Unraveled, Week 4/2023

Good morning, friends! I had to wake up a very grumpy teen this morning who was hoping for a 2-hour delay due to a snow storm -- but when we got up, it hadn't yet started snowing, so no delay. It has since started, though, so I'm going to keep this quick so I can get out for my run early before it gets really messy (though I expect to get wet).

It's Wednesday, which means it's time for my weekly link-up with Kat and the Unravelers. There has been a lot of crafting and reading here this past week. Let's start with the knitting -- it's all about the charity hats!

I finished this beauty up on Sunday evening, though I haven't yet blocked it, as you can probably tell. The pattern is Fox Gap (Ravelry link) by my friend Kristen Jancuk. I once again used Fibernymph Dye Works Confetti Tweed DK, this time in the colorway Electric Purple, which looks purple in some lights and pink in others. This was a very engaging knit that I would absolutely make again, though if I'm honest, I am not wild about the pointy top (but I'm fairly confident I could block that out).

I've got another charity hat going, though it's significantly less interesting:

I'm using FDW yarn again, this time Bona Fide DK in a self-striping colorway called Margarita Swirl that I won in Lisa's makealong last year (if you were wondering because you thought these weren't really my colors). I'm making this one top down, using a cast-on method I've "unvented" and used in my double-ended double-thickness hat pattern (which, I should mention, I finally wrote up this weekend and sent off to my tech editor). I am contemplating using it for a general top-down hat pattern as well that would be designed for any yarn and any gauge, so this is a bit of a test run for that. I've completed the crown increases and now just have to knit until I decide it's long enough. I'm hoping to get this done this week so I can send off a stack of hats by the end of the month.

After two busy weeks at work, things have finally calmed down to a more manageable pace, and that has meant more time for reading -- hooray! I've finished three books since this time last week.

After a long wait at the library, my hold finally came up on Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution. This was a very buzzy new release in the fall that I was very much looking forward to reading, and it did not disappoint. This is historical fiction with a dash of magic that I'd put firmly in the category of Dark Academia. Even leaving the magical aspects out, it raises some very big questions about colonialism and the ethical issues surrounding translation, the latter of which I'd never before contemplated. This is definitely not a book for everyone, but if the idea of a combination of, say, Harry Potter and The Secret History appeals to you, you'll enjoy it. My only criticism is that the characters didn't talk the way I'd imagine people actually talked in the time in which it was set, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment. I gave it 4 stars.

I needed a new audiobook to listen to over the weekend, and on Mary's recommendation, I picked up Becoming Duchess Goldblatt. If you aren't on Twitter, then the name of Duchess Goldblatt might be unfamiliar to you, but essentially she's a much-loved fictional character created by an anonymous woman, and this book is her memoir. I was only marginally aware of the character, but I still very much enjoyed this book, especially the exchanges between the author and Lyle Lovett (who actually reads his parts in the book). You don't have to know anything about DG to enjoy this book, and it was an easy two-day listen for me that I'd recommend. I gave it 4 stars.

Finally, I read a quick YA novel this week. I Must Betray You is set in Communist Romania in 1989, starting shortly before the revolution that would topple the notorious dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. The narrator is 17-year-old Cristian, who has recently been force to become an informer at a time when everyone is fearful of everyone else and can trust no one. The book is a heartbreaking look at a time and place where everyone lived in fear, and Sepetys includes an extensive resource list at the end for additional sources for learning more about the repressive regime at the time. I'm probably not the target audience for this book, but I enjoyed it and learned a lot about what it might have been like to live in Communist Romania. I gave it 3 stars.

I'm still reading The Transit of Venus but have less than 100 pages to go, so here's hoping I can finish it up this week!

What are you making and reading this week?