~ Two of my favorite things are knitting and reading, and the evidence of this often shows up in my photographs. I love seeing what other people are knitting and reading as well. So, what are you knitting or crocheting right now? What are you reading? Take a photo and share it either on your blog or on Flickr. Leave a link below to share your photo with the rest of us! ~ Ginny at small things

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Good morning … spring has finally sprung here in the Old Dominion … and with a vengeance. It’s forecast to be 88 today (and has been in the 80s the last few days). Everything is blooming at once which is terror on allergies but I’d rather have the warm days … working in the yard with the kids … and generally reveling in life at the Lake.

First to the books: I just finished reading Regina Doman’s latest book in her Fairy Tales Retold series; Rapunzel Let Down is excellent (but for the older ones, NOT younger… it’s pretty gritty). Here’s a link to my full review of this no holds barred book about consequences and the bad, the false and the ugly and how the good, the true and the beautiful can still win-out.

I’ve just started another book for review, The Locket’s Secret, by homeschooler K. Kelley Heyne. The story is interesting and would be well-suited for tween and young teen girls.

My drooling-and-gathering-ideas reading includes: Taunton’s All New Built-ins Idea Book and Selina Lake’s Homespun Style. Both of these books are great for our latest project – renovating our screen-porch into a four-season room with lots of windows, built-in shelves and window seats and a spot for me and my knitting! Taunton always does a great job with their “idea books” … some ideas are over-the-budget, but still worth thinking about. Selina Lake’s book shows how to find, recreate or purchase home-made items to give your home a cozy, “homespun style”. Some of her pictures are a tad more “floofy” than we would normally do (for instance, the cover image), but I like the idea of re-doing, covering, painting and generally adding a personal touch to bits and pieces to make our home ours …

Our read-aloud is still Brotherband … which makes it sound like we’re not enjoying it; we are loving this one! With the weather so nice, and so much yard work to accomplish, reading inside seems wrong.

On the knitting front, I got A Slice of Summer published and up on my Ravelry and Craftsy pages. I really am proud of the way this one turned out … and I’ve gotten lots of great comments on it. The Flight Formation shawl, the one in the Poems Sock in Cruise, is hidden away until after the DHY Knitting Workshop on April 20th — it’s a design for the goodie bags so won’t be published until after the workshop.

At the workshop I’ll be teaching a class on beaded knitting so I’ve been working out a couple of designs to do for that: a beaded cuff bracelet (shown here in Tofutsies sock yarn and Fortissima Piccolino). I will also have a project to make a beaded bag using a DK-weight yarn and funky beads.

Here’s a picture of the screen porch after a week of on-again-off-again work … we’re ready for the windows …

So what’s on your needles and book-stand? Won’t you come play over at Ginny’s ….