Yarning Along: Coffee and cake

There's a theme to this week's Yarning Along, and that theme is coffee and cake.

I'm writing this post in a cafe while I wait for the garage to finish with my car (it's having something replaced under warranty), and making the most of a couple of hours peace, relaxing with a coffee (black, no sugar, thank you) and the latest issue of The Simple Things magazine, which is always lovely (and I am clearly the target demographic as there are often adverts for yarn shops in there, even though it's not a yarn magazine). Some knitting may also happen, or not, I'll see where the mood takes me!

This weekend I spent a lovely evening at Lucy Locket Land for her Macmillan Coffee Morning, which was actually a 12 hour knitathon with coffee, cake and a grand raffle. The evening was perfect, with excellent company, raffle excitement (I didn't win anything), and I picked up a beautiful sock blank in shades of pink and purple that will one day become socks, but for now can be admired, or, at a push, used as a scarf!

The beautiful prize table at Lucy Locket Land

October is officially Socktober for all the social-media-knitters out there, and while I am focusing on commissions this month, I hope to get a couple of pairs off the needles. The Pairfect socks from last week have made a little progress, and I have some Halloween-striped yarn waiting to be knitted up.

Halloween self-striping yarn from Strawberry Fields Yarn

I have now finished reading Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and while I found the ending pretty much perfect, the book as a whole felt a bit predictable and I did find myself getting bored in places as not much happened. But it was nicely written, and I got through it quite quickly, which I think marks it as a reasonable read. I've moved on to Autumn by Ali Smith, which I selected purely because it's been nominated for The Man Booker Prize (one year I managed to read the whole shortlist before the winner was announced!). I am finding the writing style tricky in places - it is very literary - but the plot and characters are intriguing enough that I am persevering. 

What are you reading and knitting this week? As ever, I'm linking up with Rachel for Yarning Along - head to her blog to see what other people are reading and crafting.