Tag: knitting

I finished the age of brass + steam shawl (photos soon!) and have been working on the Lori Shawl.  It’s my first time working with linen and I enjoy it but I do miss the softness of the madelinetosh.  My friend and knitting guru Jennifer, a friend from middle and high school days who taught me how to knit back in October, is knitting this along with me.  So fun!  My first tiny little knit-along.  She said the drape of this linen yarn will be beautiful and so far, it is!  I cannot wait to see the finished product and to wear it!  It is lovely and peaceful to knit, just garter stitch for miles and miles.

I’m still reading and savoring Ruthless Trust, and boy is it ever timely and needed.  It feels like the Lord Himself put it in my hands for such a time as this.  We have had some serious discouragement hit this week, and trust in the Lord is never more needed, it seems.  I hate the hard times so much but I cannot tell you how near it is causing me to draw to the Lord and how near He has been, how alive His Word has been, and how much it is causing Brandon and I to cling to one another.  All of these, good things.  I guess these are a measure of the sweet gifts, the soft hints and whispers of glory in the midst of a rolling storm.

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

2 Cor. 4: 16-18

I am almost done with my first kerchief/shawl!  I am on the last section and have three more rows but I’m debating making it a little bigger and using up the rest of the yarn.  I just don’t know if I have enough yarn to do that?  So.. still deciding.  I have so enjoyed working on it, I don’t want to see it go!

I’m still reading and really loving Surviving the Island of Grace, but yesterday the Lord was speaking to me throughout the day about trust.  This book that I read and was deeply impacted by back when I was 18 kept catching my eye from my shelves.  I had a much-needed night alone with Jesus last night and read a lot of this tattered book and have been so thankful to find myself in its pages again.  I forgot how much I enjoy Manning’s writing.  I’m terribly in need of a work of the Lord in my life in the way of trust!

Here are a couple snippets that met me deeply last night:

“Unglued and undone by personal experience of the Messiah of sinners, who searches the noisy streets of large cities and the unpaved roads of small hamlets, the ragamuffin walks the way of ruthless trust in the irreversible forgiveness of the Master.  The defenses he has erected against his own truth as a saved sinner wither in the maelstrom of mercy flashing like lighting across his life.  ‘If the Lord Jesus has washed me in his own blood and forgiven all my sins,’ the ragamuffin whispers to herself, ‘I cannot and must not refuse to forgive myself.'”

“Uncompromising trust in the love of God inspires us to thank God for the spiritual darkness that envelopes us, for the loss of income, for the nagging arthritis that is so painful, and to pray from the heart, ‘Abba, into your hands I entrust my body, mind, and spirit and this entire day — morning, afternoon, evening and night.  Whatever you want of me, I want of me, falling into you and trusting in you in the midst of my life.  Into your heart I entrust my heart, feeble, distracted, insecure, uncertain.  Abba, unto you I abandon myself in Jesus our Lord. Amen.”

Joining with Ginny + her weekly yarn along to share what we’re knitting and reading today!

I’ve been looking for the right yarn to make this shawl/kerchief pattern, and finally settled on this skein from Madelintosh.  I’m aching to cast on but need to wind it into a ball first and also, I have been hardly able to knit for the past week (!!!!) because of crazy pain/tendonitis in my right arm/wrist/elbow/hand.  I don’t know what’s going on, I may have injured it working out but now just everyday activities have been aggravating it and it is so stiff when trying to knit.  I have backed off a bit from knitting but I am possibly going to have to take a total break and rest it completely.  Anyone else ever had anything like this??  I am terrified I have developed something and maybe will always have pain knitting.  Brandon was laughing at me the other night that I was so upset about having to stop knitting for a bit.  He really doesn’t understand how addicting and soothing and relaxing this hobby is. 😉  I literally have had dreams at night about casting on with this yarn.  (I’m a little crazy, I know)

Anyway, I’m trying to finish up some baby socks as a gift for a loved one (so I can’t show them here) and then I want to work on this shawl.  I also just purchased my first interchangeable needle set and am eager to try it out!

I’m still reading The Life-giving Home by Sarah + Sally Clarkson and loving it, as well as a couple others, but this is one the kids and I have been reading the past couple of days. (For more children’s picture books that I recommend, look here).  How appropriate, given that we are expecting some snow tonight!  We always hope for a blizzard even though those are rare for our North Carolina mountains.  We heard on the radio earlier today that there was a tornado watch in effect for our area, and as soon as we got home Phoebe was screaming with glee and searching the house for her binoculars.  She told me the radio said to be watching for tornados and she obediently set up post by the window.  We did have some ferocious rain and wind this morning but it is gloriously sunny outside right now.  Hard to imagine snow coming this evening.

Hope I’ll be knitting more again soon.

Joining in with my favorite blogger, Ginny, and her weekly yarn along today.

Currently I have a few books on the stack: Roots and Sky, The Life-giving Home, and just starting this one by Tim Keller on the Psalms called The Songs of Jesus.  I’ve been craving the psalms lately.  My soul has been in a bit of a fog and it seems I am finding my way back to my own heart through the psalms.  Sometimes you need to borrow the honest prayers of another, these inspired by the Holy Spirit, when you don’t know what to pray yourself.  I am so grateful for all the range of emotion expressed in the psalms, the permission they give us to be real before our God and pour out our heart to Him.  This is a year’s worth of devotions in the psalms, so I will be in it all year, I suppose.

I finished up my epic sock production and am making a chunky knit hat for one of my cousins, while trying to decide what to work on next.  I’m planning on starting a shawl maybe, and also I’m wanting to work on a baby sweater possibly.  In the meantime, my fingers are itching to knit so I’m just working away on dishcloths when I need some mindless knitting in the evenings.

Joining in with Ginny + so many other lovely knitters and readers in her weekly yarn along!

Are you tired of seeing socks yet?  I’m probably not a very exciting knitter.  I am on my LAST SOCK after knitting a pair for each family member and I was hoping to have this done by his birthday (today!) but, alas.. only on the gusset.  I secretly knit him a big chunky hat, though, this week, to make up for it, and I hope that is a fun surprise for him.  But I forgot to get a picture of it before I wrapped it.  He requested cherry pie for his birthday dessert, so this is my first attempt at a gluten-free pie.  (I never attempt pies, it seems; I think I am horrible at them.  I pieced together a few different recipes to make this one, so we’ll *see* how it turns out.)

I am wanting to make my first shawl.  It is a knitter’s rite of passage, right??  So.. comment with your recommendations!  It seems there are a billion options to choose from and I have only been knitting since October so my skills are pretty limited.  I need to try something beyond hats and socks and scarves.

I’ve been reading Roots + Sky the past few days (it just released yesterday!) and I can hardly put it down.  Christie Purifoy’s voice feels like home to me, familiar somehow to my own thinking, and the imagery and color she uses in her prose is so vivid and evocative!  She makes me want to write more and be a better writer.  I love how she has captured her first year living in her home, Maplehurst, in all four seasons, journeying through change and reflecting on our connection to the soil and to the sky, a people both of the earth and yet also a people of a far-off Kingdom.  I highly recommend it!

Joining in with Ginny + all the lovely knitters and readers at her weekly yarn along.

Joining in with Ginny today to share what I’m knitting and reading.  I finished Hannah’s Choice last night, and I really loved it!  I read Almost Amish a couple of years ago and learned a lot about the Amish lifestyle and how much we can learn and appreciate from their simple ways and values.  Hannah’s Choice was a really engaging novel about an Amish family and their attempt to raise their children apart from an increasingly encroaching world of outsiders.  I grew up in a “Brethren” type of gathering/meeting, and I found it interesting, reading about this family and the way they viewed those outside of their faith.  I found certain aspects reminded me of my upbringing.  Also, the author mentioned that this story, though fiction, was based on her own family’s history, an attempt for her to fill in the gaps after doing a bunch of genealogical research.  So it was definitely a story very rooted in place and history.  It was a really interesting read, I loved being hooked on a story again and unable to put it down.  And it’s the first book in a series, so book two will come out this fall.  Yay!

Anyway, I’ve started The Life-Giving Home by Sally + Sarah Clarkson.  I have read a couple others by Sally Clarkson before and have really been helped by them.  I was surprised to find that this one starts off with her on a writing retreat in my very own town, Asheville, NC!  It’s fun to see her perspective on this little town I’ve grown up in that seems so ordinary to me.  So far, though I’m only barely into it, it reminds me of The Hidden Art of Homemaking by Edith Schaeffer, which is a FAVORITE read of mine.  So I think I will really enjoy this one as well.  I find it super helpful to regularly read things that encourage and inspire me in my role as wife and mother and homemaker.  Creating a home that is cozy, inspiring, happy, and life-giving is a huge priority of mine!

As for knitting, I’ve been working on finishing up some knits this week, but just about to graft the toe of Brandon’s first sock and cast on sock #2 this morning.  He tried them on last night and really liked them, and he’s fairly picky, so I was pleased!  I also need to secretly knit a hat before his birthday next week.  I have a few more gift-y items to finish up and then I feel like I should knit myself something!  I have yet to knit anything for myself.  I’m wanting to try something beyond socks and hats.  I feel like it’s time to attempt my first shawl?  But also.. I want to make some more baby knits.  So many things!