Unraveled, Week 2/2026

It's Wednesday, and as predicted, I've had a little setback with sinus infection (which may or may not have happened after I read through the agenda for the retreat and saw "team-building improv session"). While we have miserable weather today -- rain turning to snow -- I will be staying warm inside with Ruthie, and I'll kick things off by joining Kat and the Unravelers.

As promised, here is the official FO post for the cowl, which has now had all its ends woven in and been given its spa treatment.

Pattern: Static by Kacey Herlihy (Ravelry link) size large

Yarn: Emma's Yarn Simply Spectacular DK (75% superwash merino/25% nylon) in Terrazzo (main color) and Simply Spectacular DK Smalls in After Dark (black), Wish You Were Beer (gold), and Briar Rose (pink)
Needles: US 4 (3.5 mm) and US 5 (3.75 mm)

Started/Completed: January 5/January 11

Mods: none, other than binding off in pattern

This was such a fun knit. I either bought the pattern during a past Down Cellar Studio event or won it as a prize, but it was in my library regardless and I thought it would be a great use of the cowl set I picked up from the SSK giveaway table last summer, a full skein of DK plus three DK minis. Because of the three colors, it made perfect sense to do the large size with three colorwork bands (the smaller option has just two). I ended up with just small amounts of the colors and about 20 g from the full skein, so it was an excellent match of pattern and yarn. And I had such fun with this motif that I will definitely be knitting this cowl again -- though wouldn't that motif look fabulous at the bottom of a sweater? For now, this cowl will go in the charity pile, but I think eventually it'll keep someone very cozy because all that stranding makes for a very squishy fabric.

Speaking of charity knitting, the hat has grown a little during Ruthie's afternoon naps:

I should be able to finish this up by the end of the day (even with needing to make sure I catch all three strands in each stitch, this fabric works up quickly!) and then will need to sort out my next almost-mindless knitting.

It's been another good week of reading, with lots of audio!

I am grouping the three audiobooks I finished this week together because they're all Emma M. Lion -- volumes 5, 6, and 7. These books are such a delight, and they've been such a nice diversion from the heavy news from around the world the past couple of weeks. I have so enjoyed the most recent finishes that I've been reflecting on the previous books I've read and bumped them all up to 5 stars. They have been fabulous on audio, but I am planning to buy myself physical copies so I can have them in my personal library.

My other finish this week was Steven Rowley's forthcoming Take Me with You. Jesse and his husband, Norman, have been together a long time, and like many middle-aged couples, they are finding some aspects of their life together a little disappointing. But it's a shock to Jesse when he wakes up in their Joshua Tree home in the middle of night to bright lights outside and then to see Norman step into that light and disappear. Was it a dream? An alien abduction? Or did Norman simply leave him? Whatever happened, Jesse realizes that Norman is gone and he has to get his life back on track. Meanwhile, Norman's younger sister, Lally, has realized that she's not getting any younger and wants to be a mother, but to do that, she needs the embryos created from her eggs and Jesse's sperm back when Jesse and Norman thought they wanted to be parents, but she needs to find Norman to get him to sign off on releasing the embryos to her. Throw in a private investigator and a conspiracy theorist living next door in an Airstream camper and it seems like one of Steven Rowley's typically outrageous and hilarious books. But that's not what this book is. Yes, it is funny, but it's more touching and thoughtful than laugh-out-loud. This new novel speaks to those moments in life when you're on autopilot, or so you think, and suddenly everything changes, forcing you to correct your course and perhaps even question if it's a course you want to stay on. I gave it 4 stars. Thank you to NetGalley and Putnam for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published May 19, 2026.

I'm taking a little break from Emma for a few days, at least, while I catch up on some podcasts and am currently reading The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) on Kindle and The Devil's Grip on paper. How about you -- what are you making and reading this week?

Restorative Weekending

It's a new week, and I'm happy to say that the weekend was a restful one. Ruthie thankfully slept in a little both days -- until almost 7 on Saturday! -- and that combined with taking a decongestant before bed allowed me to get some much-needed sleep. Saturday I woke up without any sinus pain for the first time since this infection started, and I'm hoping that means I'm past the worst of it. I would still happily sleep longer and nap, but that's pretty much the case anytime.

Other than a trip to Costco (we very badly needed tissues, among other things), dinner out with the Mister, and walks with Ruthie, I didn't stray much from home all weekend. After we had a bit of "sprinter" last week, it got cold again, with rain on Saturday and snow on Sunday, so I was quite content to curl up with a warm puppy, a book, and my knitting. And I got quite a lot of knitting done! You'll have to excuse the very poor lighting, but here is a pre-blocked but finished Static cowl:

I really enjoyed knitting this pattern and can see myself making it again. This one, unless I decide it's perfect for someone I know, will be added to the charity pile; I really knit it to meet the requirements of the challenge and to use up the yarn. Once I weave in all the ends and block it, I'll take some better photos and give you all the details.

I also used the weekend to finish and block my sweater swatch, and it looks like I'll have to go through the process again with a larger needle, as I'm getting 18 stitches and 38 rows with a US 7/4.5 mm and the pattern calls for 17 stitches and 34 rows. I'll see what happens when I go up to a US 8/5 mm. There's always a chance that will be too big, in which case I'll use a 7 and perhaps make a larger size to compensate for the difference in gauge. But I'll wait until the next swatch is done before I determine my next step.

In the meantime, I've pulled out some fingering scraps and am holding them triple for another charity hat (apologies again for the photo -- there really was no natural light to be had yesterday):

I'm once again knitting the Sagamore Flyover hat (Ravelry link), which is so easy and fast to knit and has great texture. I've knit a ton of these with fingering scraps for some really warm hats. I'm using up some bright Fibernymph Dye Works leftovers in this one.

This is going to be an interesting week. The Mister is traveling for work and will get home just in time for us to all leave for Chicago for my cousin's daughter's bat mitzvah. Wednesday is my all-day work retreat, though I suspect I might have a relapse of my sinus infection and be unable to attend (oh darn!). At least it's a short week because of our trip and we all have next Monday off to look forward to. Let's hope there aren't any curveballs thrown our way!

Rough Reentry

I'm very glad that it's Friday. It's been a challenging week in a number of respects. First, my sinuses took offense to being taken out of the nice Florida air and being brought back north and have rebelled. I typically get a sinus infection once or twice a year and am used to having to ride them out, and thankfully this one has been pretty mild, but it's still uncomfortable to have sinus pain and pressure and then have a nose that's either dripping like a leaky faucet or completely stuffed up. Then, Ruthie's had some trouble readjusting to our schedule and was barking at 4 a.m. on Tuesday. Molly's been a typical moody teenager back at school after a long vacation. And the Mister's has to be at work early and been late getting home most of the week, so I've been doing double duty on school runs and had to do cooking and clean up. All that is to say that I'm pretty tired and ready for a weekend!

Fortunately work has been calm (as it should be, given how much I had to do before the break!) and I've been making steady progress on my knitting. I've finished the first of the three sections of the colorwork cowl:

I'm really enjoying this pattern, and though this particular cowl is likely going in the charity pile, I could see myself knitting it again. Wouldn't it be fun in some handspun, for instance?

I also located the yarn I intend to use for my cabled sweater and wound up a skein so I could swatch. I'm using size 7 needles and they feel so big!

I know it looks a little brown here, but that's just the lighting. It's actually a medium-to-dark gray called Wordsworth -- seems appropriate that for a sweater named after one poet, I'd use yarn with the name of another! Here's what it looks like on the Knit Picks site, for comparison:

I should be finishing up the swatch soon and blocking it, so by the weekend I'll have a better sense of whether I can proceed with the called-for needle size or need to swatch with a different one.

We've got a fairly quiet weekend ahead. Molly is attending a leadership event Saturday morning (during which time I plan to make a Costco run) and then a dinner party for a friend's birthday Saturday evening. The Mister and I are having a date night with dinner out at one of our favorite local restaurants. And Sunday is wide open. I'm really hoping Ruthie might sleep in a little, but if she doesn't, at least we'll have longer snuggle time in the afternoon. After a bit of a warm spell this week, it's supposed to get cold again over the next couple of days, so it'll be good to snuggle up with a warm pup inside. I hope you have something relaxing and enjoyable planned -- happy weekend, friends!

Unraveled, Week 1/2026

It feels good to start the count over again on Unraveled Wednesdays! It's the first one of the new year, and as per usual, I'm joining Kat and the Unravelers to share my making and my reading.

Since Monday, I have finished the knitting of my colorwork cowl and blocked it, but I still have to do the embroidery. That's going to happen later on in the week because I'll need to take some photos for the pattern while I do, and obviously that needs to happen during the day when there's sufficient light. But I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

The green is still looking very yellow in the photos, but I think that's to be blamed on the January light (or rather lack thereof).

I've also started another colorwork cowl, this one for a Pigskin Party challenge for the month in which we have to use exactly four colors. I had picked up a bag at SSK that was a kit for a cowl, but it contained only the yarn -- a full skein of Emma's Yarn DK and three DK minis. I'm using them for this pattern (Ravelry link) and will be doing the taller version with the three repeats so I can use each of the three minis.

Reading has been pretty prolific, given that I spent most of the last week on vacation. Since this time last week, I've finished five books. To keep this post on the shorter side, I'm giving abbreviated reviews this week.

On the Calculation of Volume II by Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara J. Haveland

My rating: 4 stars

Tara is still trapped in November 18 and decides that staying at home is not going to help her stay sane, so she decides to create an artificial passing of the year for herself by traveling through Europe in order to create the seasons -- heading north for winter to find snow and then making her way south for the warmth of spring and summer. She adapts to her changing circumstances and needs and begins to write more seriously about her experiences. And it ends with a bit of a cliffhanger, so I'm eagerly awaiting what happens in book three!

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Vol. 3 by Beth Brower

My rating: 4 stars

This series continues to delight me. Emma is getting to know her tenant better and begins forging a friendship. At the same time, she is forced to team up with her dreadful cousin Archibald in order to obtain the much-coveted tickets to the secretive neighborhood performance of Julius Caesar. And of course she continues to be at the beck and call of her aunt Eugenia in service of her cousin's marital prospects.

So Far Gone by Jess Walter

My rating: 4 stars

Rhys, a former journalist, has been living off the grid in a remote house in the woods of the Pacific Northwest for seven years after being disgusted with the state of the country following the 2016 election and the rise of conspiracy theories, but when his two grandchildren are dropped at his door by a neighbor after their mother has disappeared, he knows he has to reenter the world to keep them safe. This book deals with far-right conspiracy theories, radical evangelical groups, guns, and Christian nationalists, and it becomes quite a caper, but it's also a beautiful story about family and fixing ruptures within them.

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Vol. 4 by Beth Brower

My rating: 4 stars

Perhaps my favorite yet of the series! Emma is deepening her relationships with three men in her life -- her tenant, the resident vicar, and the Duke of Islington -- all of whom show up to care for her at a very difficult moment in her life.

Together in Manzanar: The True Story of a Japanese Jewish Family in an American Concentration Camp by Tracy Slater

My rating: 4 stars

This work of nonfiction just came out last year and tells the story of Karl and Elaine Yoneda, who, together with their 3-year-old son, Tommy, were imprisoned in the Manzanar internment camp beginning in 1942. Elaine was one of few individuals not of Japanese descent who willingly entered the camp in order to keep her family together. This was a really interesting and well-researched account of a dark chapter of our country's history. 

What are you making and reading this week?

There's No Place Like It

Home, that is. We got back early Saturday afternoon, right on schedule, and spent the rest of the day unpacking, cleaning, and running errands. As nice as it was to have to break (and to be away from the cold and snow), I slept better in my own bed Saturday night than I did all the nights we were away. I picked Ruthie up from the dogsitter yesterday morning, and we had a quiet day at home. Of course she spent a lot of time following me around and whined a bit at first whenever I left the room, but that's to be expected. The dogsitter reported that once she got over the initial unease of being left in an unfamiliar place, she really settled in and was much less anxious. She made a great dog friend who was there several times over the two weeks and got lots of exercise. All in all, I feel like it was a good experience for both of us -- good thing, too, because she'll be boarding there again MLK Jr. weekend, when we're going to a bat mitzvah out of town!

The start of the new year brought a quick finish and some new cast-ons. First, after failing to finish my hat before the end of 2025 (though I got very close), I succeeded in making my first FO of 2026:

This is my Same as It Ever Was hat (Ravelry link) worked on US 2.5/3 mm needles using Fibernymph Dye Works Bedazzled (superwash merino/nylon/sparkle). I used 99 g of the skein, or about 433 yards. It feels good to start the year at a deficit -- especially as I may have ordered a couple of skeins from Lisa in her New Year's sale.

Also on New Year's Day, I started first my project of the year and it's another colorwork cowl design, this one in DK:

What looks kind of yellowish here is actually a pale silvery green. I'm a little past halfway and will be adding some surface embroidery over where you see those single stitches just above the corrugated ribbing. I'm hoping it turns out how it looks in my head!

Because I am not a monogamous knitter, I cast on a pair of socks as well, which I worked on a little on the flight home:

I've only just started the main stitch pattern, but I'm using forest floor (Ravelry link) and some Miss Babs fingering that I picked up from the giveaway table at SSK last year. These will be for my mother, likely for her birthday in June. I haven't knit patterned sock in a long time, and I wanted to knit this pattern in memory of the designer, who passed away this past summer.

I have stopped making new year's resolutions because they're so easily broken, but I do have some goals and intentions for the year ahead, at least as far as my knitting is concerned. First and foremost, I want to continue to use up stash yarn. I did really well with this last year and bought very little new yarn relative to how much I used up (Molly certainly helped). I'm hoping to track my yarn acquisitions and usage in a spreadsheet this year to get a better sense of my balance (or lack thereof). I also want to make at least one charity item a month; I've made a lot of hats in the past couple of years, but I will likely add in other warm items like mittens and cowls for a little variety. I want to do more crochet and more design work this year, and I'm already making strides toward the design goal with a pattern sent off to my tech editor just yesterday. Finally, I want 2026 to be the year I finally make this sweater (Ravelry link):

 

(c) Carol Sunday

I bought this pattern in November 2015 and bought yarn for it (Knit Picks Simply Wool) in 2018, so it's been waiting long enough. I know where the yarn is and will be winding up a skein and swatching this week.

Do you have any resolutions or goals for your knitting this year?

Today I'm back to work, but thankfully it's a fully work-from-home day. Molly doesn't have to go back to school until tomorrow, and this afternoon she and the Mister are going to the inauguration of our new mayor. I would have joined them if I didn't have to work -- and if it didn't conflict with my afternoon snuggles with Ruthie!

2025: A Year in Books

Last year ended up being a really good year of reading for me. I've been setting a reading goal for a number of years, pretty much since I started using Goodreads to track my reading, but it's always been rather arbitrary and never much of a stretch. So it wasn't a surprise that I exceeded my goal of 110 books in 2025, but it was a surprise that I recorded my largest number completed since I started tracking.

I would have thought that I would have read less this year, given more demands on my time (Ruthie, increased responsibilities at work), but this graphic from my Storygraph reveals a very likely explanation:

More than a third of the books I read were on audio -- all those hours running, walking, and taking the dog out ended up being very productive!

Those of you who follow my book reviews know that I tend to be very stingy with my 5 stars, so I thought you might like to see which of my 2025 reads earned this rare honor. In only the order in which I read them, they were as follows:

• You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith
• Small Rain by Garth Greenwell
• The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
• The History of Sound by Ben Shattuck
• Nesting by Roisin O'Donnell
• Heart the Lover by Lily King
• Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks
• Isola by Allegra Goodman
• The Antidote by Karen Russell
• Heartwood by Amity Gage
• Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt
• My Good Bright Wolf by Sarah Moss
• Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy
• Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips
• The Salt Stones by Helen Whybrow
• Flashlight by Susan Choi
• More than Enough by Anna Quindlen

What were your favorite reads of 2025? Do we have any overlap?

* * *

Today's our last day in Florida and we're headed home tomorrow morning. We decided to go home on a Saturday so we'd have most of the weekend to get the house back in order, restock the fridge, and get ready to get back to the normal routine on Monday (though lucky Molly doesn't have to go back until Tuesday). It's been lovely to have this break, but I'll admit I'm looking forward to being back in my own home and especially being reunited with my puppy!

Unraveled, Week 53/2025

It feels pretty special that the last Wednesday of the year is also the last day of the year -- and it feels like we've gotten a bonus week, too! I don't think Kat is doing a link-up today, but I'm always happy to join her and the Unravelers.

Our vacation has gotten a bit more chaotic this week because my brother and his family came down to join us on Sunday, so we've shuffled bedrooms and bathrooms and had to reorient our schedules around those of a 1-year-old and a 2 1/2-year-old. But it's been fun. My aunt and uncle, who spend their winters on the other coast of Florida, drove over to spend some time with us on Monday, and yesterday nearly all of us (the Mister stayed behind to do some work) went to the Naples Zoo. I've even spotted some unusual wildlife in the housing development:

Don't worry; I took this photo from far away and cropped it.

There are man-made bodies of water throughout this place, and there are signs up all over saying not to go in the water or disturb the alligators, but I always figured that was just bluffing. I've never spotted one this close before that wasn't in a zoo or nature preserve!

I honestly haven't been knitting a ton, especially in comparison to years past, but I did finish the cowl -- even weaving in all my ends and blocking! And I also wrote up a draft of the pattern so I can get it to my tech editor before we head home! (See how much I can get done when I'm not working and catering to the whims of a very cute but demanding dog?)

For the last couple of days, I've been focusing on what I hope will be my last finished project for the year:

I had about 40 g of yarn left on Monday night, so I'm hoping if I give it a lot of attention today, I just might get it done.

Reading time has, of course, been more plentiful, and I've finished several more books in the past week.

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 2 was just as delightful as the first. I can imagine that one day I might want to own physical copies one day, but they've been great on audio. In the second installment, Emma learns more about the mysterious tenant who is renting Lapis Lazuli Minor, makes the acquaintance of a friend's "cousin" serving as her chaperone, comes to the aid of current and former classmates at her school, and has an interesting interaction with a duke. She continues to work to ensure she can keep her home, in spite of her cousin's efforts to spend all the money left to her. I gave it 4 stars -- and I expect to finish Vol. 3 today!

In Kin, we meet Niecy and Annie, two motherless girls raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, Niecy left orphaned by a murder/suicide and Annie abandoned when her mother left town. United in friendship from their early days sleeping in the same cradle, they together have to navigate life as Black women in the Jim Crow South as they approach adulthood and their lives begin to diverge. For Niecy, that means going to Spelman College and being exposed to a more privileged life to which she can aspire. For Annie, it means heading to Memphis in the middle of the night to search for her long-missing mother. Both encounter the racism of segregation, the challenges of being poor, the complications of failed first relationships, and the unreasonable expectations of women. Through it all, their friendship is a constant.
What Tayari Jones has captured in this novel is the power of female relationships and the deep impact that the lack of a loving mother can have on a girl's development. She also paints an unflinching portrait of what life was like for a poor Black woman in the South in the '60s, when the limitations imposed by segregation only added to the lack of options available to women in general. More than anything, she shows that it's not blood that makes someone kin. Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published February 24, 2026. I gave it 4 stars.

My Chanukah gift to myself this year (mainly because my request came too late for anyone else to buy them for me) was volumes I-III of On the Calculation of Volume. Translated from the Danish, these short novels tell the story of Tara Selter, who discovers on a work trip that she is trapped in time, reliving the 18th of November over and over again. While this might sound like the movie Groundhog Day, it's much more serious. In Vol. I, Tara is struggling to understand what is happening and, returning home to her husband, tries to come up with both an explanation and a way to get time to start working as it should again. Each day he is surprised to see her, and each day she explains what has happened again. Together they attempt to formulate some sort of logic to what stays changed and what reverts to how it was at the beginning of the day, but Tara realizes that this approach isn't sustainable in the long run. I gave 4 stars to Vol. 1 and immediately started Vol. II; in fact, as I'm writing this post ahead of time, I may have already finished it.

I took a pause in my listening of Emma Lion's journals to listen to 107 Days, read by Kamala Harris. Reading a book about a recent presidential campaign isn't necessarily exciting because you know the outcome and lived through it, but I was still interested to hear about the details and the experience from Harris' perspective. And of course I opted to get the audio because I wanted to hear it in her voice. Listening to this book brought back the hope and the excitement I felt last year, even though I knew that the outcome wouldn't change, and I think I appreciated the campaign even more getting the inside story. I also felt much more hopeful at the end hearing what gives Harris hope for our country's future. I won't recommend it to readers trying to avoid politics, but it was a bit of a balm for me after the year we've had, and I gave it 4 stars.

Tonight we'll be having a quiet evening in; even without taking the little ones into account, I'm well past the age where it's exciting to stay up late. It's gotten unusually chilly here, so I'll be going for a run this morning and then likely spending the day inside. I plan to knit and read, play with my niblings, and spend the day with my immediate family, and I really can't ask for a much better last day of the year than that.

Thank you, dear readers, for spending another year with me. I think it was a hard year for many of us, and I don't expect the change of the calendar to magically make things better. My wish for you in 2026 is that it's a year in which you're able to find joy and love and good health. May the new year bring you happy times with your loved ones, an abundance of good books, and a world in which you can still find beauty and kindness. I will be back on Friday with a look back at my reading this past year. Until then, thanks for being part of one of the best parts of my 2025 and happy new year!