Time to Relax

Good morning, friends! It's much later than I'd normally be posting on a Monday, so it must be vacation. We got here Saturday without incident and only a little late because we had to go through deicing before we took off. We got pretty lucky that we took off when we did: It was flurrying when we left the house, and apparently by the time we got to the airport, there had been a brief snow squall that dropped about an inch of snow (snow that wasn't predicted, by the way). I had requested a wheelchair at the airport, so while there wasn't a long line to get through security, I did get to preboard and snagged us the fourth row of seats on the plane. When we landed, my parents were waiting for us -- as was, inexplicably, this guy:

I can only assume that he was there to pick someone up and wanted to give them a laugh, but I'm not sure he realized how many other people he'd amuse in the meantime!

Now that we're here, I am completely focused on de-stressing. I'm sleeping in (obviously) and reading for pleasure and knitting. I won't be going for my long walks or runs, unfortunately, but I can still enjoy the sunshine. I'm also feeling quite proud of myself for not overpacking on the knitting for once! And I did manage to finish up the hat before we left -- though I wasn't able to block it or get pictures in actual daylight, so I apologize for these crummy shots.

Pattern: Coronal (Ravelry link) by Allison Janocha, size L
Yarn: Fibernymph Dye Works Bona Fide in Teddy Bear and Cozy in OOAK
Needles: US 6 (4.0 mm) and US 7 (4.5 mm)
Started/Completed: December 17/December 20

This was a really fun knit. Once I figured out the general "formula" for the body pattern, I didn't need the chart. This is one of those patterns that looks more complicated than it actually is in the execution. You only work with one color at a time, and the cabled columns are just slipped when working with the other color. The only part that needed a fair amount of concentration was the crown, which seems pretty obvious when you see it:

There's a lot going on here, but the decreases happen rapidly -- the entire crown is a total of 20 rounds. But it really packs a punch! I knit this for charity, so I made the largest size I had yarn for, but I think this is a pattern I'd very likely knit again. I also didn't intend to use yarns of two different weights; I really thought they were both DK until I looked at the labels. (If they look familiar, that's because I used them for my nephew's gnome.)

I worked on my socks on the flight down and finished them last night, and here's a great photo to show how much of a difference blocking can make:

I don't normally block socks unless they're a gift, but I blocked the first one for pattern photos. I'm happy that these are finally done -- I started them back in October!

I started my sweater last night, but I already seem to have done something wrong, so in the light of daylight I will take a look and tink back. I've also got to start the hat that I brought yarn for, as I think we're going to be headed to the movies on Christmas and I'll need something to keep my hands busy.

I'm not sure whether I'll be posting on Wednesday, but either way I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, and generally a relaxing holiday season! I will be back for sure on Friday.

So Much to Do, So Little Time

Happy Friday, friends! It's my last day of work for the year and also Molly's last day at school (technically; she has a noon dismissal and they're doing nothing but fun stuff today, so it hardly seems like it counts). I have a very long to-do list today, at the top of which is packing! I also would like to finish this hat before we leave, which seems possible, as I have something like eight rounds left:

This is a charity hat and not a holiday gift, so it would be a huge issue to take it with us, but it seems a shame to take up space in my luggage when it'd be done so soon. And that's why I'm highly motivated to get it done today.

While there's still most of my packing to do, I have at least figured out my knitting. I almost always overpack on the yarn options, so I'm trying to keep it simple this year. I'm taking the socks that are in progress (I just have the second sock to finish) and another skein of fingering for a hat that I can knit while we're at the movies or out and about. And I'm taking yarn to start a new sweater:

This is handspun Polwarth from an older Southern Cross Fibre club shipment called Plot Twist. Fittingly, I'm going to be using it for a pattern called Polwarth. As you can see, I knit a generous swatch, and while I didn't get gauge exactly, I'm close enough that it will work just fine (I'm off by one stitch over four inches, which means my sweater will be just slightly roomier). I used just one skein for my swatch, but I plan to alternate skeins when I knit the sweater so that I don't get such concentrated blocks of color. I still expect the knitting to be a bit busy, which is precisely why I chose a fairly simple pattern. So we'll see how much sweater I get knit in a couple of weeks -- and if I somehow run out of yarn, we did discover a yarn store not too far away from my parents' house!

Tonight we're having dinner with my brother's family so we can take their gifts to them before we leave, and I might have to insist that they open their hand-knit gifts just so I can see my nephew's reaction at his gnome. The Mister took our gifts to his brother's family the other night (Molly and I stayed home because she had homework she needed to finish) and he FaceTimed us while our nephews were opening them. They were both very enthusiastic about everything, including the hats I made them:

Those smiles make it all worth it!

I hope you all have a good end to your week, and don't forget that tomorrow is the Winter Solstice -- which means that starting Sunday, the days start to get longer again!

Unraveled, Week 51/2024

It's that time again -- time to join Kat and the Unravelers! And I've got another finished hat (though this one is so tiny, I'm not sure it really counts all that much).

I totally winged this little hat, casting on 72 on size 4/3.5 mm needles, working until the body of the hat measured 4 inches (with the brim rolled), decreasing to 8, and then working a three-dimensional leaf. I used a whopping 30 grams/69 yards of yarn. And with this project complete, I am officially done with holiday knitting for the year!

I've actually cast on for another hat, which I'm trying to finish before we leave on our trip (but it's okay if I don't). The pattern is Coronal, which has been in my library for a number of years and is designed by one of my fellow Giftalong mods. I'm using the leftovers from my youngest nephew's gnome, though as I sat down to cast on, I realized that one yarn is DK and one is worsted. They are close enough that it shouldn't make a big difference, and this one is going into the charity pile in any case, so if the sizing comes out a little weird, I won't have to worry about it not fitting a specific recipient.

There's not been a ton of time for reading in the past week, but I've finished one book.

I'm a big fan of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and have wanted to read more of her novels, so when I got an email from NetGalley inviting me to read her forthcoming novel Dream Count, I didn't hesitate. This is a novel about four women, all African and all connected. We open with Chia, who is our primary narrator, during the early days of COVID lockdown. She is living in Maryland but is originally from Nigeria and has traveled widely in her career as a freelance travel writer. Unable to go anywhere, she takes the time she must stay at home to reflect on her relationships and her regrets related to them. Then there's her friend Zikora, a successful lawyer who has wanted to get married and have children more than anything and who finds herself abandoned by the man she thought was her soulmate when she tells him she's pregnant. There's Omelogor, Chia's cousin, who has made a career working in Nigerian banking (and made a lot of money by being involved in money laundering), who is now trying to help other women succeed in business and fending off pushy relatives who pressure her to marry and have a family. And finally there's Kadiatou, who came to the United States with her daughter after being widowed and who brings the other three women together when she is sexually assaulted at her job as a hotel housekeeper. We get to spend time with all of these women and to experience their heartaches, their frustrations with racism and misogyny, and their hopes and dreams. Though they all have very different personalities, what they have in common is their strength and boldness -- these are no shrinking violets. I gave it 4 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book will be published March 4, 2025.

I am trying to finish up The Glorious Heresies before we leave so I don't have to schlep it with me; I've got about 100 pages left. I know my mother will have books for me to read there, plus I have a ton of books on my Kindle shelf and library holds. I am looking forward to lots of extra reading time!

Fifteen

Despite some seriously gross weather, I'm happy to report that Molly had a wonderful birthday!

I have to tell you that we did not plan to match -- I was trying to dress up my athletic pants a bit (they're really the only pants I can wear that fit in the boot, which I'm still wearing when we go out), and I only discovered she was wearing stripes shortly before we left to go to my parents' for brunch! I also can't get over how old and mature she is looking, especially when I see her next to me.

We had the whole family -- both sets of grandparents plus our siblings and their kids -- for brunch, and Molly was of course pretty well spoiled. We also got all the cousins together for a photo before the youngest ones had to go home for their nap:

I think it's pretty impressive that we got them all to sit, even if we didn't get everyone to smile and look at the camera!

Other than yesterday's celebration, it was a fairly quiet evening. Molly and her friend made holiday cookies and homemade pizza while we watched the Pitt women's volleyball team punch their ticket to the NCAA Final Four, and I did the usual cleaning and laundry. I also finished the last planned holiday knitting project! This is the hat for my oldest nephew, and in spite of my oversight in weighing my yarn before I started, the finished hat weighs 103 g and I still had 3 g leftover.

I say planned because yesterday I realized that I'd knit things for my brother, nephew, and sister-in-law but not my niece (not that I think she'd complain, mind you). But I felt like they all should have something handmade, so I started a quick hat for her that I can whip up this week. This is going to be a simple stockinette beanie with a rolled brim, and I'll add a leaf to the top. It might still be too big for her at the moment (it seems she has a smaller-than-average head), but if so it'll fit her eventually.

It's our last week before vacation, and of course it's going to be a busy one. Molly's holiday Glee Club concert at school is Tuesday evening, which the Mister will miss because it's the same night as his office holiday party. I'm expecting work to be busy. At some point we all have to pack, too -- which means I have to decide what knitting to take with me! I'm sure the next several days will fly by, so I'd better get started on my day.

Let's Wrap It Up

I am always happy to see Friday come, but this one is especially welcome. The Mister has been on two work trips this week, which means more school runs for me, and we've had frigid temperatures and some snow to boot. I do not like driving in winter conditions at the best of times, but it's even more scary when I have a not-fully-healed broken foot! Thankfully Molly's school isn't far and I don't have to worry about coming home and walking into the office after I drop her off.

The week's been fairly quiet as far as work is concerned, but my boss let me know yesterday that another magazine just arrived, so I imagine that it will take up all of my remaining work days until our winter break (don't you just love it when other people want to clear off their desks before a break and push all their work on you?). I'm sure she'll tell me that I don't have to get it all done before the break, but who wants to think about the work they still have to do the whole time they're on vacation? At least it will make the break feel even better, and as this week has given me lots of knitting and reading time, I can't complain too much.

Here's a very bad, very early morning photo of my nephew's hat as it is currently:

That marker in the middle was placed Wednesday evening, so you can see that in about 24 hours, I knit up about five or six inches. I weighed my remaining yarn last night before I put the project away and it's around 50 g, so I'm past the halfway mark. It would be great if I could wrap up this project by the end of the weekend, not least because we need to wrap all the holiday gifts for the niblings soon!

Today's to-do list includes baking challah, which I haven't done in a while. One loaf will come with us to dinner tonight and one will go in the freezer for a future dinner. My father and brother have a client holiday party to go to this evening, so the rest of us will be taking dinner over to my sister-in-law (much easier for her to deal with two small children at her own house!). This weekend we'll be celebrating Molly's 15th birthday (can you believe this tiny thing is going to be 15?!) with a family brunch on Sunday morning.

Have a wonderful weekend, and please take a moment to go congratulate Vera on the arrival of her granddaughter!

Unraveled, Week 50/2024

Week 50! The end of this year is getting awfully close! But Wednesday keeps coming around reliably every week, and this week, as always, I'm joining the fun with Kat and the Unravelers. This Wednesday, there's more gnome fun:

Pattern: Never Not Gnoming, largest size (Gnorbert), by Sarah Schira
Yarn: Fibernymph Dye Works Bona Fide in OOAK (blue) and Teddy Bear (brown) and Lion Brand Baby Soft in White
Needles: US 3 (3.25 mm) and US 4 (3.5 mm)
Started/Completed: December 6/December 10
Mods: omitted arms

This is the gnome I've been making for my youngest nephew, who's only 19 months old, so I've stuck with the very simplest pattern. I've also eliminated the skinny arms that are called for because I figured he'd just pull them off (his parents are frustrated with his current habit of yanking on and tearing book pages). I had a slight snafu with the needles, discovering only after I finished closing up the body that I was using a US 4 and not a US 2 as I thought (I was trying to knit at a dense gauge so the stuffing wouldn't show through), but I wasn't about to undo it all and start over. I think it's fine. Straightforward, simple, and (in true fashion for me) a little wonky. I just hope my nephew is still into gnomes when he opens this guy!

I've also made some progress on the hat for my oldest nephew, and now that I've moved into the long straight stockinette portion, this should fly.

Funnily enough, I made a snafu with this project as well. This is going to be a double-ended hat, and the idea is to use up as much of the yarn as possible, so I intended to weigh the yarn before and after I finished the crown so I'll know how much I'll need to leave to finish the other end. But guess who forgot to do that? Oops. I did weigh the yarn after I finished the increases and I still had 98 g (meaning my skein was likely more than 100 g to start), so I think I'll just go with about 10 g and hope for the best. Worst case, I can add some scraps if I run short.

I have finished two more books this past week, both good reads.

I had heard about Our Wives Under the Sea on a podcast, but it was one of those books where the person talking about it didn't want to say too much because it would give away a lot of the book. The basic premise is this: Miri is struggling because her wife, Leah, has recently returned home from a work trip in a research submarine that was meant to last three weeks and turned into five months, and Leah no longer seems like the Leah who left on the trip. In alternating chapters, Leah tells the story of what happened on the sub. This book is categorized as horror, which is not a genre I typically read; aside from a few icky body-related things that happen (and which aren't described in detail or at length), this didn't read like horror to me. Rather, there's a building tension as the reader learns more about what happened to Leah and begins to question things. It's intriguing and mysterious and in many ways ambiguous -- and it's very well written. I gave it 4 stars.

Madness: Race and Insanity in Jim Crow Asylum is the first book selected for a new community read effort in my area. I was already interested in reading before I heard about this program, and I was even more excited to get a free copy of it from my local bookstore! It's hard to say that I enjoyed this book, because it deals with some very difficult subjects, but I did find it to be very informative and enlightening. This book looks at the history of mental hospitals through the lens of Crownsville Hospital in Maryland, which was built specifically to house Black patients. The author looks at the history of the hospital and its residents to paint a picture of the impact of systemic racism and connection between mental health care and the criminal justice system. The online blurb about this book connects it to The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and I'd say that's a good one -- and there's even a direct connection between the two. I gave this book 4 stars; really what kept it from being a 5-star read for me was that I was unable to turn my internal editor off and was just bothered enough by what I felt was poor editing -- sentence fragments that didn't seem to be intentionally included for emphasis, improperly placed commas, etc. I would have made a lot of changes if I had edited this book! But most people likely won't notice this kind of stuff, and the content of the book certainly makes it worth reading.

I'm currently reading the last selection for the small group of us exploring past winners of the Women's Prize for Fiction, The Glorious Heresies, which frankly I'm having trouble getting into but that I am committed to finishing (and I see that Kym enjoyed it, so I'm optimistic!). I'm actually going to miss the Zoom discussion of this one because we'll be flying home from our trip, but seeing as I went to the trouble of buying the book, I might as well read it anyway! I'm also about a quarter of the way through an ARC of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's forthcoming novel, Dream Count.

A Rainy Start

It's a dark, wet Monday morning here. After a partially frigid weekend, we are due to hit the mid-50s today, but it's going to rain most of the day. We need the water, so I won't complain, but it'll be a dark day. Not great for taking blog photos!

We had a pretty relaxing weekend, and the big excitement for me was being able to do a Target run on Saturday now that I can drive. The funny thing about being out and about with the boot on is that you start seeing other people with the same predicament, and as we were walking into the store, we passed a man in the same boot, and we laughingly acknowledged each other. Molly's Glee Club performance went well that night, though we all were a bit frozen after. Yesterday was mostly about catching up on the to-do list: Molly spent much of the day doing homework, while I did laundry and finished up my sister-in-law's socks:

I used my SHaGS pattern (Ravelry link) for these and Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce in the colorway Wild Atlantic Wildflowers. I didn't bother to get the stripe sequence to match (just too long of a repeat for that), but I did cast on at the same transition point, where the gray in between changes over to one of the bright colors. As usual there was apparently just enough variation in my gauge that the toe of the second sock (right) didn't have the same blip of gray at the end that the first one did. I know for a fact that my sister-in-law will not care, so I'm not stressing about it.

I also cast on for the last two planned holiday gift knits over the weekend:

On the left is the gnome for my youngest nephew, which is being knit in DK, and on the right is a double-ended hat for my oldest nephew. Because of the weather, the colors are looking more drab than they are in reality (they're sitting on top of our duvet cover, which is gray and white, not brown and white). There's really not all that much knitting left on the gnome, and once I get past the increases on the hat, it'll be a ton of mindless stockinette, so I very well could have both projects wrapped up this week.

The Mister has a couple of quick work trips this week, and I'm trying to wrap up my last big project for the year. I'm also working on trying to get in my physical therapy exercises on my foot and getting it stronger before our trip, but it still feels very weird to walk around without the boot. Here's hoping it's not too stressful of a week for all of us!