in Waterloo Region . It was built in 1820 and is also the oldest log school house in the province of Ontario.

Needlework Tuesday - Darning in those yarn ends

I made some progress on the socks.  Before I can go any further, I have to bury all those ends.  Arg, I hate patterns that continually instruct you to cut the yarn when you pick up the new colour.  Then I realized that i started with the wrong side facing, so when I try to unzip the provisional cast on, that starts from the end of the row.  A second arg.  Once I get through these annoyances, I know that I'll breeze on down to the heel, which uses a new-to-me technique.

Keeping my head to the grindstone, i managed to finish four more blocks for my quilt.  That's eight if you are keeping track.  I have the next three blocks cut and read to stitch.  The twelfth I have to select a different pattern.

All the individual cutting for this quilt is driving me crazy.  I am so done with traditional sampler quilts.   Prior to this week's stitching,  I decided to cut all the pieces I would need to the back ground of all the blocks.  That worked well.  Then I did the same for all the brown.  That left only cutting the various blues/teals for each block as it was started.  So much less frustrating.

now to start thinking about fabric for the sashing and the borders.

Needlework Tuesday is a regular weekly post where I share the progress of my various needlework projects over the past week. I enjoy the encouragement that I receive from my readers and in return visit their blogs and cheer them on with theirs. You are welcome to grab the cute little mouse and create your own Needlework Tuesday post. Leave a comment with a link and I'll be sure to visit with you. I hope that you are having fun and making progress on whatever project is dear to your heart at this moment. 

Mister Linky is waiting below for a link to your needlework post.

Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts

This is a sweet story about a young, pregnant woman girl who is abandoned  in  a Walmart parking lot by her nar-do-well  boyfriend.  She ends up secretly living in the store until the birth of her baby two months later.  Novalee seems like an earnest person, who just wants to make a better life for herself and her baby.

During those two months, she becomes acquainted with several residents who help to reassure her that life can be better.  Sister Husband offers her unconditional friendship, Ben gives her a small tree and Moses gives her a photo album.  Shortly after that, she meets Forney, the librarian who opens her to a world in knowledge.  All of these people willingly help Novalee with no expectation of her being able to help them in return.  It's the first time in a long time that she has felt herself to be at home.

While I think it is unlikely that anyone could secretly live in a department store for two months, I didn't let that deter me from enjoying the story.  I liked how Novalee went from being a stranger in town, to finding friends and people she could care for as she would family.  A heart warming story.

Cover image courtesy Hachette Book Group.

#IndigoEmployof

Needlework Tuesday - Getting started

 Last week I told you that I was going to start on a pair of socks for my sister.  Before I could start on today's post, I had to cast on one of those socks.  Since a cast on only doesn't look good in a photo, I had to knit several rows.  This pair is not knit with ribbing at the top, but instead, a lining that gets folded to the inside and it then looks like and I-cord around the top.  So far I have six or seven rows complete.   The orange wool at the bottom is a provisional crochet cast-on.  The yarn I'm using isn't really as pink/purple as it appears.  Now that I have started, I can't wait to get back to them.

I will be knitting two at a time, but have started with just the one for the moment.  the pattern says to use a slightly smaller needle for the lining part, and the one I have is too short to do both pairs.  Guess I need a new needle.

Progress on the colourful afghan is going great.  I am about half way around on the final scalloped border.  I had a left over ball of variegated that looks great with the rest.  I am winging it on the scallops. Some are a bit narrower to accommodate the random number of stitches along each side. No one is really ever going to notice right.

 It's full steam ahead on the new quilt, at least for the moment.  I finished blocks three and four.  I love the back ground material and hope that I can find it in some other colours as I'd like to use it again.   For the flying geese, I used the stitch and flip method for the corners.  They are turning out quite well.

This block was a bit challenging as it required pinning to bet the points of the blades to match with the corners of the centre.  The pattern indicated that the dark blue should have been brown, but as I told you last time, I don't have enough brown, so am making some substitutions.

I'm not adverse to making changes to patterns, in fact, I do it quite often.  One of the blocks for this pattern is the cake stand. It's a pretty block but it just doesn't fit with all the others.  out it goes and I'll find another I like better.  As long as I keep the colours co-ordinated  it will work.

I've also embarked on a secret mission project for a  friend.  She was over last week and we looked through the quilt tops I have tucked away.  She found one she liked and now I'll be working at getting that one quilted before the holidays.   A quick trip to the quilt shop for batting and thread and they also had a lovely template for quilting, now I'm ready to go.   I'll sneak in some close-ups as I work along, but the unveil will be in the new year.  I'm sure you don't mind waiting.

Any one else working on secret projects?  oh wait, you can't answer that...

Needlework Tuesday is a regular weekly post where I share the progress of my various needlework projects over the past week. I enjoy the encouragement that I receive from my readers and in return visit their blogs and cheer them on with theirs. You are welcome to grab the cute little mouse and create your own Needlework Tuesday post. Leave a comment with a link and I'll be sure to visit with you.

I hope that you are having fun and  making progress on whatever project is dear to your heart at this moment.  Mister Linky is waiting below for a link to your needlework post.