Unraveled, Week 9/2023

Happy Wednesday and happy first day of meteorological spring! March is my birthday month, so I always look forward to it, even though it's typically a wild month of weather -- seems like nine times out of ten it snows on my birthday. But this year March appears to be coming in like a lamb, at least for today. The sun is out and we're supposed to reach a high in the upper 60s this afternoon, so my walk today should be very pleasant.

As usual, I'm linking up today with Kat and the Unravelers, and I'm sharing an update on my crafting and my reading.

Over the weekend I finished up my latest spinning project (well, technically I finished it Friday evening, but I didn't get a chance to set the twist until Saturday). This was last October's Southern Cross Fibre club shipment, Dragon's Breath on South American wool blend, and I split it up into smaller bits to try to break up the colors. I was hoping it would go well enough with the combo spin I finished in November that wasn't quite enough for a sweater. I'm extremely happy with how this most recent skein turned out -- a very well-balanced three-ply fingering that comes in at about 366 yards:

This colorway definitely had brighter reds than those I used in the combo spin, but I think that it'll work just fine with those skeins, especially as I'd always planned to alternate as I knit:

On today's to-do list is winding two more skeins of yarn so I can cast on my Love Note, but I've got two other smaller projects going.

 

The Felici socks are for Rainbow, and I got quite a bit of the leg of the second sock done while sitting at the orthodontist with Rainbow on Monday morning. We were there longer than expected because they put a new bracket onto a tooth that's growing in, and of course it popped off when the assistant was trying to put on the little rubber band that keeps the wire in place, so it had to be redone. The crimson project is a swatch of sorts for a possible design submission -- what's the knitting equivalent of a wearable muslin? Because it'll be something that can be used when it's done, but it's not the final version. Anyway, I'm using some very deep stash, the now-discontinued Knit Picks Merino Style, which I'd started a sweater in more than a decade ago (it was a test knit) and never finished. The start of that sweater is still in the stash, too; I should probably unravel it and repurpose the yarn, because I don't think I have the pattern anymore and am never going to finish it.

Reading has been excellent this past week. I finished two 5-star books.

Those of you who have already read Dani Shapiro's latest, Signal Fires, know just how good it is. I had a long wait for it from the library, but it finally became available to me Saturday evening. I started it then and finished it at the orthodontist's office Monday morning. Wow, is this a beautifully written book! There is not a word that's out of place in this story of two families whose lives become intertwined in heartwarming and heartbreaking ways. There's not a lot of plot in between the few dramatic moments, but it's not missed -- this is very much a book about these people, their relationships, their struggles, and their triumphs. I really loved it!

The Golden Compass was a reread for me; I first read it in my senior year of college, I think, when I had also just started my master's program and was taking an amazing course in children's literature. I wanted to revisit it ahead of the Novel Pairings episode that came out yesterday, which discusses it alongside The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I decided to listen to the audiobook this time, even though I still have my original paperbacks of the series on my shelf, mainly so I could read it while getting other things done. I don't think I loved it quite as much as I did the first time around -- because let's face it, nothing is as good as discovering a great book for the first time -- but I still thoroughly enjoyed the world that's been created and the plucky character of Lyra. I expect I'll have to reread the other two books in the series again soon.

I am currently reading, still, War and Peace (I'm 72% through it, according to the Kindle app) and The Shipping News for the next Read With Us discussion.

What are you making and reading this week?