Yarn Along

My Girl's birthday is coming up in March so I'm going to be knitting up a few gifts for her. The first one I'm working on is a cute hat that knits up very quickly. It's knit on U.S. 15 dpns with thick and thin yarn. I chose a pretty "water colored" blue colorway in Malabrigo Aquarella. I think she'll love it. :)

Right now I'm reading The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett, Illustrated by Tasha Tudor to the kids for our family read-aloud and 1984 by George Orwell for myself. It's fun to revisit a beloved story such as The Secret Garden with my children and to see it afresh through them. As for 1984, it is a book that I have had on my to-read list for quite some time and I am finally getting to it. It seemed like a logical time to pick it up since I had just recently finished The Feed by M.T. Anderson and both books are about an imagined, ugly, futuristic world. My husband had read 1984 years ago and so he warned me that it was pretty disturbing. He was right of course. I have found it disturbing, just as I found The Feed disturbing (though, for different reasons). I would much rather live in the past than in the future. It's just who I am. I guess, for me, it boils down to-- the past is certain and the future is not. I'm almost to part Three in the book and so far my favorite part is this quote…

"The book fascinated him, or more exactly it reassured him. In a sense it told him nothing that was new but that was part of the attraction. It said what he would have said, if it had been possible for him to set his scattered thoughts in order. It was the product of a mind similar to his own, but enormously more powerful, more systematic, less fear-ridden. The best books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already." 

I'm not sure why that appeals to me so much. Perhaps, because I can really understand Winston here? After 174 pages I finally feel that I can relate to him in some way. It makes him real to me. Strange. Also, I find him much more simpatico after he starts visiting Mr. Charrington's shop. I think it's Winston's need for connecting to the past. I get that.

In other knitting news…

I finished my fingerless mitts from my last Yarn Along post.

 I am very pleased with them, though a little put out that I never felt that I mastered the thumb gusset. sigh. It came out okay, but the work was not as clean as I would have liked it to be. They are comfy and warm, though. Just as mitts should be. :)

 

For this weeks Yarn Along please join Ginny at Small Things.