Unraveled, Week 5/2024

We have finally made it to the end of January, which feels as though it's lasted a year. I'm not all that excited for February, but at least it's shorter and brings chocolate! It's Wednesday, which means it's time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers, and this week I have two finishes to share.

On Sunday I finished up my first pair of socks for the year, and they're for me! I used my usual top-down heel-flap-and-gusset recipe and the custom-dyed yarn from Lisa that I won last year. The tweed base was a bit of a change for me, but I like it! I haven't worn them yet, as they went right into a load of socks I had ready to wash (mainly because the blue was crocking a bit on my fingers as I was knitting them, so I wanted to wash out any excess dye), but they'll be going into my regular rotation.

I also finished up my second spin of the year:

This colorway is called Bloom, and it's even more saturated in real life than it appears here -- my camera just would not do the colors justice no matter how many adjustments I tried. This is a 70% superfine merino/30% silk blend, so it's unbelievably soft. I ended up with approximately 386 yards of chain-plied fingering that just screams "Mardi Gras" to me. This was last July's club shipment, so I'm getting closer to being caught up!

In the "getting closer to being done" category, I'm quickly approaching the end of my Mas Vida shawl:

I've folded it in half here so you can see how much (or, rather, how little) I have left to knit. The rows are much shorter and thus are taking much less time, so I expect this will be done very soon.

Reading has been quite good this past week. I've finished three books.

By now you all know that the next Read With Us selection is The Poisonwood Bible, but I was actually already reading it as the final book in the Kingsolver-along that Mary has been hosting. Unfortunately I'm going to miss the discussion this Saturday (Mo and I have tickets to see My Fair Lady), but that wasn't going to stop me from reading the book, which I first read more than two decades ago, probably around 2000, based on the fact that I had a paperback. I remembered loving it when I read it but very few details, so it was almost like a new book to me on this reread. Of course, now I'm in a very different place of life and am a mother, so this hit me in very different ways this time around, though I was surprised that was affected me the most was not the big family tragedy (no spoilers; if you've read it, you'll know what I'm referring to) but the tragedy of what happened to the new democracy of the Congo and, more generally, to African nations in their efforts to throw off the shackles of colonial rule. I still loved it this time around, and I once again gave it 5 stars.

My next finish was a little more academic in nature. Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma is nonfiction, a combination of memoir, essay, and art criticism in which the author wrestles with how to deal with art (be it literature, film, fine art, or anything else) when the creator behind it proves to be problematic. Think of the Harry Potter series and J.K. Rowling or the films of Roman Polanski and Woody Allen. Is it possible to divorce the art from the artist? Is it okay to still enjoy the art when we don't like its creator? The book doesn't really answer the questions but explores them in depth, with specific examples of so-called monsters and the works they've created. This is a book I would have liked to have read with my eyes, but it was only available on audio from my library. It's a book that I think would be really great to read and discuss in a class. I gave it 4 stars.

My final finish for the week was The Wren, the Wren, which was a buzzy book from last fall. At its center are a mother and daughter whose lives are still bearing the scars left by their father and grandfather, respectively, a famous poet who walked out on his family when the mother was still a young teenager and whose poetry pops up throughout their lives. I liked the writing, but throughout this book I felt like there was something I just wasn't getting, and it didn't feel like a cohesive story to me. That may have been the point, for all I know. I gave it 3 stars.

I am currently reading an old book from high school (that was already an older book at the time), July's People, which feels like a good pairing for The Poisonwood Bible, and I also finally got Absolution from the library yesterday and am hoping work cooperates to allow me to finish it today -- so good!

What are you making and reading this week?