Yarn Along: American Gods and some marl

So, I started reading about a week ago and finished a couple of days ago. Proper book hangover this week! I read the abridged release a long time ago and wasn't nearly as taken as I have been with this. What a bloody gorgeous book.

I've been playing with the marled blanket a few days longer than that. It's getting huge now. Still at the fun stage of wanting to see the next colour change.

Between projects and the children and the odd excursion on my own, I've had a busy-peaceful couple of weeks. And now Martin is off work for a couple of days helping to Spring clean the house a bit. :)

Seven Days of these guys

1: Total quiet just for a moment!
2: Piano baby
3: Takenoko time
4: Beating dad again
5: Puzzles and dice
6: Park
7: Pavement chalks

I was actually really ill with some random virus including lingering cough that week (I am writing, belatedly, over a fortnight later and still coughing). It looks pretty and engaged, but mainly I was on the sofa feeling terrible, I just happened to have snapped some pictures of happy busy-ness on my way back and forth to fetch myself more water!

Yarn Along: January catchup

Ash inspired me to knit socks again. I've completed a (lovely deep orange) pair for Rowan and a (rainbow stripe) pair for Talia too. As well as finishing the Sockhead I cast on just before New Year, and making myself a pair of mittens.

I think I'm on a knitting roll.

Baby socks for my nephew next, I think. Then perhaps the Barley hat from Knitting from the North in really tasteless clashing jewel colours.

Not that I'm avoiding Jenna's Hogwarts shawl at all...

Meanwhile, I've not been reading all that much. I finished the Storm Siren series and *whispers* found them really predictable. I've re-read Earthsea alongside them though which is probably horribly unfair and would tarnish a lot of writing by comparison.

I also picked up The Darkest Part of the Forest, remembering quite enjoying the dark fae stories as a teen. If you like a slightly more dangerous breed of fairy, these are good solid diverting fiction with a good take on the alternative fairytale. I enjoyed this not-Snow-White almost as much as I liked Ash by Malinda Lowe. 

In the same dark-fairytale vein, this just arrived. Always one of my favourite short stories by Neil Gaiman, and I'm looking forward to seeing how this new format has changed it if at all.

Yarn Along - actually casting something on

Lots of reading and not much knitting still but I have cast on a pilot cap for a sweet little toddler without procrastination which is something of a miracle.

Reading: Accidental Saints by Nadia Bolz-Webber which is funny, deep, challenging abd warm. Its theological standpoint (liberal but Lutheran) is somewhat different to mine (sort of Messianic nerdy-studious ultra-liberal Celtic-inspired mishmash), and to the one I grew up with (conservative but Evangelical), so it's interesting to explore. After a couple of years of, to be honest, barely identifying as Christian, I'm reading the Bible again and picking up the kinds of books I think are likely to challenge my views of what the Bible says and what it means to be a follower of Christ.

Aaand also I'm re-reading Hellblazer. Because Constantine.

A Christian book recommendation, apropos of nothing

I was in such a rush to get out of the door for our weekend away with all the children's coats and so on, I managed to leave all my books at home.

Limited to what I'd managed to download onto my phone recently, I picked up Jesus Freak. It had been on my to-read list for a long time, but I had until now almost completely stopped reading Christian authors. (They frequently say the same conventional legalistic things in slightly different ways.) I did enjoy rather a lot of time just reading in the end, with extra hands and nice outdoor spaces keeping the children happy, so it was one of two books I completed in three days.

Goodness, this book. Both irreverent and holy. Confronting and comforting. I'm in awe, and think I'll have to read it again to let some of the thoughts it contains sink in; parables illustrated by stories of broken hurting people feeding and loving each other. I have found it challenging and disturbing, in the best possible way. Joyful earthy practical gospel.

Yarn Along - Polkadot and Dominion

This week I had to set aside Jenna's Hogwarts Express as the tiny cables are tricky and need my full concentration. I've switched to a Polkadot for Talia, who picked out the yarn herself. Big yarn, big needles, speedy progress. Just what I needed!

I've started reading Dominion by C.J.Sansom but it hasn't pulled me in just yet. I loved the Shardlake books though so I'm willing to give it a fair chance.

In which I set new standards for behaving like a dork in public...

Last night I had the most incredible inspiring experiences. I met one of my all time literary idols and got to shake her by the hand and tell her how much her poetry has meant to me over the years.

Carol Ann Duffy was at Derby Cathedral , opening the book festival with her wonderful poetry reading (and musical performances by Jon Sampson who was also spellbinding). I went alone; I booked myself a ticket in January, part of my newfound confidence in doing things solely for myself.

Afterwards I queued up in the line for book signings, and explained earnestly to the person asking what dedications we wanted I didn't have anything for her to sign, I just wanted to thank her for a poem.

"Prayer" has been stuck firmly in my head for more than half of my life. It has carried me through some desperately wordless times. Her words have profoundly touched me and helped me come to terms with a sort of reverent faithlessness and faith-filled prayerlessness.

She grasped my hand, and I welled up with tears. Aaand then tripped over her table.

Fangirling level: incoherent babbling. It was certainly a memorable end to the night... When I recounted the tale to Jenna she put her head in her hands and then gave me a sarcastic round of applause.

Yarn Along - Sockhead(s)

Knitting: I finished my Sockhead, and had just enough left of the rainbow tie dye blank to attempt a tiny one for my smallest bean. I don't know if it will be slouchy, but it will just fit her. That's yarn economy for ya.

Reading: Weeell I'm still bitting and bobbing really, but I did read a couple of good entertaining Agatha Christie-esque Sherlock fanfics today. Neither of which I'm going to link to, on the grounds that they're incomplete (rather than, say, for example, that you might all look at me differently if I admit to shipping Mystrade). If you have no idea what that means, I would caution you against feeling the need to find out. Though of course, if you have a teen or tween in the house you probably already speak fandom to some extent or another. I could pretend that it's Jenna's fault, but she sadly got most of her embarrassing internet speak from me.

Just, okay, go back to looking at the pretty knitting now, thankyouplease?

Yarn Along - miles of stocking stitch and some childishness

For some reason I am totally wiped out and exhausted today, so it is definitely a knitting and reading day. All of the children seem to be doing similarly too. Jenna has Neverwhere. Morgan has Matilda. Rowan has Minecraft on the laptop. Talia os snuggled up next to me with a huge book of Star Wars technical drawings. And I'm sitting here alternating chapters of Earth X with a couple of rows of the Sockhead hat.

My autocorrect doesn't like me typing "Sockhead" and I have to keep correcting its correction, which is causing childish sniggering here. I'm easily amused when tired.

After knitting 2:2 ribbing until I was sick of it, I am now going to knit the slightly more soothing stocking stitch until I start to hate this hat. I mean, the goal is "love in every stitch" but sometimes vague loathing of the project is just as helpful, an easy target for mild frustration that I can whine about and notice my own ridiculousness. Doing the small things with love. Patience. Impatient muttering. Persistence. One of those.

I'm pretty sure when I finish this I will choose something with the same sort of mind-numbing characteristics, because I need all the car knitting and projects that otherwise don't require my full attention.

There's similar logic in the graphic novels too. That and poetry and fanfiction are where I'm at for interruptibility and emotional energy. I'm taking my self care in snippets. :)