Yarn Along: Major John Andre Sweater

~knitting~

I'm making good progress on what I'm calling my Major John Andre sweater (aka Rivel).  I'm calling it thus because I've knit almost the entirety of it while watching (and rewatching) the first three seasons of TURN: Washington's Spies.  I discovered the lovely JJ Feild through the show, and his performance as Major John Andre is a treat.  I rewatched a lot of the first three seasons just to see the man work.

The back and fronts are both done and blocked, as is one of the sleeves.  I'm about 2/3 done with the second sleeve.

I'm debating seaming the sweater on my sewing machine vs. mattress stitching for the first few episodes of season 4.  I also have to pick up stitches for the collar and bands which are knit as one piece.  The cable pattern on this was easy and satisfying.  I want to make another one with a similar cable style.

~watching~

TURN, obviously.  (I should say for the record that I have some issues with the costumers on that show--the lack of female shifts make my eye twitch--but overall, I can overlook the faults for the good storytelling).  I'm curious to see where season four goes (it is the final one, so it will have to wrap up a bunch of things).  I watched a little clip on Youtube with Samuel Roukin, who plays the dastardly John Graves Simcoe, and was startled to discover that his normal speaking voice is quite different from the voice he uses for Simcoe.  In the clip, he talked about developing the voice for Simcoe and it was so interesting to hear his process.  His whole bearing and demeanor are so different from his character; I find the contrast fascinating.

I also finally started season 4 of Sherlock (I know, I know!) while I was sewing a skirt, and was gutted by the first episode.  The second episode kind of redeemed itself, and now I'm ready for the final one.

As long as I'm talking about JJ Feild and Benedict Cumberbatch, I must tell you about a fantastic movie with the both of them: Third Star.  It is from 2010, so before Cumberbatch was well known, and is an ensemble piece. The acting is MAGNIFICENT.  Seriously.  Watch it. 

I will say, Cumberbatch plays a young man dying of cancer (no spoiler; he literally tells you in the first three minutes), so not a pick-me-up kind of film.  The story is about a final trip he takes with his friends to see a beach in Cornwall or somewhere, but the whole thing is so well done.  (I will admit that the first 20 minutes are slow, but after that, I couldn't stop watching).  JJ Feild should have won awards for his performance--it is subtle and nuanced and the end of the movie is just...wow.  

But if you want fun JJ Feild, watch the new BBC Northanger Abbey (he plays Henry Tilney) or Austenland.  He is so good and fun in those two movies.  Austenland in particular is so funny and frothy.

I also rewatched The Deep Blue Sea with Rachel Weisz because it is just that good.  I'll be honest: I didn't get it the first time I saw it (around when it came out in 2012).  It seemed like a strange play-not-play, and I didn't like Hester's character at all.  (This is important because she is literally in every scene.  You kind of have to like her, or at least sympathize with her a little or the film is excruciating).  Having said that, I revisited the film last summer and really fell in love with it.  The complex story, rich orchestral score, and tight film style, all resonated with me.  I'm at a stage in my life where I better understand the characters and the storyline.

~reading~

I finished these three books in the past week.  I raced through Vodolazkin's latest (I received an advance copy from the publisher through a connected friend shortly after Pascha); it is so good.  The Aviator is quite different from Laurus, but deals with similar themes.  So much goodness there.

I've been reading Stark's Rise of Christianity for several months and finally finished the last chapter this week.  (I can't believe I let it sit with 10 pages left for so long!)  As I wrote previously, it is a sociolological study of why Christianity took over in the Roman world and spread so far and so fast.  Stark is an expert in religious conversion in societies, and his perspective was fascinating.  I also appreciated that his prose was so jargon free and accessible.  It was well worth the read; I highly recommend it.  So interesting.

The John Chrysavaggis book was research for the novel, and while there were some good things in it, it wasn't quite what I was looking for.  I'm glad I read it (it was a fast read--I finished it in a day or so), but I'm hoping that revisiting John Mack's book (Preserve Them O God) will give me more of what I'm after.  

This is my current stack (plus L'Engle's Irrational Season, which I've set aside temporarily).  Lila continues to astonish, and I've only paged through Prayer and Temperament, but I'm looking forward to getting into it.

In other book related news, here's the summer stack I've been collecting for the boys:

School lets out on Tuesday, so hopefully that will last them for a little while.  Piglet reads so stinking fast, it is hard to keep him in books.

And speaking of kids' books, we have many many kids' books at our house, at all different reading levels (three dedicated bookcases, plus four good-sized shelves).  One of the bookcases was a purchase during the big house painting project of 2016 and has had some problems almost from the moment we put it up.  I'm not sure if the guy I had put it together made a mistake or if we just had too many heavy books on it, but the back had bowed out rather badly on one side and one of the cam lock screws on the fixed shelf in the middle was no longer making contact, which meant all the shelves were constantly falling down.

I decided enough was enough.  This morning, I took all the books off the shelf (all of them!) plus the photo albums that were stored there, and unscrewed the book case from the wall and got 'er done.  It involved putting the shelf on its side and pulling some brackets off the back and some muscle power to get the cam screw to make contact, but in the end, I think it is stable again and reattached to the wall.  I took all the photo albums and moved them to a different book case in another room, and rearranged the books so that only one shelf was double stacked, and the heavy Childcraft books (the orange set) is on the bottom shelf (they were on the second to top one before).  There is also some room to grow now, where before there wasn't.  I did have to move some things from the other book case to make room for the photo albums, but it was mostly vertical file boxes of my husband's stuff that he never looks at anyway.  I put it on a high shelf in the closet in that room and it worked out okay.

I do regularly purge books, and try to keep them at a reasonable level, but I have four children who are all at vastly different reading levels right now, so we have to keep a lot of books at a lot of different levels at the moment.  In a few years, we can get rid of the easier books and just focus on young adult reading.  Expand and contract, expand and contract.  'Tis the way of things.

Joining Ginny for Yarn Along!