Knitting and Reading

First ever pair of knitted socks!  Oh yes indeed.  And a promise fulfilled, after two years...  Socks for my darling husband, for his birthday.  :)  I was terrified of attempting socks, but I really didn't feel I could get away with putting it off any longer.  For goodness' sakes, I've knitted my first cable, I can do lace, I've taken a commission for a huge shawl...  No more excuses!

They are the Broken Rib Socks from Designer One Skein Wonders, and I am still really loving that pattern book.  In fact, the library have kindly renewed it the maximum permitted number of renewals and I'm finding myself thinking I need to buy it.  It's on my wish list.

The short rows for the heels were different to short rows I've worked before though and, well, if I hadn't been so determined to keep my promise...  Patterns for turning a heel are the word of the devil.  I suspect I may make socks again, but it won't be for a while!

Still...  Martin was a very happy husband.  :)  Even if I did only finish the first sock in time for his birthday morning (the second was cast off just before I served up his birthday tea)!  First thing on his birthday, he was handed a Sock IOU and I sat in bed feverishly knitting heel rows while he ate chocolate and drank his first cup of tea of the day.

I have been reading more Star Wars novels.  They are going to leave a little hole in me now that I'm up to date and waiting for the next book to come along - don't you hate it when that happens?  Of course, aforementioned lovely (and very patient) husband will be glad to have me back...  Well, I blame him for buying me the last three books in the series a week ago...

I have switched my attention to yet more "books that may be suitable for Jenna" bought in charity shops for hardly any money.  The Fire Thief is a book you mamas will want to get hold of for any child who loves Horrible Histories.  It's fantasy fiction based on Greek myths and set partly in the Victorian era.  They are witty, human, bizarre, and not very nice.  And they poke fun at grown-up ways of looking at the world.  In short, there's not a lot not to love if you're about ten years old (or wish you still were).

Personally I'm enjoying the Edge Chronicles books a *bit* more, but think it will be longer before Jenna is ready for them.  They're almost on an age-range with the Eragon books - a little easier, mostly because they're shorter, but I make the comparison largely because they are the complex-detailed-fantasy-world type of fiction - and perhaps on par with Discworld books for readability (plus; they have young heroes and heroines... minus; no clever humour to carry the drier plot points).  If you're a twelve year old boy, you might want to nag your mum to get you The Last Sky Pirate and see what you think.  But read the Mortal Engines series first, because it's funnier and faster-paced.

Reading is, for me, like any other activity I love.  I obsess for days, sometimes weeks or months.  I devour twenty books in a row and then barely read a thing for the rest of the year.  Only this time, this current reading spree is lasting and lasting.  Perhaps it's being able to alternate it with knitting - a few pages, a few rows.  Someone asked me the other day how I get the time to knit, with four small children.  I said, "two words: benign neglect."

It's true - it's just not possible to helicopter parent with knitting and a book in your bag.  :)  Jenna will attest to the truth of this, as she got herself caught under a playground roundabout this week and skinned the top of her foot. I realised what had happened right at the point where she limped over to me...  My excuse is that there were lots of other trusted adults around!  And I knew exactly where the toddler was:  Trying to get on the zipwire by herself.  Health and safety, be damned!

(Oh, and that blue silk is finally destined to be an Aviatrix hat for my brother's soon-to-be-born baby.  Hint: don't try winding pure silk into a ball.  It ties itself sinuously into unknottable knots and then sits there looking at you insultingly reminding you how much you spent on it.  Use it from the skein.  It's easier.  Even with a house full of children.)