Even though I haven't finished Vespers yet, and even though I didn't finish the two pairs of mittens, pair of socks, and Saint Nicholas stocking I wanted to for April, I have wound yarn for Mad May. There is going to be a low key, less structured event this year. I have two designs that are being made with Madelinetosh yarns, and a shawl I have wanted to make from a friend's design for a while. One of the projects I didn't finish this month, though, also fits the event, because it is made with Vintage yarn, and there is a WIP category this year. So, Yasmina's mittens will also be part of May for me. I pulled them out this weekend, since I had to frog the first one in January, and I had restarted it, but left it at the thumb gusset increases for a while. It was my liturgical and weekend knitting this week. Do I think I will finish all of these? Unlikely, but I am hoping to get one of the designs completed, the other with decent progress made, and Yasmina's mittens completed.

Are you planning for this next month? I am really hoping that our governor will get some common sense and start lifting some of the restrictions. We are doing pretty well in our state, and there are enough essential workers already out there and bringing home any exposure they might run into that it would be good to start to see even a little normalcy. I miss my weekly knit nights. Maybe next week?

This weekend, I made some progress on my reading, as well as those mittens. Right now, I am about halfway though Babel and about to start the chapter on Malay. It would be great to finish it this week. It would be great to finish it before the end of April. That is not probable. It will be the first book I have finished this year, which is a bit embarrassing. Technically, that isn't really true, because we read Tending the Garden of our Hearts together, and I have read Farmer Boy, On the Banks of Plum Creek to the younger kids, and we will finish By the Shores of Silver Lake in the next day or so, and that doesn't include the short story books, of course, but I mean the only book I have read just for myself.

While Bottom of the Pot isn't a book I am reading cover to cover, I did want to give it a mention. I've cooked several recipes out of it over the past few months, and really enjoyed each dish. Last night's dinner was the Khoresh Bademjan, the eggplant and chicken stew. It was so flavorful and not hard to make at all. Persian cooking, in my opinion, is to greater Middle Eastern cooking as Japanese cooking is to greater Far East Asian cooking, or Cuban cooking is to Latin American cooking. It is not so spicy, in terms of heat, but is layered and complex with a subtlety that is lovely.


Linking to Keep Calm and Craft On.

Labels: Books, Design, Faith and Morality, Homemaking, Knitting, MadMay, Quarantine, WIP, Yarn Along