Drawing things together

We seem to be in the  part of the year that I categorise as ‘too hot to knit’. It doesn’t tend to last very long, but the thought of holding anything woolly in my hands for longer than absolutely necessary is currently not tempting.

What does a knitter do when knitting becomes unpalatable?

  1. Crochet – there’s less hand to yarn contact.  My daughter insisted that the barbies were cold, despite meteorological evidence to the contrary.
  2. Catches up on reading about knitting, whether blogs or books. I got a very tasty selection of knitting and spinning books for my birthday.
  3. Plans new projects and buys the yarn. Loveknitting had a rather tasty sale last weekend and I might have just come in under the wire before the discounts ran out with a very large order of Millamia.
  4. Remembers that there was a time before knitting became such a big part of life and goes back to reading novels at a bank-breaking rate.
  5. Looks out of the window and enjoys the spring.
  6. The other thing I’ve been working on quite a lot is pen-control, whether for handwriting or drawing. I did an online handwriting course via Boho Berry, which gave me the impetus to work on making my handwriting more beautiful, while remaining legible. Bizarrely, I can justify this as professional development for work, as I have to have decent handwriting for filling out marriage registers.
    Before the course on the left, after on the right

    For drawing, I’m doing a basic online course with the Doodle Institute, I have a book on botanical line drawing to work through, and I have Mike Rohde’s Sketchnote workbook. It’s sketchnoting that has provoked this interest. It’s such a good way of organising information on the page so that it’s easy to review, but also sticks in the brain.

There hasn’t been a complete dearth of knitting since March. I’m most of the way through a hat made from my handspun and I’ve started another pair of socks.

Reading update

From the library:

  • The world of cycling according to G, by Geraint Thomas
    I find the world of professional cycling fascinating. Geraint always seems to be quite grounded and interesting when he’s interviewed. His book seems that he might have had a significant hand in writing it: much more individual a voice than other cycling memoirs I’ve read.

On Kindle:

  • I’m working my way through the complete works of L. M. Montgomery. It wasn’t free, but 49p for 20 books plus assorted other writing was too good to miss. I never read more than the first half of Anne of Green Gables as a child and I’ve really enjoyed it.  I’m now on the sixth book of the series.
    Anne of Green Gables
    Anne of Avonlea 
    Anne of the Island 
    Anne of Windy Poplars 
    Anne’s House of Dreams
    Anne of Ingleside

Re-reads:

  • My other half started a re-read of the Dragonriders of Pern series, which made me want to go back to that world. Needless to say, he’s on book 3 and I have decided to pause after book 15. It’s such a good world to escape to, (as long as thread isn’t falling).

A book I own but have never read:

  • I bought the Wizard of Earthsea quartet (by Ursula K LeGuin) when I was a student the first time round. A friend of my Mum’s had lent me the first two books when I was about 14, but I didn’t really get on with them. The book sat on my shelves and moved house with me around 9 times. I always thought I ought to read it (female author, fairly early fantasy). Now I’m two thirds of the way through the final volume and I really like it. Very interesting handling of themes like light vs dark, truth, power, male/female conflict, aging.
    Looking up background stuff for this post, I now discover that there are now 2 further volumes in the series, published since I bought it. Excellent! I suspect that Le Guin’s non-fiction stuff is worth reading too.

Whatever I want to read:

  • Yarnitecture by Jillian Moreno
  • Knit Wear Love and You Can Knit That by Amy Herzog

Posted

in

, ,

by

Tags:

Comments

One response to “Drawing things together”

  1. Daisy avatar

    Very glad the Barbies are warm now!