A Change in Plans

I'm always happy to see Friday come around again, but I'm especially happy today. It's been a tiring week. Remember how I told you that commencement lists were due? One of them was 46 pages long. That's 46 pages of names that I had to make sure were in alphabetical order. It's not hard, but it is rather mind numbing. I'm very happy that's done with for another year and I won't have to do it again until the fall, when we put together the December commencement program.

Thank you for all the compliments on my wee chicken! I'm most definitely contemplating another one, at some point, at a tighter gauge. I like the size, but I can also see the stuffing through the fabric a bit. Plus I'm thinking of how to add some stitches to make seaming easier. And I'll definitely be rewriting the pattern before I use it again because even the third time through, there were certain ways the instructions were worded that tripped me up.

While I didn't have a list or a definite idea of what I was going to cast on next, my acceptance to SSK* has caused me to shift my plans a bit, at least for the next month or so. One of the signature perks of the event is that they always have a ton of door prizes. You can win prizes by putting tickets in for the items you're interested in, and you can earn extra tickets for things like participating in knitalongs/makealongs prior to the event and earn more for using yarn from vendors or handspun. At least since I've been attending, the patterns you can make are ones designed by the teachers at that year's events, with one featured for a set length of time leading up to the retreat. Through the end of March, the featured designer is Rosemary "Romi" Hill. I knew I didn't have much time to make anything, so I went for small projects.

This is the washcloth from Romi's Silvermist Bath Set (Ravelry link). I made two to ensure I had used at least 100 yards (you get one ticket for every 100 yards you use), and the red/purple one is handspun -- it's cotton from HipStrings! It was actually the very first -- and, to date, only -- cotton I've spun, and it's very uneven and highly textured, but I think it works quite well for a washcloth. The white (which is plain-old Sugar 'n Cream) shows the pattern better, obviously.

Starting April 1, the featured designer is Carina Spencer (Ravelry link), and I'm planning to knit two of her patterns. First is a top I've wanted to make for a while, Sugar Maple (Ravelry link). I pulled these two skeins of handspun to use:

Both are from Southern Cross Fibre. The one on the left is a blend of superfine merino and silk; the one on the right is merino and rose fiber. Both feel smooth and cool to the touch, so I think they'll be good for a tee. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to stripe them or start with one and fade into the other. I'm open to ideas! I'll likely wind these up and start swatching this weekend so I'll be ready to cast on next week.

I'm also going to make another Zuzu's Petals (Ravelry link) -- I made one years ago -- using this yarn that I spun from batts I won at SSK in 2023, bringing it full circle:

We have a fairly quiet weekend ahead, with a bar mitzvah to attend tomorrow (the son of one of the Mister's high school friends) and our usual family dinner on Sunday. I'm hoping to get some dedicated reading time in this weekend, given how little there has been during the week. And it's supposed to get warmer, after we had another cold snap and even some snow flurries this week, so perhaps I'll get out to walk.

I hope you have a great weekend, whatever you have planned, and I'll see you back here on Monday with my One Little Word reflection for the month (I can't believe how March has flown by)!

*Pam's comment on Monday reminded me that not everyone knows the acronyms I tend to throw around and I should probably explain. SSK stands for Super Summer Knitogether. It's an annual fiber arts retreat in Nashville, Tennessee, hosted by Leslie and Laura of TheKnitGirllls. This will be my third year attending; I previously went in 2017 and 2023.

Unraveled, Week 21/2025

Bock bock! I'm in a "fowl" mood this Wednesday as I join with Kat and the Unravelers -- with a finished chicken!

Pattern: Emotional Support Chicken by Annette Corsino
Yarn: Fibernymph Dye Works Mountain Tweed BFL in Signature Series: Neutrals (approximately 114 yds./26 g used) and FDW Bounce in two purples and yellow (approximately 28 yds./7 g used), plus a small amount of black leftovers
Needles: US 2/2.75 mm
Started/Completed: March 20/March 24
Mods: omitted wattle

This is now the third ESC I've knit, and it might just be the cutest! I figured that because my nephew has one, my niece needed one as well, and with Passover and Easter both coming up, it felt even more appropriate. She's not quite old enough to really be into stuffed animals just yet, though, so I thought a chick would be better than the full-sized chicken. I didn't do anything to adapt the pattern other than use lighter yarn and smaller needles.

The leftover yarn from Molly's socks ended up being pretty perfect for a chicken -- the purple stripes and yellow for the beak were added in manually, but all the other color changes are just the tweed yarn. I still have a good amount leftover, so I very well may have had enough to do the entire chicken in it, but I still rather like the purple stripes for some added flair. I embroidered the eyes rather than use safety eyes; frankly I thought the safety eyes I have would have been comically large on this smaller bird, if not downright scary. I also omitted the poly pellets I usually put in the bottom of the body (in a sewn bag).

Here you can see the new chick with my chicken for a sense of scale. I think I could even stand to knit one on smaller needles (US 0 or US 1) for a mini chicken -- one day. I'm a bit chickened out for now.

I'm still working on my sister-in-law's socks, though there's not that much more knitting to show. I'll have a better update on Friday.

Reading! I have added three titles to my "read" list this week, though two were so short they hardly seem like they should count!

I was very impressed by Leila Mottley's debut novel, Nightcrawling, so when I received an invitation to read and review her new novel, I was quite interested to see where she would go next. In The Girls Who Grew Big, Mottley takes her readers to the opposite side of the country, the tiny town of Padua Beach, Florida, and introduces them to three young women all dealing with pregnancy. Simone, the oldest, is already the mother to 4-year-old twins, who she is raising in a red pickup truck after being kicked out by her parents and has recently discovered she is pregnant again by the twins' father. Emory is a high school senior with a 9-month-old son who is realizing that having a baby has not brought her life the meaning she thought it would. Adela is 16 and has been sent to live with her grandmother until she gives birth because of her parents' shame. These three are among the girls and young women who have come together to support each other in the middle of community that judges them but also offers them little to no help.

My thoughts on this novel are conflicted. On the one hand, the writing is powerful, and Mottley shows that her debut was not a fluke. On the other hand, I didn't understand how Simone, for instance, was able to make ends meet (she's living in a truck, but somehow still manages to party with her group?). I also often found myself exasperated with these three young women and the poor choices they repeatedly made -- though I also have to wonder if that wasn't the author's point. They are, after all, still children and are being forced into very adult decisions and responsibilities, and I suppose I was judging them as much as the adults in their lives were. Perhaps Mottley is asking us to suspend our disbelief in these particular characters a bit to see the bigger picture: that girls and women who find themselves pregnant often have few, if any, options and are often shamed by others no matter what decisions they make. I gave it 3 stars.
Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published June 24, 2025.

Last Thursday, when I was off from work, Molly and I took a trip to the main branch of our library system to see if they had any books she could use for her history research paper. She didn't find anything, but at long as we were there, I poked around in the nonfiction section and came home with two books by Ted Kooser, who many of you have been talking about lately. First I read Lights on a Ground of Darkness, which is a short memoir of sorts (I think it was originally published as a long essay) about his mother's family, how they came to live in Iowa, and his memories of his interactions with them when he was a child. This is a beautiful, quiet remembrance, with the writing very clearly that of a poet. It's very short, at only about 70 pages, but I took two days to read it to savor it. I gave it 4 stars.

Those of you who are already familiar with Kooser as a poet likely also know that, for more than two decades, he sent out a poem on postcards for Valentine's Day, first to friends and later to women across the country. His collection Valentines contains all the poems, each one paired with a beautiful black-and-white illustration by artist Robert Hanna. Even though I tried to read these slowly and deliberately, I read through them all in one sitting (though I'll admit I took photos of a handful so I could continue to enjoy them after I returned the book to the library). This was my first experience with his poetry, other than a small selection some of you have shared on your blogs, but it won't be my last. I gave this collection 4 stars.

I am currently reading This Motherless Land, a modern retelling of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park (hence why I reread it recently), and I've just started The History of Sound, which I ended up buying because it was only available as an audiobook (with a long wait) via Libby and the hard copies at the library were checked out.

What are you making and reading this week?

Deep Breath Before the Rush

Good morning and happy Monday, friends. I am bracing myself for a busy week -- commencement lists are due to me today, which means I'm in for a week of reading page after page of names that I have to ensure are in alphabetical order. It turns out that the end of last week was an excellent time to take a couple of days off before things get hectic again, and even though it wasn't a terribly exciting long weekend, it was restful, and that was much needed. Molly and I enjoyed the bonus time together, and I'm looking forward to having her around the house for one more week.

I spent most of my knitting time this weekend working on a chicken.

I call this the "spatchcocked" phase of the project.

The yarn leftover from Molly's socks turns out to be pretty perfect for knitting a bird and is working out very nicely to give some variation to the fabric without having to get too fancy with other yarns. I'll be using the lighter purple for the feathers on top of the chicken's head and yellow for the beak. I'm also going to be embroidering the eyes rather than using safety eyes, both in the interest of safety and because I think the safety eyes might look a little demonic because of the smaller scale of the project. I'm not doing anything different with the pattern other than using fingering weight yarn and size 2 needles. I'll be sure to share a photo of this when it's finished alongside my regularly sized chicken so you can get a sense of scale.

While chicken knitting has been enjoyable, there's not all that much left of it and it's not something I can do while reviewing lists of names, so I needed to cast on something fairly mindless. As it happens, today is my other sister-in-law's birthday, and I would have started these earlier had I remembered that before this weekend, but it is what it is. Unlike the SIL I just finished socks for, this one has very large feet (9.5 inches long and 9.25 inches around), so I typically stick to ankle socks for her.

The label is a little hard to read, but these are being knit out of Knit Picks Felici in the colorway Space Disco (isn't that a great name?). I'm going to knit probably a couple inches of cuff and then start the heel, and I'll do the whole foot in stockinette. I last knit her socks about this time last year, also out of Felici, and did the same thing.

I've saved the best news about the long weekend for last: Just as we were getting ready to head out the door for our haircuts on Friday, my phone pinged with an email notifying me that I'd gotten in off the waitlist to SSK! I yelled for Molly to tell her, and the poor girl thought I was yelling at her because we were running late! Needless to say, once I told her what was up, she was very excited. We've now booked flights and a place to stay (the on-site housing has been full since January, so I reserved a Vrbo that's literally across the street from the retreat center). The event begins on a Wednesday evening, but we are flying in midday on Tuesday so that we can have a bit of time for some extra sightseeing. Neither of us is really a country music fan, but one of us is a devoted Swiftie, and apparently the Country Music Hall of Fame houses the Taylor Swift Education Center, so we might have to make a visit. Personally, I'd like to go back to the Parthenon and see the inside. And I wouldn't mind another visit to Parnassus Books, either! We've still got several months to plan and prioritize, but it's so nice to have something big to look forward to.

With that, I'll sign off for now. I will see some of you online tomorrow evening at the Read With Us Zoom, and I'll be back with an update on Wednesday. In the meantime, here's a little hello from Dippy, who hopes you enjoyed the first weekend of spring!

Friday Finishes

Technically, today is the first full day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, but it sure doesn't feel like it here. A front came through yesterday, bringing rain and wind, and this morning it's back in the 30s. Brrr! At least the sun is out.

I spent my day off yesterday finishing up both of my active projects. I had a little bit of plying left to do on the skein of handspun, so I took care of that right after breakfast and then wound off the skein after my workout. Thanks to the temperature dropping and the heat coming back on, the finished yarn is dry this morning.

As I hoped, it's a fingering weight (mostly; like any handspun, there's some variation) and measuring about 416 yards. It's also very bouncy and stretchy, which is pretty typical for Targhee. And I've already pulled out fiber for the next spin, which I'll probably spin the same way:

The lighting isn't great, but can you tell I was in a particular mood when I ordered these?

Yesterday's other finish was my sister-in-law's socks, which required just a bit more knitting on the foot and the toe to get done.

I'm very happy with how these turned out, and I can't imagine my sister-in-law won't be anything but thrilled with them (she's incredibly knitworthy). These will be getting a wash and then will be packed away until her birthday in September.

Of course I couldn't leave my needles empty after I finished the socks, so I have started my niece's Emotional Support Chicken:

I'm really enjoying how this yarn is becoming feathers! I'm also interested to see how big the chicken ends up being given that I'm using fingering weight yarn and size 2/2.75 mm needles.

On tap for today, other than the usual stuff (working out, cleaning the bathroom, doing laundry), are haircuts for both of us. My hairdresser always jokes that I only manage to get in to see her once a year, but Molly has informed me that we were last there in May, so it's been less than a year this time! I need to chop a couple of inches off -- I'm at that stage where my hair is getting caught in everything -- and Molly's hoping for some layers that will show off her curls. Tomorrow, we have an appointment to apply for her new passport. She got her first one back in 2019, when we were planning to travel abroad in 2020, but it's since expired. We've decided that we're finally going to take that trip next spring, probably right after the end of the school year, so we're getting all our ducks in a row now. I'm also looking forward to sleeping in the next two days; even though I've taken two days off from work, I've still gotten up with my usual alarm.

Here's hoping it's a good weekend for all of you!

Unraveled, Week 20/2025

It's really Wednesday today, so that means it's time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers! I'm kicking off this Unraveled Wednesday with two bobbins of singles that are ready to be plied:

I've got two meetings this morning, one of which I expect to last for a full hour, so I'll make a good start on getting through all the singles. I may have overdone it a bit yesterday trying to finish up the second bobbin, because my right wrist was hurting a bit last night. All is well this morning, though, and plying is a lot easier on my body than spinning singles, so I'm hopeful I'll have a finished skein to share with you on Friday.

I'm also making good progress on the socks and am in the home stretch on the second one after finishing the gusset decreases on it last night.

Reading has picked up a bit after a busy workweek last week. I've got three finishes to share today.

First up was my reread of The Secret History in preparation for the Read With Us discussion next week. According to Goodreads, I first read this back in 2016. I found I remembered a fair amount of it but not how it wrapped up. And my opinion of the book didn't change much on this revisit. The writing is absolutely fantastic, but the characters are pretty much all horrible people. I'd say it takes real skill as a writer to get your reader to root for people to get away with murder, but that's really what happens with this book. This time around, I was really struck by how Donna Tartt manages to make the story feel like it takes place much longer ago than it does. There are plenty of cultural indications that it takes place in the 1980s, but it feels like it could be the '50s in many ways. The way the characters speak and behave feels like they're out of a different era, which I suppose is fitting for a group studying the classics. In any case, I loved the writing but got an icky feeling throughout much of the book. I gave it, again, 4 stars.

After being with those terrible people for weeks, I needed something lighter. I'd say I'm the last person to read The Thursday Murder Club, but judging from how long the wait list is at my library, clearly there are a lot of people behind me. I was in that wait list for a while until the book popped up as a Kindle deal, and I took advantage -- $1.99 was worth it not to have to wait months! I'm sure many of you have read this by now, but if you haven't, I'd recommend it. It follows a group of friends in a British retirement community who get together to solve murders. They started with old cases, but soon there are several murders related to their community and they are on the case. Murder isn't particularly funny, of course, but this is a lighthearted take on it. And it's also a heartwarming look at how people with very different backgrounds can find commonalities and how individuals who most people would discount because of their age can find that they still have agency. I very much enjoyed it and gave it 4 stars.

When I was in need of something to listen to late last week, I borrowed The Plot via Hoopla. I'd heard mixed reviews of it, but I thought a mystery/thriller would make for good reading while cleaning the bathroom and folding laundry. Jacob Finch Bonner is a struggling novelist teaching at a low-residency MFA program when he comes across an arrogant student who claims he has a plot for a novel that is guaranteed to be huge success, and when Jacob hears the plot, he realizes the student is right. When the student's book hasn't materialized years later, Jacob learns that it's because the student has died -- and that means that plot is up for grabs. So Jacob uses the plot and writes a book that does indeed become a huge success. But then the messages and social media posts and letters start coming from an anonymous source claiming that he stole the book and threatening to expose him. The story is interspersed with excerpts from the book that Jacob writes using the plot, and eventually the big twist that is behind its success is revealed -- as is the reason how the person sending the messages knows where Jacob got the plot. This book was entertaining enough, but I saw the plot twists coming (both in the book and in the book-within-the-book). I also didn't much care for Jacob as a character and was annoyed with him for quite a bit. I think the author was trying to raise some bigger questions about writing and whether anyone can own an idea, but it all seemed a bit overwrought. I gave it 3 stars.

I am currently reading Leila Mottley's forthcoming second novel, The Girls Who Grew Big. 

What are you making and reading this week?

A Week with Two Wednesdays?

It's Monday, but it's also kind of Wednesday for me because I'm taking this Thursday and Friday off (when I went to check my time off accruals last week, I found I had reached the maximum on my vacation time, so I can't earn any more unless I use some). If, given a three-day week, this Wednesday is my Friday, then this Monday is my Wednesday, right?

We had a very relaxing weekend, I think in part because Molly is now on spring break for a couple of weeks, so we didn't have much of a sense of urgency. And the weather was pretty crummy both days, with rain on and off and even a brief hailstorm on Sunday! The Mister and I had to go to the bank to sign some documents on Saturday morning, and then Molly and I went to Costco (yes, I know, but we were in and out in less than an hour, if you can believe it!). We stayed in on Saturday night, had snacks for dinner, and watched 50 First Dates, and yesterday we had dinner with my parents, my brother, and his family. This morning I'll be going back and forth to campus to go see my doctor for my annual physical and then to donate blood. But it will be nice not to have to do the school pickup in the afternoon! Molly does have to write a research paper for history over break, but she's also making sure to catch up on her sleep and get plenty of down time.

I did a fair amount of knitting over the weekend and so am more than 50% done with my sister-in-law's socks:

The heel on the completed sock looks a little wonky, but I think that's just because it was folded up in my project bag and I didn't really smooth it out when I put it down to take this photo. These are just my usual vanilla sock recipe -- 68 stitches, heel flap and gusset, wedge toe. They're exactly the same as the socks I make for myself, just shorter (her feet are a 3/4" shorter than mine!). I'm well on my way on the second sock, so these should be finished soon and then will be washed and put away for later in the year.

I'll admit I was feeling a little bored with just the one project going, so I started a new spinning project. I pulled out another braid of FatCatKnits fiber from years ago but wasn't sure how to spin it, so I posted a photo of it on Instagram with a poll. Overwhelmingly the votes were in favor of a fractal, so I split it up exactly as I did the last spin -- one bobbin in two strips, one bobbin in four. I finished the first bobbin yesterday afternoon.

The fiber base this time is superwash Targhee, which will plump up a bit when washed, but all the same I am spinning my singles a little finer than the last time and aiming for two-ply fingering. We'll see what happens.

And should I get bored with the sock knitting, I've already decided what to cast on next, using this yarn:

If the yarn on the right looks familiar, it's because it's the leftovers from Molly's socks. I thought it would be perfect for a chicken. Yes, you read that correctly! I think my niece needs her own Emotional Support Chicken, but she's only four months old, so I'm making a little one. I pulled out some happy mini skeins that I can use for contrast, and I think a little chick can easily be finished in time for Passover/Easter, don't you think? I've really been enjoying using up as much yarn as I can when I pull a skein out of the stash, so I'll be happy to use the remainder of Molly's skein for something else.

I hope your week is off to a good start. See you back here for the real Wednesday!

All Good Things

Friends, the news continues to be horrible, so I thought I would use this post as a reason to share good things. (I'm also doing it because I have a dearth of fibery content to share, so yes, it's a bit of a cop-out.)

Good Thing #1:
I successfully went for my first run since breaking my foot on Monday! I took it slow (about a 10-minute mile pace) and my foot did fine, but it's clear my legs are not used to this type of exercise. This is probably the first time that I had to stop and walk not because I needed to catch my breath but because my legs and knees were yelling at me. I've been feeling it all week, but today the aching seems to be gone, so I'll be going out to run again this morning. I also bought myself another pair of running shoes earlier this week (I got an email from Zappos about a sale on Hokas), so I am all ready to resume my regular runs, albeit perhaps not three times a week for a while yet.

Good Thing #2:
While I was out on that run on Monday, I ran into a neighbor I haven't seen in a while because I haven't been outside much in the past several months. I usually see her out with her dogs Max and Star. This time, Max wasn't with her, and though I didn't ask, I presume he has crossed the rainbow bridge (he was an elderly Westie). But this time Star was accompanied by a tiny, fluffy puppy, who looked like some sort of Doodle. He is six months old and very friendly, and his name is BAGEL!

Good Thing #3:
Speaking of dogs, if you're a fan of them and you need a little pick-me-up, take a few minutes to watch these videos of dogs' reunions with their owners. Have some tissues handy!

Good Thing #4:
Today's day is 3/14 -- which means it's Pi(e) Day! I totally forgot about it until Molly reminded me this morning, but it's a perfectly good excuse to eat some pie. You know, if you needed one.

Good Thing #5:
We have had a week of amazing weather here in Pittsburgh. It's been sunny and warmer than average -- we might even hit 80ºF today! I'm not ruling out the possibility of more snow (we've had it in April before), and there are highs in the 40s in the five-day forecast, but it sure seems like spring has arrived. Case in point: I saw crocus flowers on my way to the office yesterday:

I also spotted at least one daffodil bud in my yard, so it appears we'll have some flowers soon. If that's not a reason for celebration, I don't know what is.

I hope you've got some good things in your life right now, and if not, I hope you can at least be happy about the fact that it's almost the weekend. Enjoy it, friends!