I started a new reading project and a new knitting project this month. I'm on page 153 of the 1000 plus pages in William Manchester and Paul Reid's "The Last Lion," the last book in the series of three that Manchester wrote about Churchill. William Manchester died in 2004 and Paul Reid, with Manchester's blessing, took the research notes and finished this marvelous set of biography.
I've been reading Douglas Brinkley's "Cronkite" off and on. Brinkley chronicles the time that Walter Cronkite spent as a war correspondent in London during World War II's later days. The account in "Cronkite," while clearly serious and at a later time in London, has a carefree hint that is not present in the Churchill biography. In comparing the two accounts, I can see that Cronkite was chronicling while Churchill was governing.
"Last Lion" begins in the desperate days of 1940, before America entered the war. My admiration for Britain's tenacious will to survive has grown as I read the month by month account of the bombing of London and southern England. Churchill's strength of character rubbed off on the whole country. It was a desperate and remarkable time.
On to the knitting. It is the toe of a sock that you see atop the book.
I have never started knitting a sock from the toe up, but that's what I've learned to do this week. By means of a clever cast on process that loops yarn around two needles to create a starting point for both the underside (the sole) and the top (the instep), a sock is emerging from my needle.
I'm constantly amazed at the ingenuity of knitting. With two sticks and a strand of string, a very sculptural, practical fabric is built. Clever, clever.
Copyright 2013
Wanda Hayes Eichler
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