Unraveled, Week 38/2022

Wednesday again, already? Does anyone else feel like the days are going faster as we get further into the year? It's a good thing I have this day in the middle of every week to pause and link up with Kat and the Unravelers!

Now that my sweater is finished, my main goal for the rest of this month is to finish up this sock:

As I think you can tell from all the twisted stitches and cabling, this is not a quick knit. I got through the first one as fast as I did mainly because I was stuck in a room when the Mister had COVID and I was anxious about him, so I channeled that anxiety into my knitting. I think I should be able to get this done in this last bit of September, though, and I'm looking forward to having a fancy new pair of socks to wear once the temperatures drop.

I've done a bit of sewing recently, too. Rainbow was the impetus for us to stop using paper napkins a while back, though I've still been using them in her lunch. When we went to Michaels last weekend to fill her kitchen cotton needs, she also spotted a bundle of fat quarters of quilter's cotton featuring some sloth prints that she had to have (have I mentioned she has long been obsessed with sloths?), and she asked me to make her some smaller cloth napkins to take in her lunchbox. I did some very basic sewing to whip up five of them over the weekend:

With the exception of the dark blue print on the left, these all have different fabric on each side. They were dead easy to make -- cut out two squares, hold them together with right sides facing and stitch around the edges (leaving a gap on one side), trim the corners, turn them inside out through the gap, press, and top stitch. Are they perfect? No. But they are very functional and very cute, and Rainbow is delighted with them. The fabric cost maybe $12 for five fat quarters, and I think I spent less than two hours measuring, cutting, and sewing. Not bad!

Reading has been a little slower this week; I've only finished one book.

I once again was in need of an audiobook to keep me company while I was exercising and cleaning over the weekend, and luckily the next book I had to read in the Maisie Dobbs series was available with no wait. As the title suggests, Among the Mad deals largely with mental health issues, and they are central to both the case Maisie is pulled into and the the lives of some of the series' peripheral characters. This book takes place at the very end of 1931 and the very beginning of 1932, and there are still echoes of the first World War being felt, even as the rumbling of what will turn into the second are beginning. I enjoyed this a lot and can see that Maisie is likely headed toward less work with the police and more work with intelligence. I gave it 4 stars.

I am still reading The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, though I'm at least more than halfway through. I also now officially own the two other books that I have left to read on the Booker short list, Glory and The Trees. I've got a long weekend coming up (Rosh Hashanah starts Sunday evening), and I hope to make some headway on that list because I'd really like to have all the finalists read by the time the award winner is announced on October 17 -- and there are other books I'd like to read soon, too, like the copy of The Marriage Portrait I picked up at my local bookstore over the weekend!

What are you making and reading this week?