I’m preparing for a new knitting project, by knitting gauge swatches.

I will have a green cardigan!

I’ve found a new pattern that seems a bit more complicated than the previous one I tried making but maybe, hopefully, is also more forgiving. The bottom half is in cabled ribbing which should be nicely stretchy so the I don’t need to get the sizing 100% perfect. And the top half is simple stockinette stitch with no lacy complications, so the gauge swatch should be a good predictor of sizing for that part. The fit and sizing of the sleeves will probably be the trickiest part.

No, I’m not mending books. These are books about mending.

I have three. Two go together, and the third one stands on its own. All three are in Swedish.

The two are called simply Lappa and Stoppa – “Patch” and “Darn”. They’re published by Hemslöjdens Förlag, a small publishing house (owned by a non-profit) that specializes in books about crafts. These two are part of their “technique booklets” series – slim, focused, practically oriented booklets about a specific technique, such as darning. Their other books are also practical in nature, rather than shiny heavy coffee table books.

I like their books in general. I think I own about a fifth of their catalogue… But these two books are my favourites. They combine practicality with just the right amount of fun without turning too silly. Their examples are varied in style. And their way of mending things is wonderfully lighthearted and irreverent. Have a hole in your sweater? Make it larger! Or make more of them!

The booklets are heavy on pictures, both inspirational and instructional. Texts are mostly brief, often step-by-step.

The standalone book by Kerstin Neumüller is also named simply Lappat & lagat, “Patched and mended”. It’s an actual book, thicker and more solid than the two booklets, and covers a broader range of mending topics than just patching and darning: how to repair a buttonhole, how to repair leather goods, etc. It’s more solid and serious in tone as well. More instruction and less inspiration; more text and fewer step-by-step lists. It’s a useful book and I’ve learned things from it, and if I didn’t have the others I’d probably be quite happy with it – but it’s simply not quite as much fun to pick up than the other two.

I made a roasted sweetcorn and saffron soup for dinner. I thought it could do with some wine. Went to the pantry and got some wine. There was a bottle of home made apple wine and a bottle or two of store-bought grape wine. The apple would go well with sweetcorn, I decided.

Before I added the wine to the soup, I took a sip. It was so good that using it in a soup would be a waste. Instead I poured it from my measuring cup into the first glass I found. And used the store-bought wine for the soup instead.

I slept really, really badly today and have been tired and listless all day. Had no energy for anything other than reading.

Sometimes my sleep goes wrong. I hover on the edge of sleep and dream weird dreams all night and don’t get any deep, restful sleep at all. They’re not exactly nightmares, not quite – no dreams of falling or being chased – but the dreams are all about something being wrong. I’m going to gym class but I’m wearing heavy boots. I’m in a stairwell and I need to go up but the stairs are not there. I’m in a home (that’s not my real home but it is my home in the dream) but the furniture has been rearranged. I’m in my last year of university but I realize I haven’t taken any of the required courses. And so on. I wake up in the morning and I feel like I’ve barely slept.

Adrian, starving for contact, sat next to me in the sofa and browsed my blog, especially all posts in the “Adrian” category, and showed his favourites to me. From the first photos of him as a baby, to the last few days’ posts about Åre.