Words and Wool

Each day I work a bit more on the crochet afghan. My piles of ten are growing! It is very happy and relaxing work.

I am also working on a knitting project which is a birthday gift. The finished product can be revealed next week!

Just today I started sewing flowers again! It's about time!!

 Victoria Magazine has been a favorite in my family for nearly 20 years. I couldn't have been more excited to find that this September/October issue is the British issue and they've made Scotland a focus!!!! Utter bliss to thumb through the pages and read about the land that we are planning to visit again next fall!!!!

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys is a book I finished this weekend. This gripping novel, aimed at teenagers but just as moving for adults, is set in Lithuania and Siberia during the Soviet takeover during the 1940's. It paints the heartache of arrest and deportation and the sheer difficulty of survival in Siberia for years on end.

I found this book all the more meaningful because I have three different friends of Lithuanian descent and their parents and grandparents suffered during this time, including the parents of our piano teacher who spent eight years in Siberia. It brings this story very close to home. I am so glad I read this and highly recommend it.


The Low Road: A Scottish Family Memoir by Valerie Miner is another book I finished this week. Set in Scotland over the last century, it weaves the tale of a real family, some of who immigrated to America. Part fiction, part truth, Miner pieces together the fragments of her family history into a cohesive whole. The book was of interest to me because of my "Scottish reading theme" and I also found it interesting how she took genealogical information and turned it into a novel.

For more knitting and reading ideas, visit Ginny's Yarn Along.

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