Entre Posts

If there can be an entre acts, then surely there can be an entre posts?

Yesterday was a gray,rainy day but I managed to avoid the doldrums by getting lost in a book, buying a new knitting magazine, and sussing a new crochet stitch.

Lately I have read in bits and bobs--I mentioned Dream Angus in an earlier post, but two others in my Scottification have been the classic, Whiskey Galore, and a recent book that I picked up on a whim, The Stornoway Way. I have yet to start Scot's Quair or a collection of short stories by George Mackay Brown. I continue to pick up Hugh McDiarmid's A Drunk Man Looks at a Thistle from time to time, but I may never finish it. I have to read it out loud like I used to have to read student's papers whose spelling was phonetic. Even so, some of the words are not part of the common usage and I have to look them up and then start again. I enjoy the read so as long as I don't feel an urgency, then Hugh and I get along just fine.


In a category all of its own is The Linen Goddess. It is a mixture of travel and textiles. The author travels widely in search of the origins of a particular embroidery motif. The premise sounded so unusual that I had to buy it and I must say I have not been disappointed. The author has lovely prose and manages to keep a coherent narrative thread going with diverse elements.

The crochet book was a chance find in the library when I went to renew my knitting book, Knitting Beyond the Edges. The project that caught my eye in the crochet book is an introduction to lace stitches with a curly froth of mohair scarf. The other project that caught my eye is a scarf made up of several motifs that are crocheted together so that you don't have that dreaded sewing up at the end. It is as far away from Granny Squares as one could possibly get. As always, I have way more projects in my head than I can ever expect to get to, but it is a lovely chorus in the back of my head when I don't need it for other things.

The sun has not yet disappeared behind a cloud and the cleaning lady just called to say that she will not be here today, so I think I will declare a holiday from housework or weeding or cattle wrangling and find a sunspot where I can finish The Linen Goddess.