Unraveled, Week 47/2022

Happy Thanksgiving Eve, friends! I am currently enjoying some quiet time alone in my kitchen, as Rainbow is sleeping in (she's off from school for the rest of the week) and the Mister is sleeping in a bit as well as he got home at around 11:30 last night from a work trip. I do have to work today, at least until the office officially closes at 2, but I don't expect to have anything to do because three members of my seven-person team are off today and two of them are the people who would be giving me work. So really all I need to do is keep my computer open just in case.

It's Wednesday, and that means it's time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers with my update on my making and my reading.

I am sorry to say that there has been some negative knitting here. Yesterday evening, as I was getting ready to start my final stripe on one side of my Recalibrate, I looked down at my knitting and realized something looked off. A closer investigation revealed my complete lack of ability to count: The stripe prior to the last one I'd finished had only eight rows instead of ten. Fortunately, the fix was easy. I put my needle into the stitches of the last row I'd completed of that stripe, unraveled back to it, and added the two additional rows. I now have about a dozen rows to knit to get back to where I was, but that shouldn't take too long, and I can probably get that done today while Rainbow and I bake dozens and dozens of pumpkin muffins for tomorrow.

In happier news, I finished up a second hat on Monday evening and now have a coordinated pair:

They still need to be blocked, but they are done and I even got the pattern for the hat and the cowl back from my tech editor, so Rainbow and I can do a photo shoot sometime this weekend so I can get the patterns ready to be published soon!

[Speaking of patterns, I wanted to mention that the Indie Designer Gift-a-long officially kicked off at 5 p.m. yesterday. Even if you don't want to participate in the event, you can still take advantage of the pattern sale that's on for the first week. You can find 20 of my patterns on sale for 25% off using the coupon code giftalong2022 on Ravelry, and if the site isn't safe for you, you can find the same patterns and the same discount on Payhip using the coupon code GIFTING2022. Both coupons expire at 11:59 p.m. EST next Monday, November 28.]

I've finished two books in the last week:

I picked up Kali Fajardo-Anstine's debut novel when it was a Kindle deal several weeks ago because I'd enjoyed her short story collection last year. Woman of Light is a family saga set in the Southwest in the late 1800s and 1920s and tells the stories of the struggles of its Hispanic/Indigenous members. The title character is Luz, a young woman who has visions of the future. From the book's description, it sounds like a fascinating story, but unfortunately it was a disappointment for me. I found most of the characters to be flat, and the story didn't really come together. In many places it seemed like the author was trying too hard and the writing was stilted. One redeeming feature for me is that I think she did a good job of depicting the racism, discrimination, and very real threats of violence facing communities of color in 1920s Denver. But overall this was not a great read for me. I gave it 2 stars.

I needed a palate cleanser after that, so I turned to my old standby: the Maisie Dobbs series. The Mapping of Love and Death finds Maisie investigating the death of an American cartographer whose body has recently been uncovered in a collapsed bunker and simultaneously dealing with the decline of her mentor, Dr. Maurice Blanche. While she is working the case, she also is dealing with some big changes in her personal life -- and all this is against the backdrop of what we know is coming in Europe in just a few years. I really enjoyed this installment in the series and listened to it quickly. I've also discovered that the whole series is available on audio through Hoopla, so I can continue listening whenever I'm ready for another one! I gave this one 4 stars.

I'm still very slowly working my way through Demon Copperhead (I'm hoping to find some time this long weekend to read more than a few pages in a sitting) and just started a nonfiction book, The Woman They Could Not Silence, by the author of Radium Girls.

I hope you'll share what you're working on and reading in the comments, and I want to take this opportunity to say how thankful I am for you, dear readers! I hope that if you are celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow, it's a wonderful day with lots of good food!