Unraveled, Week 29/2022

Happy Wednesday, friends! It's going to be another hot one here, like it is many places right now, so other than my walk later this morning, I'll be hiding in the air conditioning with my knitting. As per usual, today I'm linking up with Kat and the Unravelers to talk about what I'm making and what I'm reading.

You already know what I'm making -- though I'm hopeful this is the last Wednesday I'll be talking about it. Yesterday I wove in ends and blocked the sleeves, and last night I seamed the shoulders and picked up for the button bands and collar on my brother's sweater. I'm officially done with the cabling now, as this last bit of knitting is all ribbing.

I have not counted how many stitches I've picked up, but it's probably at least a couple hundred. This bit of knitting it's exactly going to be fast, but it's all relative. I've done so much knitting already that it doesn't feel too daunting.

I probably should be focusing exclusively on the sweater, but the Tour de Fleece wraps up this Sunday and I'd like to finish one more skein before it ends. I've completed two of the three bobbins of singles using a selection of batts from HipStrings and just started the third (not shown) yesterday afternoon. I've been spinning during my work meetings, and I have two of them tomorrow.

After doing some serious reading recently, this past week I've turned to some lighter stuff and finished two books.

The Cartographers just came out in March, and I'd had it on hold at the library for a while. It follows Nell, once a promising cartographer at the New York Public Library whose career was destroyed when she found what seemed like a worthless map. When her father suddenly dies and she finds the map hidden among her things, she realizes that it is anything but worthless and may hold the key to the secrets of her family and the death of her mother. This is a fun romp through the world of maps with some added fantasy. The writing isn't anything spectacular, but if you need a page-turner for some summer entertainment, it's a good one. I also found it really fascinating that the basis for all the drama was a real story (be sure to read the author's note at the end). I gave it 4 stars.

Last weekend I found myself without much to listen to in my podcast feed, which meant it was time for another audiobook to accompany me on my walks and runs. I'd seen Crazy Rich Asians the movie and tried to read the book with my eyes once before without success; it turns out that audio was the way to go. It was an entertaining listen in a soap opera kind of way, but after a while the listing of all the designer labels got to be a bit exhausting. I think I might actually like the movie more because it's all visual, but I will say that the narrator did a good job of doing different accents and voices. The book was a fun diversion and did its job as an exercise distraction. I gave it 3 stars.


Yesterday afternoon I decided to start another Maggie O'Farrell book as part of my long-term plan to read all her books, and given the current state of the weather, it seemed appropriate to select Instructions for a Heatwave. I haven't gotten very far in it, but I'm already enjoying being back in O'Farrell's prose.

What are you making and reading this week?