Yarn Along- a new pillow and some poetry

I'm still working on my second pillow for the couch. This one is "half and half" meaning half knit and half purl. It looks a little strange now but I'm hoping it will all make sense when I'm finished.

As for reading, well. I'm having one of those times where I'm just overwhelmed with delight at my books, what I'm reading and what's in my pile both. First up, The Knitter's Life List by Gwen Steege.

If you're reading this you will probably love this book. Each chapter is devoted to a different item, say hats. And then Steege shows you a millon different fancy cool ways you could make a hat, and profiles some designers and gives you a checklist of different hat styles. And that's just one chapter! I've only been knitting for about two years now and this book had me feeling like I will never master all the amazing things knitting has to offer if I live to be one hundred and twelve. But that's a good feeling.

The other book that made me swoon was The Lady and the Poet by Maeve Haran.  It's a novel about the Elizabethan poet John Donne and his star-crossed love affair with the woman who became his wife, Ann More. I have loved Donne's poetry since high school (Chris tells me he never had to read any Donne in high school, how is that possible?) and I knew a little of his biography but Haran really immerses you in the story. Donne is a great character, sarcastic and charming with a deep soul. And reading about how hard life was for an educated woman who spoke her mind is always humbling. They both sacrificed much to be together but she inspired some of his best work, poems we still read today.

THE GOOD-MORROW. by John Donne I WONDER by my troth, what thou and I Did, till we loved ? were we not wean'd till then ? But suck'd on country pleasures, childishly ? Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den ? 'Twas so ; but this, all pleasures fancies be ; If ever any beauty I did see, Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee. And now good-morrow to our waking souls, Which watch not one another out of fear ; For love all love of other sights controls, And makes one little room an everywhere. Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone ; Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown ; Let us possess one world ; each hath one, and is one. My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, And true plain hearts do in the faces rest ; Where can we find two better hemispheres Without sharp north, without declining west ? Whatever dies, was not mix'd equally ; If our two loves be one, or thou and I Love so alike that none can slacken, none can die Linking with Ginny for Yarn Along.