just a little bit of knitting

 

It's amazing how my knitting time has shrunk to nearly nothing in the last few months. I suppose that's not unusual with a new baby in the house. But this new baby needs a warm hat ASAP, so I've been trying to work a few stitches here and there over the last few days. I'm using a strand of luxurious Debbie Bliss Andes (silk/alpaca) for softness, and a strand of Brown Sheep Lanaloft for sturdiness, held together in a simple improvised pattern that I hope will roughly match his head circumference. In the mean time he gets to wear his big sister's hand-me-down pink striped hat, which I suppose isn't so bad--I don't think he minds too much!

Reading time hasn't disappeared as completely as the knitting--still able to read a few pages after the preschooler has gone to bed, while the little one is nursing, or while walking him to sleep. I recently finished Kristin Lavransdatter with a combination of relief and grief over it's ending. Normally I would have been intimidated by its 1000+ pages, but the mountainous Norwegian setting, the quality of the writing, and the meaty drama (melodrama even?) kept me engrossed. It really is a beautiful and expansive book, if a bit dark and distressing at times. The author gets at the heart of universal human experience, or maybe more specifically the experience of women--birthing a child, nursing an infant, loving a father, a husband, a son, keeping vigil over a dying person.

I'm now on to a very different kind of book, (though interestingly, also written in the 1920's)--To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. My husband gave me this book several years ago and I gave up on it after the first few pages. This time around I am still struggling, but determined to finish it. The subtlety, the sentences that last a whole page, the stream of consciousness writing are all rather difficult for my sleep-deprived, oft distracted brain. It's good mental exercise, though, right?

p.s.--

That pebble vest is working out just right for our little fella. He wears it nearly every day to keep warm in our drafty house. It fits over his head without any fuss, and the lack of buttons eases my anxiety over choking hazards, so I think I'll stick with this "in the round" version if I knit it again (and I'm sure I will!).

Joining Ginny for yarn along