Fun
Wolf Hall
Dear Ann,
It’s one week until our departure for Edinburgh Yarn Festival. We’ve got a brand-new Field Guide out, and I’m dying to hunker down and get cranking on all three of the fab Isabell Kraemer patterns that are in it, perhaps simultaneously.
OK, maybe just two of them, to start. Part 1 of my plan is to get my skein of Jill Draper’s Kingston (in the literally indescribable shade called Wiltwyck Avenue) cast on for an X-Factor Cowl, work on it just a little to make sure I understand how it goes, and then stick it in my carry-on so that I’ll have a super-easy project on hand for any chatting opportunities along the way. Part 2 of the plan is to cast on my long-awaited Bottom Line Pullover, in Jill Draper’s Mohonk Light (shade: French Roast), get started on the yoke, and then have the pleasure of knitting it all the way across the Atlantic and back again. I love it when a sweater becomes a souvenir of a trip.
So what will accompany this frenzy of winding yarn, casting on, and gearing up?
Wolf Hall, that’s what. I’m overdue for a re-watch of this 2015 tour de force television series starring Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell.
I’m a Wolf Hall superfan. I read Hillary Mantel’s novel when it came out. I saw the first episode of the BBC2 television series in January 2015, when visiting London. It was a six-month wait to see the rest of it when it aired on PBS in the U.S., but it was wonderful to anticipate it.
I liked the television series even better than the book, as events seem to me to unfold more clearly. It’s a wonderful re-imagination of a story I already knew, or thought I knew, from history books and from a favorite old movie, A Man for All Seasons. It’s dizzying, at least at first, to sympathize with Thomas Cromwell, the king’s ruthless fixer.There are moments of drama that took my breath away, despite having read the book.
It’s deeply absorbing, and everyone in it is so good. The whole series is streaming on Amazon Prime.
Added bonus: re-watching Wolf Hall will keep me from paying cash money to buy the third series of Versailles. I’m dying to see it, but stubborn about waiting for one of my streaming services to carry it.
Love,
Kay
Oooo, I do love that book! I didn’t realize that it was the first of a trilogy when I read it and practically howled at the moon in frustration when it ended & left the rest of the story untold. Thank goodness – redemption! More books to follow makes me a happy knitter!
Versailles. OMG I can’t wait as well
Happy travels
When I read your recommendation to my partner-in-TV-watching, he thought I was saying “Wool Fall.” After all, this is Modern Daily Knitting!
“Wool Fall: when scientists decide to genetically modify sheep using cashmere goat DNA.”
I am so jealous that you are going to the Edinburgh yarn festival!! I went the last two years and it is one of my favorites. Have so much fun!
Thank you for the Wolf Hall suggestion as I have enjoyed others that you’ve given. Have a great trip; safe travels!
I’m with you on Wolf Hall. I have the book, the audio book, and the DVD. Now if she would just come out with volume 3, The Mirror and the Light, our knitting would be complete, in a deeper as well as project-wise sense!!
I love it, too! It may be time for a re-watch. Thanks for the recommendation.
I always rewatch. And rewatch. And count down the days for season two!
I have been waiting and waiting and waiting for season two. I can never ever get sick of watching over and over and over again. Obsessed. Praying season two to come sooner than later. But seriously- it shouldn’t take this long….right?
I didn’t know this was streaming! Can’t wait to watch it. Just finished “The Last Kingdom” and I highly recommend it ~ the early days of England forming in the 800’s.
We all enjoy book…..currently reading….state of war by James risen….always like to be enlightened
Mark Rylance is so quietly mesmerizing in Wolf Hall. I re-watch this every time it comes on our local PBS station. Oh, and Damien Lewis and Claire Foy aren’t bad, either! Finally, I can’t wait to hear/see your report from the Edinburgh Yarn Festival!
Loved the first two books ( Wolfe Hall and Bring Up the Bodies) and have been impatiently waiting for the third. Of course we know how it ends, but still… Safe travels and happy knitting!
I fell in love with Mark Rylancecwarching Wolf Hall.
Safe travel and good knitting!
Considering how much knitting you want to get done en route to Edinburgh, in a perfect world I, anyway, would book a transatlantic voyage. Five days of rarely interrupted knitting and yet a sense of great progress both in knitting and in nautical miles. Alas, my world isn’t perfect:(. So I will be waiting eagerly for your post-Edinburgh account.
Totally agree with your take on Wolf Hall — the show is so much more absorbing, perhaps because of Mark Rylance’s briliant and subtle performance as Cromwell.
I was doing an i-cord bind off (for several episodes) for my Drachenfels while watching on 13/WNET Sunday night.
Going to work wearing a cowl knit on tiny needles begun in Israel and finished in Manchester, England. (where I could sit in the flat and watch BBC and iplayer ….)
Totally agree with your take on Wolf Hall — the show is so much more absorbing, perhaps because of Mark Rylance’s brilliant and subtle performance as Cromwell. I was doing an i-cord bind off (it took several episodes) for my Drachenfels while watching on 13/WNET.
Going to work wearing a cowl knit on tiny needles begun in Israel and finished in Manchester, England, where I could sit in the flat and watch BBC, iPlayer … and discovered “Upstart Crow.”