Yarn Along: Beginning a labour of love

I have been married to my beloved

Mr. Husband about 1.5 years now.

I first learned to knit 

just over a year ago

and have just begun 

my first knitting project for my 

husband!

The only thing he wanted was socks.

So I am using a pattern called

Aladdin Sock from my Oma's knitting book.

While I cannot find this pattern online,

I can tell you that the name is from

the Aladdin heel, which provides a way

to re-knit the heel when the first is worn through. 

This pattern also lets one replace the toe.

All I have done so far is cast on.

I meet with my knitting teacher tomorrow 

to discuss and do more on it.

The next thing is to do decreases,

but I will be glad to touch base

on this before going further.

*

The size one DPNs I am using

are the clover brand bamboo ones.

I am wondering however if I should switch to metal

size ones as the bamboo seems so frail

that one wrong move may snap a needle in half!

*

I have been reading various books...

Letters to Saint Lydia

is a very well written book;

I found the ending to be very beautiful but

it does have a turn towards the end that

I found unexpected.

It is charming as it shows a girl named Lydia 

who is given an icon of St. Lydia from her Mother

who just went from a Mom who loved to go out in nature

for her spirituality to someone, with her husband, who

becomes a Christian, being baptised in the Orthodox church.

Lydia is understandably confused by this,

as any high school girl would be!

She ends up not knowing where to sort out these

unexpected happenings and so begins writing letters

to the woman, St. Lydia, whose icon her Mother gave her.

It's very honouring of Lydia's struggles with her family

and her perception of the world...

The beautiful thing is that unknown to Lydia this

woman Saint Lydia writes her letters in return

and these letters are very precious and I would say

deeply mothering, so much so that

I found the whole book to be a very nurturing book,

a mothering that many are looking for... 

This Saint Lydia helps Lydia through some really 

tough times and is very beautiful. 

I would not recommend this book to a girl who is

not high school age or older due to 

some of the things Lydia faces ... however if you are a mother

of a young teen girl, I would read it first

and judge for yourself if your daughter is ready for the book

or if it should wait.

Everyone's life experience and journey are different

and the book would be needful depending on where

the reader was in this journey.

*

Another book I read intently the first half 

and then read quickly (to find out what happens!) the

second half...

*

It is very moving and gives a lot of good food for thought 

for women of our times.

What does it mean to be a woman?

Can a woman in this age of feminism be a Christian 

in such an era?  

What about those who are where this author was 

at one time, feeling  that emptiness that the author felt

and can what Colleen Carroll Campbell

found in Christianity, and for herself, 

the Catholic church help?...

For me as an Orthodox* Christian 

it was interesting to learn 

about the world that Colleen embraces.

I have some good friends who are Catholic

and who have similar devotion that is shown here.

It's a great book for thinking about women

and how we are to try to grapple with things,

as well as dealing with the illness and eventual loss of a parent

and all that this entails;

it also deals with infertility and the struggles that are found there in.

It's fairly well written and readable.

*

I am still digesting the bio that I read on Coleen based on her book.

I admit I was rather saddened to read that she is back 

in Washington DC area; my sense from her book

and from what I know of that area,

it is a stressful place to live.

But I trust God where she is being placed...

My sense is that her life is incredibly demanding and a challenge

to balance her career and family life.

God bless and keep her!

*

So what are you reading and creating?

Do yarn along with us! 

*(the Orthodox church being the other church 

that I can historically claim to be 

from the earliest times;

though it is more simple to say that 

both churches 

(Catholic and Orthodox are

 from the earliest times of the church

but in the 1000 - 1100s became two separate churches).