Daniel Deronda pt. 2 + Limelight Stirrup Socks

 OK, fine! You win, George Eliot! The ending of Daniel Deronda was much better than I expected. Most of the "twists" were really obvious, like of course he was going to be Jewish and his mother rich, but the unexpected parts were great. His mom gave him up because she wanted to be a famous singer instead of a wife and mother. Gwendolyn allows her shitty, abusive husband to drown. Daniel decides to quit being an English gentleman-in-training and go to the Middle East to fight for  Jewish homeland, and marries Mirah instead of Gwendolyn. All those things are way more radical than I expected, but I think I did George Eliot a disservice by assuming her to be as predictable as Jane Austen.

I finished up one of a pair of Limelight Stirrup Socks while watching this episode. I'm using some stash yarn, but I think it's Loops and Threads Impeccable. I still need to weave in a million ends and crochet around the heel opening, but otherwise it is done. I haven't done any color work before, so I'm really glad at how it turned out. My camera sucks so all the images look terrible. Sorry.

Daniel Deronda + Hen Sweaters

Hello! For this installment of Period Dramas + Knitting, I watched the first three episodes of the BBC's  Daniel Deronda. It's a four part series, but I haven't brought myself to watch the last one. It's not quite as good as I had hoped. I don't  find the characters particularly interesting. Also, I have a confession to make. I have never read any George Eliot and if I can help it, I never will. I don't know if that makes me a terrible future-English Ph.d, but there you have it. Only last year did I finally read a Jane Austen novel and enjoy it. BUT I do really like watching television shows set in these time periods or based on novels I would never read. I should probably be ashamed to admit that. I do find the ethnic and religious tension between the "proper Englishmen" and the Jewish Londoners to be very interesting, but the love story is just not interesting.

During these episodes I finished up the second hen sweater I'm making for Farm Sanctuary. They just rescued a bunch of hens from factory farming, and I just inherited a bunch of stash yarn, so I made a couple. I'm going to try to make a lot of them, but they aren't the most interesting things in the world to knit.

Here is my lovely model Owlvis Costello giving you a general idea how these sweaters work, except he's a little short for them.