Book Review: Watership Down by Richard Adams

I had never heard of this book before randomly encountering this list of books to read in your lifetime. The list was compiled from the most common suggestions on Reddit, which to me gave it much more weight than any New York Times list - Reddit is filled with real people, nerdy people, my people :) My husband is a big Reddit fan just to give you an idea, lol. This list is one of the better ones I've come across, so when I noticed it mentioned Watership Down by Richard Adams, I decided to give it a whirl.

Watership Down is a story about rabbits. Hazel and Fiver are brothers an done day Fiver has a sort of vision that something bad is coming and they should leave. Their warren leaders do not agree, so Hazel and Fiver along with a few other friends go off on their own to find a new home, not really knowing why but trusting in Fiver's premonition. Hazel inadvertently becomes their leader as they traverse miles of English countryside in search of a place to call home. They encounter many hardships and enemies, none worse than specific groups of other rabbits. Once they settle and start their own warren, they realize that they have no women with them, so they start searching. They enlist the help of a wounded bird to circle the area and find a very large warren with lots of females, so they make the trek to see if any of their women wish to join them (a normal rabbit practice apparently). This one seemingly normal action begins a war between the warrens and turns to a fight for survival.

That was an extremely watered down synopsis of this wonderful book. I knew nothing about this story going into reading it and I was really impressed with how "ageless" the story is, and by that I mean it's a story that all ages can appreciate. The rabbits all behave in their natural sphere, but they have reasoning and thought like humans which really pulls you into the story. The rabbits have customs and government and religion (complete with stories of their Gods that explain different aspects of their life). The introduction by the author at the beginning really gave a great perspective for me. He explains that he never intended this book to amount to anything. In fact, he came up with the story on the fly while on a long car trip with his daughters, lol. He eventually wrote it down just for the benefit of his children having it, and it turned out to be a best seller! The book is constantly analyzed for its political and social messages, when in reality that was never the author's intention. When this book came out in the 1970s, it was regarded as a classical epic and seemed to hold similar standing to Tolkien's stories. Over time, we seem to have just forgotten about Watership Down, which makes me really sad because it was an excellent story. I will definitely keep the tradition of Watership Down alive with my kids when the time comes :)

Even though it felt silly to tell other adults that I was reading a book about bunnies (lol), I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. It's a family friendly story that doesn't talk down to you. It may be about rabbits, but it really does break down the struggle of a people against a tyrannical force. This book truly deserves all the acclaim it received and should be revived for our coming generation!

Friday Fun

I only just found this little booklet a few days ago, and the best part is that little kid. I seriously feel exactly the same! Don't just sit there ... Knit Something!

Things of Interest: March

I know I'm a few days late, but here are a few interesting articles I found around the web this past month :)

Japanese man becomes a turkey using only a sweater.

• This post on Oil Pulling sounds like it might be worth trying out.
• Isn't this Crocheted Scarf Diaper Cake a great idea?! I love that they were able to incorporate it all together like that.
• As a reader, I am always wishing I could read faster but still comprehend it all. This Spritz app seems to do just that, but honestly I'm not sure I like it. Be careful what you wish for, right?
• This man was determined to make sanitary pads affordable to rural Indian women. It ended up costing him his family and many years of his life, but his obsession paid off. It's a really neat article and definitely worth a read.
• I find the current push for solid schooling knowledge worrying in our school systems, but this article about the crazy new requirements for kids as described by a teacher who resigned over it was pretty unsettling. Children should learn through play - they are only children for so long. This direction is really sad.
• Did you know that Harvard's library has 3 books bound in human flesh?
• This photo project called Where Children Sleep is such a cool idea. Definitely go check it out.
• If you live in Central or South Florida, the next few weeks offers a very rare opportunity to tour the new temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Fort Lauderdale. This local news story shows some of the insides. Also this weekend is General Conference. If you've ever been interested in what we believe, go here and watch starting Saturday at noon EST. 

WIP Wednesday

 Well, this week has held quite a bit of knitting :) Clue #5 for the Fuzzy Mitten Mystery Knit-Along came out on Friday and it looks like this:

This is my kangaroo's body. I got it knitted, but I have yet to sew it together. Just for a visual, here it is with the other pieces:

Pretty cute, huh? I'm excited about the pocket :) I've also finally found and ordered mini buttons for the cardigan. They are called micro mini beads and I got them from Joann's (they had $1 shipping yesterday!) - Joann's was literally half the price of even Amazon, I was quite surprised. I got a few different color packs so I can decide once they arrive.

I started a last minute birthday gift for my brother last week too. I borrowed Knit Your Own Zombie  from the library just to give it a look through. When I showed my mom, she started talking about how much my brother would love something like this, and I knew she was right. His birthday is April 6th and he will be 16 - what 16 year old doesn't need an interactive zombie doll?! lol So, I raided my stash for the perfect colors and got to work knitting.

I have all the body parts and pieces knitted - now I just have to start sewing and embroidering - yikes! This just goes to show that I love my little bro - look at all those seams! The pieces are all assembled like if you were folding a box out of paper - there are tabs that wrap over the edges and miter at the corners to for a box. The limbs then have red sleeves that will poke through holes in the "skin" layer to look bloody. I went with green for the skin to be more decomposed looking, lol.

I seriously love all the holes. It made for a ton more work, but the fact that you can see bloody wounds makes it all worthwhile.

I also combined the Classic Zombie pattern with part of the Zombie Rockstar pattern to include a removable brain. This is the head pieces and the "brain pocket" along with my partially finished brain. How cool is that? You can have the brain pop out! Or you can have a rat crawling out of its head!

And here is the stomach set up - the purple is the "stomach pocket" - I made it purple to add to the rotten effect. I made the stomach and intestines out of burgundy yarn to differentiate between the "blood" and the "organs". I'm going for authenticity here, lol.

Another awesome aspect of this project is that the head and torso are attached with velcro - so you can remove the head or rip the body in half! To add to the gross-factor, I hunted down some red velcro, lol. The pattern also has you use bugle beads for the toe and finger nails, so I got black ones, lol. One of my favorite parts of the pattern is its eye ball - the original uses a glass eye bead and it's attached with red embroidery floss - so it looks like the eye has popped out and is barely hanging on! I searched all over locally to find the eye beads, but even Joann's didn't have anything close. So, I turned to Amazon. I have some beads on order, but I don't think they will arrive before Briggs' birthday - so I'll just have to improvise a severed sinew in the meantime. Anyway, as you can see I have great plans for this project. To be honest, it's much more involved then I anticipated when I began. Also the directions are really not that great. Mostly I just have to look at the picture and break down the best order to attach everything myself. I'd better get cracking though since his birthday is on Sunday! Lots of work...

I finally had the crochet urge again this week - the zombie proved to be more thinking than I wanted to do, so I started a nice brainless crochet project. This will be the Turtle Lunch Tote from Amigurumi On The Go by Ana Paula Rimoli. I've had this book almost a year an still hadn't made anything from it! A sin, I know. They are all so cute! My nephew has reached the age where he really likes putting things in bags and then unloading everything, so I figure this would be a useful gift for him.

Just to warn anyone else who is making any projects from this book - you have to stitch through both loops. I've gotten used to stitching through the back loop only like I do all my animals, so I made the whole base that way ... only to get to the part where it changes from the base to the sides and read "crochet through the back loop only". This is why we read patterns through before beginning, folks. The switching from regular stitching to back loop only gives the turn definition and without this the base was just a big dome. I had to pull out the entire thing and start again. Live and learn.

I also just started reading Anna Karenina today and I'm already impressed with the writing style. I've read lots of other "classic" novels before, but they always have a tone that is typical of their time. Not so with Anna Karenina. It's written just like any modern book I've read. I really like it thus far :)

So that's what's going on with me this week :) I'd better get to stitching! Head over to Tami's Amis' Blog to see what others are working on.

Parisian Road: The Quest For Cute T-Shirts

I have officially and seriously been bitten by the sewing bug lately. I haven't sewn very much because I have many aspects of my sewing area that I want to improve, but you can't wait forever, ya know? I finally did a big time rearrange and clean up of my sewing room and made way for new projects.

One big motivator to get sewing was the Pattern Anthology Just Add Jeans Collection. I originally saw Julia Bobbin's version of the Parisian top and I was in love. I need like 15 of this shirt in my life. 

(photo from Julia Bobbin)

Seriously - this shirt is me to a T. It's a knit so it's comfy and movable, it has puffed 3/4 length sleeves (my favorite), and a peter pan collar. It's like the Megan-Love-Trifecta of patterns. I bit the bullet and bought the whole set of 4 patterns when they were on sale a few weeks ago, and quickly printed out and traced the Parisian top. 

According to my measurements, I needed a size XL. Never having sewn with knits before, I decided to make a muslin first to see how things went before I started buying up really nice knit fabric. I bought a jersey sheet set in the clearance from Target who knows how long ago with just this idea in mind - expendable fabric for testing out on. So, I cut out the pieces and started sewing. Much to my dismay, the sheets were not exactly the best fabric to try this top on. The pattern suggests the fabric have at least 25% stretch and the sheets definitely had that, but they have incredibly crappy recovery. I didn't realize how bad this would be until I tried on the body of the top. Brace yourselves for the lovely photo:

Yes, I was wearing my husband's basketball shorts. Sexy, right?

As you can see - it came out enormous. This picture was actually taken after I had already pinched out several inches of excess and sewed new seams. Yeah. So, I stopped sewing after that, hoping I could find some better fabric to try it out on. I also re-traced the pattern in a size Large in hopes of getting a better fit next time around. Happily, I didn't have to wait that long for new fabric!

When I went nuts buying patterns at a local thrift store last week, I also noticed they had a bunch of fabric - probably all donated by the same person. I grabbed a gray jersey that day, but thought about the rest all weekend and finally succumbed to the temptation of the other knits tonight on my way home from work. The gray in the photo is at least 2 yards of a ribbed knit, the mint green is a 2 yard cut and the pink is a 1.4 yard cut of jersey. The original gray I bought was the same type of fabric as the mint and the pink too. These were all from Fabric King and still had their original price tags on them with their length. The jerseys are at least 60" wide, so I know I'll be able to experiment quite a bit with them. 

So that's where I'm at as of writing this post. I plan to at least get another Parisian cut in one of these jersey fabrics tonight. I will get this pattern right if it takes a month. I just love it and I know all the effort will be well worth it :)

Fuzzy Mitten April Featured Pattern: Silly Duck 1/2 Price!

This month's featured pattern from Fuzzy Mitten is the Silly Duck. It's so cute! Nice and springy too. For the rest of the month, this pattern will be half price (making it $1.50). I think I'll have to make myself a duck :)

I just wanted to let everyone know in case they would like to make one as well!

*I am in no way affiliated with Fuzzy Mitten and I get nothing for posting about this. It's just too cute not to share :)