Unraveled, Week 22/2023

What, a third blog post from me in as many days?! Well, you know I wouldn't miss an Unraveled Wednesday with Kat and the Unravelers, but you will get a break from me tomorrow!

I don't have much of a crafting update since Monday because I spent a fair amount of time yesterday undoing a little bit of a mess I made with my Shoulder Season on Monday evening. It was entirely user error to blame; I misread some directions and did the wrong thing on the wrong round of the pattern repeat. I tried to undo and correct a stretch of stitches without tinking back entirely, but that just made stuff worse. But now I'm back on track. I also made myself a cheat sheet for the six-round repeat that's a bit easier for me to follow than the very specific instructions in the pattern to help me keep my place better.

I did find some time yesterday to skein and wash my latest handspun as well. This is skein number 12 of Southern Cross Fibre club shipments for the year!

This is Peaceful Shores on Bond wool from that dramatic month of March 2020. I spun this as a two-ply fractal, as I did for the last skein, but this one ended up a bit thicker because I spun the second bobbin of singles in a bit of a hurry and apparently was not as consistent. It's in the sport/DK range but closer to DK at 284 yards. No matter -- I'm happy to have it done. And I am officially upping my target "to spin this year" number to 24. I figure if I could make it through a dozen shipments in five months, that's a very reasonable total. I have 19 bags of SCF fiber in my possession at the moment (four of which were prizes), and I am really liking the thicker yarns that are faster to spin. So we shall see how much of my stash I am left with at the end of the year.

While the past week has been a bit busier at work and did not allow for that much reading time, I managed to finish two more since this time last week.

Barbara Kingsolver's debut novel, The Bean Trees, is the next one we're discussing in our study of her books. I thought for sure I had read this one, but I didn't remember any of it, so it's possible I only meant to. Our main character, Taylor Greer, is feisty and independent (and she rather reminded me of Demon). On her long drive west to escape the inevitable of Kentucky, she's given a Native American toddler and told that her parents are gone and the best thing for her would be to leave the reservation. Taylor makes herself a new home in Arizona and has to negotiate becoming a mother to a child about whose past she knows nothing, though what she suspects is not good. Even though this book was written in 1988, so many of the issues that are raised feel extremely relevant today. I gave it 4 stars, and I'm looking forward to rereading the sequel (I know for sure I read it because I remember doing a project on it in eighth grade!).

I finished my penultimate book in the Women's Prize shortlist on Monday afternoon. Black Butterflies is set in 1992 and deals with the siege of Sarajevo, something I lived through but really didn't know all that much about. This book also feels very relevant; even though the events of the book are in the past, the unrest among the various ethnic and religious groups have caused conflict for a long time, and recent violence has been in the news in just the last few days. Drawing on the stories of her relatives who lived through it, Priscilla Morris shows just how harrowing it can be to live through a war. Though we hear plenty about casualties on the battlefield, it is rare that we get such an honest, unvarnished portrait of the struggle of the civilians who are caught in the middle. This is a sad read, but I think it's worth it if only as a reminder of our common humanity. I gave it 4 stars.

I'm currently reading the last title I have left on the shortlist, Pod, which is really unlike anything I've read before. I also finally started Doctor Zhivago, which I am reading along with Katie as part of our yearlong buddy read of Big Russian Books, and I'll be picking a new audiobook to start today on my run.

What are you making and reading this week?