Let's Focus on the Good

It is a cold Monday morning here. As I type this, the air temperature here is 9ºF, and that is warm relative to how cold it will be the next couple of days (the predicted low for tomorrow is -2ºF and for Wednesday -9ºF -- and that is just the air temperature and doesn't take wind chill into account). I am off from work today in observance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day -- and that is what I am choosing to observe today. Like many of you, I'm sure, I'm choosing not to watch the inauguration, and I'm also trying not to think about the celebration we'd hoped to have today. Today, and the next four years, will be hard, but I'm not letting anyone take away my hope or my joy -- and focusing on those things is how I will be spending today.

For starters, I'm going to be enjoying this bonus day with my family. We are all off today, and the weather means we're not going to be going out, so we'll be able to enjoy each other's company. I'm planning to spend the day doing things that bring me joy: exercising, reading, crafting, and cooking. On the top of my list is finishing up the second sleeve of my handspun sweater and getting started on the body:

The last time you saw the sweater, I was not quite this far along on the first sleeve. I got a lot done this past weekend. On Saturday afternoon, while Molly and I were watching the first of the playoff football games, I finished the cuff of the first sleeve and got started on the second. By the time I put it down last night, I think I had two decreases left to complete on the second. I'm feeling pretty confident that I can finish the rest before the end of the day.

Another thing that brings me joy? Spinning. Over the weekend I finished the second bobbin of singles and started on the third:

I'm so excited to see what this yarn will look like when it's plied that it's spurring me to spin it faster. I've been spinning while reading a library book the past couple of days, and treadling has been feeling more like it used to, which is reassuring.

There is a lot of bad in the world right now, but I'm trying to focus on the good and what I can do to make things better, even in just a small way. To that end, I want to leave you with a quote that came to me via Clara Parkes's Daily Respite (to which I know many of you may also subscribe, so apologies if this is something you've already seen today):

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final

word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger

than evil triumphant."

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

TGIF (with a Long Weekend Ahead)

Happy Friday, friends. It took me a minute to remember what day it was when my alarm went off this morning because it's been a long week. The Mister was traveling for work for much of it, which meant I had to do school drop-off and pickup, meal cleanup as well as prep, and all the snow shoveling. Yes, there was more snow! Molly actually had an unexpected snow day yesterday. I think we only got 2-3 inches total, but it was coming down pretty steadily throughout the day and it was cold enough that salt wasn't too effective, so I think when the Pittsburgh Public Schools and many other districts closed, her school followed suit (many students rely on the public districts' buses). She was delighted with the closure despite the fact that she'd already gotten out of bed, and I was happy to not have to drive in the mess.

But before I talk about yesterday, let's get to Wednesday. I survived the work retreat and got a lot of knitting done. Those are really the only good things I can say about the day. While it was good to see some of my coworkers in person after several months, I don't think the programming was really anything useful for me. On top of that, after I'd walked more than a mile in the freezing cold to get to the event, the room was cold, so I didn't get warm until I'd gotten home, had some soup for dinner, and taken a hot shower. But I was not the only one crafting this year! A spotted a coworker with crochet shortly after a got there, and while she didn't have it out as much as I had my knitting, it was good to know that I was not the only one. And I got a lot of knitting done, despite taking lots of breaks.

You can click the photo to enlarge if you want, but that's about six inches of hat knit in one day. In fingering weight yarn. I haven't weighed the skein of yarn, but I would think I'm at least halfway though. And I'm glad that the long day was productive for me in at least one way.

Molly's snow day yesterday meant I didn't have to drive, but I did leave the house because as soon as the orthopedist released me last week, I scheduled a blood donation. There just happened to be a drive on campus yesterday, so I bundled up and walked in.

I took advantage of the walk to finally take one of those look up/look down photo, and it did not surprise me that the sky and the ground looked almost the same. This was my third walk outside this week, too, and I'm happy to report that my foot did just fine. I'm walking more slowly to be sure that I don't slip, of course, but it feels so good to be outside again.

I've got to wrap this up by bragging a little bit about my kid, who's really taken to crochet and taught herself much more than I could ever teach her. For the past six months or so, she's been making blanket squares (and half-square triangles) using up partial skeins and leftovers from my stash. Yesterday she finished up this masterpiece:

It'd be close to impossible to know exactly how much yarn she used without weighing and measuring every little bit (and also knowing exactly yarn what each little partial ball was), but we weighed the whole blanket and made an estimate based on an average yardage for weight, so we think she used approximately 3,500 yards of yarn for this blanket. That's almost two miles! She is, justifiably, quite proud of herself, as am I, and I'm also glad she got all that yarn out of my stash!

We all have a long weekend coming up, but there's more snow and cold on the way, so I expect it will be a low-key weekend. I hope it's one for you as well!

Unraveled, Week 3/2025

Happy Wednesday, friends! I am going to need to keep this post relatively brief because today I have the pleasure (ugh) of  attending an all-day work retreat, which I will have to walk to after dropping Molly off at school. It's a tech-free event, too, which means I can't even entertain myself online. But I will be taking knitting with me to stay engaged, and I'll have to catch up on your posts from today later on.

Let's join Kat and the Unravelers for the week, shall we? I've got a bit of an update on my handspun sweater to start us off.

You should feel free to laugh at this photo because it is rather funny and also a bit ridiculous. Because I am knitting with handspun yarn and want the colors to be as mixed up as possible, I am alternating skeins every round. I have three skeins of yarn total, so I started with the first for the collar and joined the second once I had completed the short rows. When it came time to start the first sleeve, I wanted to introduce the third skein so that I'll have enough yarn to continue alternating in the body, but I need to pick up where I left off, so I wasn't about to cut the second skein. At first I just had it off to the side, but pretty quickly all three strands of yarn started to get horribly tangled, so that lump you see in the upper left is the second skein, shoved inside the upper right arm and tied up with some scrap yarn. It's an inelegant solution, but it's working.

I should add that the colors are fairly accurate in this photo, for once! I also love that you can see the subtle single-round stripes. Even though I split up the fiber and spun the little bits of it at random, I'm quite intrigued by the fact that it looks like I'm getting wider stripes of green and purple.

Speaking of random spinning, I finished up the first bobbin of my combo spin yesterday and split up the remaining fiber for the next two bobbins. Here's a shot of all that fiber laid out so you can see the range of colors:

Although it would have been impossible to document each little bit of fiber that was in the pool, it would have been nice to have a master list of all the fibers and dyers that were represented. I might suggest that if I'm ever involved in this kind of thing again.

Last week was so busy at work that I had very little reading time, so I have only managed to finish one book since last Wednesday.

Even though I've been meaning to read Morgan Talty's short story collection for a while now (and even own it on Kindle), I decided to skip ahead to his debut novel, Fire Exit, because Katie had such good things to say about it. She described it as a quiet novel, and I'd agree with that assessment. Much of the book is spend inside the thoughts of the narrator and main character, Charles, who grew up on a reservation in Maine because his stepfather was a member of the tribe, though Charles and his mother are not. Now a middle-aged man, he is reflecting on his childhood and his stepfather's death as he cares for his mother, who long struggled with depression and is now dealing with dementia, and as he worries about his daughter, who doesn't know he's her father. Charles reflects on keeping secrets and the value of knowing your family history. Not all that much happens until something very dramatic and emotional does. This book is full of flawed characters who you can't help but root for. I gave it 4 stars.

I am currently reading Same as It Ever Was, which I picked up at a Free Little Library in the neighborhood in the fall, and am about 100 pages in (I'm reading it before bed, so it's slow going).

I've also put together that big list of books I have on hand that I've been talking about for a while -- if I've figured out how to share it correctly, you can see it here. I won't say this is a complete list of all the books I have, but they're the ones I own that I have not yet read and am interested in reading that I could find. I know it looks like a lot, so before you worry about my bank account, I'll note that a large portion of them were picked up at Free Little Libraries, passed along to me by others, or purchased from a used bookstore/Thriftbooks or on Kindle deals. Some of them have also been on my shelves for many years. As you can see, I've got quite a lot of books to choose from! I'm hoping to make a dent in this list over the course of the year, and I'll report back from time to time.

It Comes Around Every Week

Monday, that is. At least this one is a little easier to take than last week, but it's still cold and snowy here and frankly I'd much rather stay in bed. But seeing as I don't have that luxury, I might as well get the day started -- the sooner it starts, the sooner it'll be over!

The weekend was pretty calm. We got more snow overnight on Friday, so we convinced the Mister to drop us off and pick us up at the theater on Saturday afternoon so that we didn't have to park several blocks away and trudge through the snow. It actually worked out quite well because he's got a big all-company meeting for work this week, so he went to his office (right across the river) and did some prep for that while we were at the musical. And we enjoyed the show quite a bit.

This is a terrible photo because it was taken Saturday evening at home, with our overhead light on in the bedroom, but you can at least see that I got a few inches of my hat knit during the show. A woman sitting right behind us also tapped me on the shoulder when I got it out before it started, apologized for being nebby (that's Pittsburghese for "nosy"), and asked what it was I was making. I think that's the first time anyone has commented on my knitting at one of these shows!

We stayed in Saturday night and watched the first half of the Steelers/Ravens game (we turned it off at that point because it was just too depressing) and all went to bed at about the normal time -- we really know how to live it up, let me tell you! Yesterday morning, Molly and I did a big stock-up trip at Costco, and when we got home, she did some homework and I did some spinning!

I had not spun on my Lendrum since some time in October, so it took a little adjusting at first, but now everything is as it should be. I am spinning up the "kiddie pool" fiber from SSK back in 2023. This is now a tradition that was started some years back by Jillian Moreno. She brings an inflatable kids' pool, and anyone who wants to contribute brings some fiber that is split up into little bundles that are thrown into the pool and mixed up. Whatever amount you put in you get to take out, so if you put in 8 oz., you can take 8 oz. of mixed bits. Of course it's impossible to label all those little bundles, so you have no idea what you end up with other than most of it is probably wool of some sort. But there's likely to be various breeds, superwash and not, and different blends. I had started spinning a little of it right after I got back from SSK that year, but I didn't make it through even one little bit of fiber and ended up pulling the singles off my miniSpinner back in November so I could use it for my FDW holiday set. I weighed what was left and am going to spin three bobbins of singles to ply together. I'm spinning at random, so I could end up with something really fabulous or I could end up with mud. Either way, it should be fun!

What a Week

I won't bury the lede: I am officially free from the boot and released from orthopedic care! I can tell that I still have some healing to do, but my orthopedist told me I could resume normal activity (being mindful of outside conditions, of course) and that I could start jogging again once I can walk about three miles without any pain or discomfort. As much as I miss running (and as shocked as I am to have written those words), I am not in any hurry to start running again until it's a bit safer to do so. We've had frigid temperatures and off-and-on snow all week, so I will be waiting until we have a good thaw. Sidewalks in our neighborhood can be treacherous even when they're completely dry, and I don't want to risk another injury.

I celebrated this good news, which was really the highlight of my week, by putting away the folding chair I've been using to exercise and doing a regular standing aerobic workout -- and I can feel it today! The seated workouts worked well for keeping up my fitness level but not so well for keeping the muscles in my legs in shape. So I'll be working on that in the next couple of weeks and getting back outside to walk as soon as it's a bit warmer and less precarious. I also scheduled an appointment to donate blood next week because they would not allow me to the last time I tried.

Crafting time has been limited this week due to how busy I've been at work. All week I've been chipping away at a very large magazine, and fortunately I'm nearly finished. I did make a point to cast on a new project that I could knit without looking because Molly and I are going to see Funny Girl tomorrow. I'm making another double-ended hat using my pattern and yarn that I bought at SSK in 2023 (it's from Urban Girl Yarns):

I played around with my increase method a bit, mainly because this end will likely be the one that's on the inside, so that's why it looks a little wonky. This skein is very generous, at 480 yards, so I have a feeling I won't be using all of it, but I should get a nice hat out of it to add to my charity pile.

I've also been working more on my sweater, and I'm now just four rounds away from dividing my sleeve and body stitches!

I know I'll have to keep track of decreases and rounds worked on both the sleeves and body, but it won't be nearly as complicated as the yoke has been, and I'm hoping that translates to faster progress.

My parents have an event to go to tonight, so our usual family dinner has been moved to Sunday and instead we're taking my in-laws out to dinner. Other than the show tomorrow, the only other plan for the weekend is a big stock-up trip to Costco on Sunday -- yes, this is what passes for excitement in my life right now! I am looking forward to seeing my niblings on Sunday evening because we haven't seen them since the night before we left on our trip, and I'm sure my niece has changed a lot since then. Mostly I'm just hoping to relax and recover from a busy week. I hope it's a good weekend for you, one that's full of things that bring you joy!

Unraveled, Week 2/2025

It's been a busy week, as I expected (I left a big pile of work when I went on vacation), but I couldn't miss a chance to join Kat and the Unravelers!

Because it's been busy, there hasn't been much time or attention for knitting, so all I've really accomplished this week is a couple of yarn cake cozies:

I originally only intended to knit one, for a Pigskin Party challenge, but to count it had to be a minimum of 50 yards and the first attempt was only 40. So I used another small ball of scraps and started another, adding about another inch in length, and my second cozy came in at 56 yards. Phew! I used this free pattern (Ravelry link) and leftover Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce for both (I get bonus points for using FDW yarn because Lisa is sponsoring this challenge!). I don't know how much I'll actually use these cozies because I usually pull from the outside of yarn cakes, but they're cute and were a fun little diversion.

I've also finished up a small-ish hat that I did as a test knit. The designer is also a Pigskin Party sponsor and posted a photo in the chat thread, so I thought I'd give it a try. It was a quick, easy knit that's now likely going in the charity pile. I used approximately 76 yards of Knit Picks Chroma Twist worsted in the colorway Cousteau.

Most of my reading this past week was done in the airport and on the plane home. I'd planned for another book to be my first read of 2025, but my library hold list had other ideas.

I had put Long Bright River on hold a while back because I'd heard it recommended a lot and really enjoyed The God of the Woods last year. This 2020 release is categorized as a thriller, and it does keep up a good pace. It follows two sisters, Mickey and Kacey, who in present day are a Philadelphia cop and a drug addict, respectively. We learn in flashbacks how they lost their parents to drug addiction in their childhood and how Kacey ended up following in their footsteps. In the present of the story, Kacey has gone missing, while Mickey and her fellow police officers are on the trail of what appears to be a serial killer targeting young women who use drugs. The book paints a very grim picture of opioid addiction and its destructive nature. I didn't find this novel to be as compelling as the author's more recent one, though, and I felt that it all wrapped up a little too perfectly or unrealistically. I gave it 3 stars.

What I'd intended to be my first read of the year was Love & Saffron, which I believe I heard about on Anne Bogel's podcast and then purchased when it was a Kindle daily deal. This is described as similar to 84, Charing Cross Road, though fictional and focused on food rather than books. It's set in the early 1960s and starts when Joan sends a fan letter, along with a packet of saffron, to columnist Imogen. The two women begin sending letters back and forth and become dear friends as they exchange recipes and life stories. This is a book you could read in one sitting, if you wanted (it took me three sessions of before-bed reading), and it's a lovely, feel-good depiction of friendship. I was surprised that I cried a bit at the end! I gave it 4 stars.

I still haven't done my unread books inventory (just too busy at work!), but that's on my to-do list for this week, and I also need to figure out what book to start next.

I've got my next appointment at the orthopedist early tomorrow morning, so we'll see how my foot is healing. Keep your fingers crossed that I can ditch the boot once and for all!

Bring on the Wool

Brrrr! Winter was waiting for us when we got home on Saturday. It was a long day of travel, made longer by delays before we took off (we were sitting in line to take off when the pilot informed us that there was a 45-60 minute delay up north) and when we landed (we had to wait for an open gate once we arrived). But we picked up some Chinese food on the way home and walked in the door at about 7:40 Saturday night after leaving my parents' place in Florida at 11:15 a.m. It was a full flight and fairly bumpy, but we did get a pretty spectacular view of the sunset out the window:

I also took advantage of a wheelchair at the airport again, so I was able to board first and thus we got to sit in the second row of the plane. Not bad! I was grateful that we learned our lesson from several years back and took our winter coats with us so that we were warm enough when we landed and the feels-like temperature was something like 8ºF. And a snowstorm is blowing through today, so we definitely timed our return well! My parents were actually supposed to come back today but changed their flight to yesterday so they could get in before the storm.

As much as I always enjoy our end-of-year vacation, I am happy to be back home. We may have everything we need at my parents' place -- laundry, plenty of food, entertainment, comfortable beds -- but home it's not. I didn't bring any extra yarn this vacation, for starters, which meant I wrapped up the vacation with only one WIP -- one that was a bit too big to bring on the plane (yes, I somehow survived that long day of travel with no knitting!). So I wasted no time in digging out yarn for new projects when we got back.

Here you see the start of a kid-sized hat I'm test knitting using a skein of Knit Picks Chroma Twist that I bought in a sale last year, a skein of Urban Girl Yarns fingering that I bought at SSK in 2023 that I'll be making into another charity hat, and some leftover Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce that I'm using for a yarn cake cozy. All of these are because I need some less mentally demanding knitting to do to complement my main WIP, my Polwarth sweater:

I am having a heck of a time getting the colors to photograph accurately; in real life, they're darker and not quite as green. I didn't finish the entirety of the yoke while we were away, but I did get through all of the detail at the front, which is actually done in brioche. So now I'm in the least taxing part of the yoke, and I hope that by later this week I'll have moved on to the first sleeve.

While vacation was low key, for the most part, there was a little bit of excitement: Look who started knitting again!

She's working on a Tin Can Knits Flax DK pullover (sans garter stitch sleeve details). She started it last year when we went away and hadn't touched it since, so I ripped it back to the start of the raglan increases so she could (mostly) start over. Even though it'd been a year, she picked it up again easily and has only needed my help a couple of times, mostly just to verify that she's doing what she's supposed to. I just hope she keeps it up!

I hope that those of you who are in the path of this big winter storm stay safe and warm! We're getting snow, enough that Molly has a snow day, and the Mister has decided to work from home, so we'll all be staying inside today.