Unraveled, Week 43/2021

It's Wednesday again, so time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers and talk about what I've been knitting and what I've been reading.

I've put my Shifty aside for a few days in favor of some smaller projects. First, I started a new design sample, one I've had bouncing around in my head since I bought that mini skein set at Indie Untangled. It doesn't look like much just yet, but I have a feeling that now that I've figured out a few things, it will move much faster.

These aren't colors I'd normally pick, but the set just screamed at me to buy it, and naturally I had to find a way to use them together. It's hard to see in the photo (we're on day 5, I think, of gloom here, so the light is pretty terrible), but there's some 1x1 ribbing leading into brioche stitch here. This will be a cowl when it's done.

I also started a pair of socks for my brother on Sunday morning while Rainbow and I were in our family Hebrew class, and that meant I was winding yarn at some time after 10 p.m. on Saturday, while the Mister was passed out with the lights on (he can fall asleep anywhere, anytime, including in a fully lit room, with me typing on the computer and then winding yarn across the hall).

The yarn is a precious skein, the one and only skein I ever bought from Marigoldjen. I met Jenny at SSK in 2017, though she was there as an attendee (with her daughter, Liz, who you might know better as the fiber artist behind Hobbledehoy) rather than as a vendor. Both women have since closed their businesses. I bought this skein at MDSW several years ago, and I think it may have been Jenny's last time vending there. The colorway is called Sherlock, but it reminds me of the aurora borealis in the night sky.

I have finished only one book in the past week, and it was a good one, or at least I thought so.

The Push had been on my radar for a few months after hearing it mentioned on one of the book podcasts I listen to. It was mentioned again in an episode last week that I listened to on my walk, and when I got back, I looked it up in Libby and saw that it was available, so I borrowed it on the spot. This is a book I'd describe as a psychological thriller, a bit creepy but not especially scary. The main character, whose mother and grandmother were both difficult mothers (to put it mildly), is eager to become a mother herself, but when her daughter is born, she struggles to connect with her, and as the child grows up, the narrator can't help but feel that there's something sinister behind her child's action. When her son is born, she finally feels that maternal instinct, but the new child in the family creates a new complication in her already troubled relationship with her daughter. This book reminded me a lot of those early days of motherhood, when you're sore and exhausted and questioning every decision. But it takes those feelings to the extreme. It's not a book for everyone (definitely NOT new parents), and it does include the death of a young child, so bear that in mind. I enjoyed it and could have easily read it in one sitting if I'd had the time. I gave it 4 stars.

I am currently reading The Sweetness of Water, which I hope to finish shortly after posting this, and The Madness of Crowds, which I'm savoring a chapter or two at a time before bed.

What are you working on and reading this week?