Mittens and A Time for Mercy

The knitting is, once again, The World's Simplest Mittens and the novel is A Time for Mercy.  

I joined a mittens knitalong on Instagram and decided to try my go-to pattern in a different yarn weight.  That's about as adventurous as I get with my knitting these days.  I did have to rip back and start over in a smaller needle size at first, though.  The pattern calls for knitting the ribbing in one needle size for a nice snug fit, and going up two needle sizes for the hand.   The pattern calls for Size 2 and Size 4, but I have a loose gauge and felt like the fabric was going to let in too much cold as is.

So I cast on with a Size 1 needles and then knit the whole mittens with them.  These are for my nine-year-old, so I made them in the smallest adult size and made them a little shorter than what the pattern called for.  The yarn is some leftover Schachenmayr Regia that I used to make myself a pair of socks with a few years ago and had maybe a quarter of a skein left.  It turns out, that's more than enough for mittens.  It's a treat to work with and I love the way the colors work up.

I loved the way it wound up speckling perfectly on one thumb.

And how it worked up into columns on the other.

I usually read one John Grisham book a year, so I was happy when it was the January pick in my book club.  I found this on sale at Target and would really love to knit a shawl in some gradient colorway inspired by the cover.

A Time for Mercy features the same lawyer from A Time to Kill, which I've never read and never plan to because I don't want to.  I apparently only like the Grisham novels where a young person takes on a big corporation and this was the kind of Grisham novel in which someone is murdered and you keep finding out lots of sad things about violence against women and children and This Small Town Has Secrets (TM).

Both types of his novels address race and I wish they didn't because I cannot believe anyone would ever want to read his thoughts on it.  As a treat, A Time for Mercy also features men talking about their views on abortion and adoption.  The book would have been shorter had this part been taken out and then I wouldn't have had to read some ridiculous dialogue on the matter or wonder why so many writers offer up assaulted women as an interesting subplot.

Truly, I think maybe I just wish the book had been shorter.  I really enjoyed reading Gray Mountain until about the tenth time I saw the word "romp" and was only three-fourths of the way through.  His writing is like a sandwich from a subpar place that you're kind of in the mood for and then you realize if you consume the whole thing, you're going to feel bad.  I do.  

I'm glad I finished the book on time so I could talk about it on Facebook, but that's about it.  I'll pass it on to my husband's grandmother or my own.  

Maybe I'll have more fun next year.