I’m actively reading two books right now. The Amazing Thing about the Way It Goes: Stories of Tidiness, Self-Esteem and Other Things I Gave up On is Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s 2014 book essays. They feature her typical humorous, yet poignant approach to storytelling, but this time are about things other than knitting. The two essays I read tonight, for instance, were about competing in hurdles back in school and the importance of photos. One or two in a day is about my speed, though, so the book, although small, is lasting me a few days, which is nice. The fiction I’m working on is 2 a.m. at the Cat’s Pajamas by Marie-Helene Bertino. Set around the holidays in modern Philadelphia, it’s the story of a young girl, who’s recently lost her mother and whose father is having issues coping, who wants to sing and the jazz club she discovers is not especially far away. It’s told in alternating points of view from a few different people, including one of her teachers and the club owner, in short chapters according to the time and I haven’t quite figured out how it’s all going to fit together into a cohesive whole. It appeared on several best-of lists last year, though, so I’m hopeful that it does.

I haven’t been knitting much at all the last couple months. I’ve been feeling down and getting past where I’m stuck on every in-progress project seems insurmountable. I know that dealing with that is a two-pronged approach (1) Start a new project and 2) pick one work-in-progress and knit a few rows on it each day until stops being hard/stuck/not done.), but I just haven’t had it in me to match up yarn, needles, and pattern.

I have been poking around Ravelry, though, and one of the designers I follow had a bunch of patterns she wanted test-knit by early February. One of them was a scalloped cowl that seemed more than reasonable to accomplish in three weeks, so I contacted her and downloaded the pattern this evening. I think I’m going to knit it in this pretty single-ply from Plain & Fancy Sheep Company, but we’ll see how it feels once it’s wound up. I also pulled out my Lightning Shawl and may see about making it my first reinstated project of the year.

Yarning along with Ginny.