The wonderful Elizabeth Goudge and some tiny trousers

This week's Yarn Along sees me knitting some tiny trousers from Vintage Knits For Modern Babies. Fabulous book with patterns that will receive a lot of use - there is always a baby to knit for! I have two friends with babies due, so am knitting some boy and girl items to cover all bases.

I am knitting two 4 ply yarns together, the blue one is Patonyle Sock and the white is Bella Baby Sugar. It doesn't really show up in the photos, but the speck in the white yarn is quite a bright blue and appears in the knitting as little flashes of bright blue. Looks quite effective, I think.

I am currently reading The Herb of Grace, which was also published as The Pilgrim's Inn, by Elizabeth Goudge. This is the second book in the trilogy about the Eliot family of Damerosehay, set over the two world wars. 

Just love the cover art

I just love family sagas and particularly ones written in this era. Not just set in this era, but written then. They are completely different from modern literature. This book is an absolute delight, as was the first one. I read a lot of modern Christian fiction and what I find immensely refreshing in this book is the unforced Christian references. Sometimes I find modern fiction becomes a bit too 'preachy', for want of a better word. But in this book it is taken for granted and is presented as the natural way of things. 

And as a homemaker, it is so pleasing and uplifting to read passages like this:

'Lucilla knew always, and Nadine knew in her more domesticated moments, that it was home-making that mattered. Every home was a brick in the great wall of decent living that man erected over and over again as a bulwark against the perpetual flooding in of evil. But women made the bricks, and the durableness of each civilisation depended upon their quality; and it was no good weakening oneself for the brick-making by thinking too much about the flood.' 

The Herb of Grace pg 53

Elizabeth Goudge has written so many books and I am trying to find them all to read.

Thanks to Alison May over at the gorgeous Brocante Home for recommending Elizabeth Goudge -  can't get enough! And also Beverley Nicholls; but those books are for another day!

Joining Ginny at Small Things for this week's Yarn Along.