Happy April, everybody! It’s time for one of my favourite kinds of blog post – Yarn Along! Join Ginny over at Small Things and all the other knitters and crocheters sharing their current craft projects AND what they’re reading. Add your Yarn Along by clicking the button below.

If you’re new to my blog, welcome! I’m Kat and I share knitting patterns and ideas. I’m married and have a nearly 17 month old daughter, and I like to share ideas that will be especially helpful for mums who knit and want to introduce the craft to their children.

What I’m Reading

Home is Where the School Is: The Logic of Homeschooling and the Emotional Labor of Mothering – By Jennifer Lois

When my little girl was a small baby, maybe a couple of months old, my husband was convinced of the benefits of home schooling after reading two pages from a book he was reading, which I’d bought him a couple of birthdays earlier. One discussion with him, and I too was convinced (at least for now – we have plenty of time to decide!).

The book which convinced him was not the one I’m currently reading. That book was called Beloved and Blessed by the Catholic writer Kimberly Hahn. She home schooled her six children in what sounds like an incredibly organised and intentional way. What’s more, I gather she brought all her children into the world via c-section! So in short, she’s an absolute superhero. PS, April is c-section awareness month. I hope all of your reading this who were born via c-section will thank your mums today. Thanks, Mum. And all the mums reading this who gave birth via c-section: thank you. It is no easy feat to care for a newborn after major abdominal surgery.

But anyway, I’ve been flipping through Home is Where the School Is for a couple of weeks now. I actually went looking for a book which might give me some ideas about how to go about home schooling, but instead this book is a look inside the lives and motivations of real parents who home school, by a sociologist. I must say, although it wasn’t what I set out to read, it is fascinating. The author covers issues like how mothers find and define “me-time”, why they want to home school, and how they deal with nay-sayers. These are useful things for me to read as a parent considering home schooling, but as someone trained as a psychologist, it is interesting to see how people make this decision and then cope with their choice to educate their children at home and the heavy demands that decision causes.

What I’m Knitting

Unnamed cloche/beanie – by me!

It feels like I’ve been making this little cloche for my daughter forever! It is nearly finished though, and I think it will be really sweet. I hope to share the pattern with you all once it is finished. So far it doesn’t have a name (it is in my notebook as “Minty Cloche Hat” – but I can do better than that!). Please let me know in the comments below if you have any suggestions for what I could call it.

Thanks for reading! Anyone who is new here, feel free to look around, and see my newest posts about knitting for charity, my Garter Be Kidding Me free headband pattern, and five projects you can make from garter stitch squares.

 

Peace,

Kat

 

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