Yarn Along

This is my first time participating in the Yarn Along, although I have several friends who regularly link up.  I actually have a project going on my knitting needles for the first time since Piglet was a toddler, so I'm excited to play along this week!  I used to knit a ton, but I quit knitting in late 2009 because my hands were so dry and cracked that I was catching the yarn on my fingers and it was painful to manipulate the needles.  I got involved with making rubber stamped greeting cards, and that sort of took over my crafting life.  Lately, though I've been craving knitting again, and I ordered some yarn on sale at joann.com to make a vintage-style cardigan for myself.   It isn't fantastic yarn, but I didn't want to invest a lot in the yarn on the off chance that my hands took a bad turn again and I couldn't finish the project.  So far so good!  The color is a little more muted than I thought it would be, but I still think it will work well with my wardrobe for the fall.

I'm working on the back part.  I ended up sizing up from the pattern, since I wanted to make the sweater slightly larger than the  finished size on the pattern, plus my gauge swatch worked out better on larger needles, so I did the ribbing on size 7 and am working the stockinette on size 9.   I debated changing the stockinette stitch to a double moss or seed stitch, but decided in the end to make it mindlessly easy for myself, especially since I've not knitted for so long.  (It's just like falling off a riding a bike--comes right back...)  I probably should haul out my circular needles, as it is a bit squishy on a straight needle, but this is is the biggest piece of the cardigan, and I figure it is fine, so long as I keep the needles and yarn ball high up away from my kids' questing fingers (Boo already yanked a needle out of my hand one day when I was knitting; luckily I was near the end of a row, and the yarn held its shape perfectly, so I just had to slide the needle back through the loops--whew!)

And my reading list.  I'm a rather voracious reader, so I'm forever looking for a new book.  I read What Alice Forgot a few weeks ago for my book club, and then finished a few more books in between, but I've been slowly savoring The Scent of Holiness by Constantina Palmer, reading a chapter or even just a small section at night before I go to bed.  Usually I devour books, but this book invites one to slow down and read in small bites, pondering the deep lessons contained therein.

The other book just arrived today, so I've not had time to crack it yet, but it is a World War II story set in an English manor.  I'm pretty much all in when it comes to World War II novels, so I think this will be an enjoyable read.