Gails Yarns, Hooks & Needles

Kauni NN4 Tawny Beige solid Wool Yarn, 3 skeins is the item I currently list at eBay. I do it as a sort of advertising stunt, and I ought to have done it from the first, just to keep the traffic. Sigh. Hindsight. But now some time has passed, I enjoy the eBay experience again. More yarn at my store, link also in the sidebar.

These three skeins are the last of that particular color in stock. Even Kauni may not stock this color any more, I haven’t checked. This listing has four more days and a bit to go, next week I will list more dark blue. When the blue is gone, I may dip into the red and charcoal grey! But that is for the future.

Are you a fan of Sherlock Holmes? If so, you may not be interested in anything else written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

If you are curious about what else he wrote, I encourage you to check out “The White Company,” free at Librivox.

This novel is written more in the style of Alexandre Dumas or Rafael Sabatini, than of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but he does it well, and I am very much enjoying the reading by Clive Catterall.  The archer, met early in the story, is the first character whose “divers strange oaths” are not only written into the dialog, but each language read with its proper accent. It’s great.

The Librivox page has links to subscribe in iTunes, to the book in text format, to the author’s entry in Wikipedia and more. You can also listen directly from that page.

Yes, the store now has enhanced security for various pages, including the register page and check-out pages.

And

you may email an item page to a friend, or keep a wish list.

You’re welcome.

1. The great review I gave to “Greener Than You Think” was a little premature – I finished the story and found that the grass really does take over the world. I believed right up to the end of the last chapter that somebody would step forward and the world would be saved, and that took major skill. I can still recommend a listen to the first half of the book, where you will hear all the best parts. YMMV.

2. I am making the Doubleknitski Hat out of Kauni EQ and found that the ball of yarn was pieced in the middle – I was working from both ends of the yarn and figured that the colors would diverge, but they didn’t! The color matched where the join was but the color didn’t progress through the rainbow, it reversed. I’ve heard of this, but not from my stock, so I’m glad I got it instead of a customer.

On the up side, the Kauni yarn is a marvel to work with.

Doubleknitski not working as planned, and Doubleknitski, photographed below.

(edited to add photos and link to pattern.)

“All Librivox recordings are in the public domain.”

This is stated in every Librivox recording, all of which are made from books in the public domain – public domain means (in short) that the copyright has expired, and the work can be used without permission from the author or the estate of the author.

This means that the books are usually really old, and often outdated. But they are not without interest.

Librivox is all about the voice – the founder celebrates different regional accents and intonations. Anyone may record. There are standards, but no one will tell you that your voice is unsuited, or you don’t read well enough, or that you have mispronounced a word. You are discouraged from saying that to any of the volunteers, too, so if you can’t manage that, don’t listen. Another unusual thing about Librivox is the books are recorded by chapter, and sometimes every chapter is read by a different person. This is not so odd when you realize that the purpose is to get the book recorded for posterity, not to maximize listening pleasure. As far as I know, all the work is done by volunteers.

That said, I want to recommend a couple of books I have just read from Libvrivox. One is called “The Money Moon: A Romance” by Jeffery Farnol, and was published about 1910. Wikipedia tells me that “He with Georgette Heyer founded the Regency romantic genre….” After listening to this novel, it’s not so hard to believe.

“The Money Moon” is read by one person all the way through. John Lieder does an awesome job, complete with many English accents. I really enjoyed this book. (Part of what I liked was the way my teeth did not hurt with sweetness. Did you like “The Velveteen Rabbit”? I can point you to at least two similar novels.)

Another book I can recommend for both its content and its reader is “Greener Than You Think.” Read with verve and confidence by Lee Elliot, “Greener” is a Science Fiction novel written by Ward Moore and published in 1947, with all the political attitudes of that time.  I haven’t finished this one yet, and I have a long way to go to the end. The combination of the reading of Ms. Elliot with the prose of Mr. Moore is priceless. The author gets sidetracked by politics from time to time –they pretty much all did in those days– but the delivery of the reader keeps me subscribed and downloading. (The newspaper editor is hysterical.)

This is my public thanks to the reading excellence of Lee Elliot and John Lieder. There’s no reason why they, and many other people, chose to read for Librivox, but I’m really glad they did.