Unraveled, Week 31/2024

It's the last day of July, and it's a Wednesday, so that means it's time to check in with Kat and the Unravelers. And I'd like to start off by introducing you to a new friend:

Friends, meet Ann Hatch It*, my Emotional Support Chicken. Like me, she loves nothing more than curling up with a good book. She's also a little bottom heavy like me (ha) thanks to a bag of poly pellets inside to help her sit upright. I made her a little more petite than my last one, in part because the yarn I was using was a bit thinner but also because I went down to a US 5/3.75 mm needle for a tighter fabric. I am quite happy with that decision, as I don't really need an enormous stuffed chicken (but a smaller one is okay).

I used yarn from two local dyers (both of whom are friends, too!). The variegated gray was a one-of-a-kind skein that I won from Lisa of Fibernymph Dye Works as part of her yearly make-along. The burgundy is HipStrings Buoy DK leftover from this sweater. Mo gave me a bit of acrylic yarn she had leftover from a crochet project for the beak. As I did in the first one, I omitted the wattle from mine; I don't think it's needed and would be likely to get pulled off easily if I made it, so I just left it off.

In knitting this pattern a second time, and anticipating that I very well might knit it again, I'm glad that I made notes on it the first time around so that I had some guideposts along the way. I wouldn't call it a very well-written pattern, or at least it's not written the way I would write it, but I know what I'm doing with it now. This time around, I'm making some notes to myself about leaving some of the ends un-woven-in so that I can use them in the sewing up.

Now that Ann is done, the only project I have on the needles is a rather boring pair of socks for my father-in-law. That means I'll likely be casting on something new soon.

Reading has been good the past week, though I have only finished one book:

The Ministry of Time is the next Read With Us selection, and I've been looking forward to reading it. I'm glad that I bought it on Kindle because it's the kind of book I have a feeling I'm going to want to go back and read. I know a lot of you have either already read this or are planning to read it ahead of our RWU discussion, so I won't get into the plot or too much discussion because I don't want to give too much away. I will say that I really enjoyed it, I think mainly because the writing felt to me more like a book from the 18th or 19th century (very much my comfort zone), and I thought it was really smart, which I always appreciate. Although a lot of what I've read about this book seems to be focused on the time travel aspect, I think the author really has some interesting and meaningful things to say about displacement and being a refugee, whether that's in your own time or a different time. This would have been a five-star read for me had things not fallen apart a bit at the end, which I didn't feel fit with the rest of the book, so I gave it 4 stars. I'm looking forward to our discussion and to rereading it (eventually!) because there is a lot going on it in and I know a discussion will make me appreciate it more.

I'm still keeping up with my weekly pages in A Suitable Boy, and I've started reading Persepolis, which my brother gave me for my birthday this year, on paper and True Biz on Kindle. They're both books I've been wanting to read, but I got the kick in the pants I needed from a summer bingo from a podcast I recently started listening to. They'll fulfill squares for "Read a book in translation" and "Read something by or about a person with a disability," respectively.

That's all I've got, folks! Today my in-laws are moving to their new condo, so tonight we'll be taking dinner to them because I'm sure they'll be exhausted and overwhelmed. Frankly, as it's supposed to be hot and humid today and it's a running day for me, I'm sure I'll be feeling much the same.

*The accepted practice for these chickens seems to be giving them a punny name, so I decided to get some inspiration from one of my favorite writers.

Better in 2024: July

We've arrived at the final Monday of the month, which means it's time to check in with my One Little Word.

Some months reflecting on my One Little Word is more of a challenge, but this month, I didn't have to think about it at all because I knew exactly how I was Better this month (and if you were paying attention a couple of weeks ago, you'll realize that I was aware of it at the time). In going to the TwinSet Summer Retreat this month, I was Better at doing things that intimidate me: I drove on a "big road" for a long period of time and went to an event where I really didn't know anyone else. These were both pretty big deals for me. I typically hate driving, in part because I'd rather spend a long drive being productive but mainly because other drivers make me so nervous. Before this trip, the only time I'd ever driven on the turnpike once, and it was an emergency situation (it was when I went to TNNA with my friend Lisa of Fibernymph Dye Works back in 2018 and she woke up with vertigo the day we were supposed to come home). I had to drive if I wanted to go on this trip, and it was a huge confidence boost for me. I can't say I enjoyed it, but I definitely noticed that the trip home was less stressful than the trip there. And of course once the drive there was complete, there was another challenge: joining a group of knitters who all knew each other and who I didn't know. As a shy introvert, attending any sort of large gathering is a source of anxiety, but I know that when I force myself to do it, I always enjoy myself. And that was certainly the case in this instance.

While it wasn't my objective in attending this event, Mary pointed out that I was setting a great example for Mo, and she's absolutely right. My daughter is so much like me, so it's great for her to see me doing things that make her uncomfortable, too. As she gets older, the parenting wins are certainly less frequent, and I'll happily take this one.

Thanks to Carolyn for hosting our monthly link-up, as always!

Playing Chicken

Happy Friday, friends. I am always happy to get to the end of a work week, but I'm especially glad this week, as it's been a long and hard one. I didn't mention it earlier in the week, but we found out that my cousin's son (who Mo, my parents, my brother and sister-in-law, and my nephew had all been with last weekend) tested positive for COVID after they got home, so in addition to dealing with work and the heat, I've been dealing with anxiety about that. Fortunately no one has had any symptoms, so it looks like (fingers crossed!) we've dodged the bullet. But that anxiety, plus my general issues with sleep, have meant some short nights this week, so I'm very much looking forward to getting a little extra time in bed this weekend.

Fortunately the lack of sleep has not impacted my ability to focus on a knitting pattern, even one that's not as well written as it could be. Behold -- a chicken ready for its head:

I expect I'll be able to finish this fine fowl up this weekend, over which I plan to watch a fair amount of Olympics coverage. Working from the pattern for a second time, and with the intention to knit it again, I think I will likely spend some time rewriting it for my own use so that it's a bit clearer. I've been able to figure it out, but I also think I could improve on it and make knitting a chicken a bit less of an effort.

One bright spot this past week is that we've gotten some much-needed rain! We're still at a deficit, but the garden has been very happy. I've got a handful of spaghetti squashes growing bigger by the day along the fence, and when I went to pick the ripe cherry tomatoes and check on the other plants yesterday, I got quite a surprise in the zucchini patch:

This zucchini was not there just two days earlier, or, at least, it was small enough that I didn't notice it. I imagine I might have even more surprises today!

On tap for today is a run (hello, lower humidity!), baking challah, working on yet another annual report for work, and squishing my nephew for the first time in nearly a month at dinner tonight. I wish you a relaxing final weekend of July!

Unraveled, Week 30/2024

Week 30?! We've really and truly tipped into the downhill portion of this year; I've noticed upon getting up for work this week that it's now not fully light when I'm getting up, and it's all a bit depressing. I will not feel sorry to bid the intense heat and humidity farewell, but I wish we could hang on to the longer days.

But enough whining about the weather and how quickly the year is passing. It's Wednesday, which means it's time for my weekly check-in with Kat and the Unravelers. This week's update contains a finished object!

Pattern: Rift by Jacqueline Cieslak, size 44 in./112 cm bust
Yarn: Knit Picks CotLin (70% cotton/30% linen) in Indigo Bunting, a bit more than five skeins (622 yards used)
Needles: US 8/5.0 mm
Started/Completed: July 11/July 21
Mods: worked to a different gauge; added body length

If you can't already tell from my smile, I'm extremely happy with how my second version of this pattern worked out. I like how my first one looks, but I really wanted some more positive ease and more length so I could wear it as an actual top and not as more of a decorative piece on top of a tank or dress. So this time around, I bought yarn rather than trying to make do with what I had in my stash so that I could be sure I had enough. I have worked with CotLin before and find it to be pretty easy on the hands for something with so high a cotton content, not to mention that it creates a very comfortable fabric, so I figured it would be a good option.

Gauge was elusive yet again for me with my second try. The pattern calls for a gauge of four stitches to the inch for a very loose fabric with a lot of drape. I knit a very generous swatch with both a US 8 and a US 9. I got closer to gauge on the 9's (17 stitches over 4 inches), but the fabric looked very sloppy to me, and I liked it better on the 8's, which gave me a gauge of 18 stitches over 4 inches. So I did a bit of math. My full bust is about 35 inches, and if I worked the second size in the pattern with my tighter gauge, I'd end up with a finished bust of around 39 inches. The pattern recommends 6-12 inches of positive ease, but I knew that if I went any bigger, I'd be swimming in the fabric. Four inches is plenty for me!

My only other modification to the pattern was to add a significant amount of length to the body. The pattern calls for splitting for the front and back when the back measures 9 inches; I worked instead to 16.5 inches. The front of the sweater (the back of the split hem is longer) hits right around my hip bones, which is precisely where I like my sweaters to fall. I'm also relieved that I had plenty of yarn, because deciding when to stop adding length to the body to ensure I had enough yarn to finish the top part of the sweater was a bit of a guessing game. In the end, I have nearly a full skein left, so I didn't have to play any yarn chicken.

If I were to knit this a third time, I might make the V-neck a bit deeper. I know that mine is shallower than the samples shown in the pattern because of a difference in row gauge, and when this first came off the needles, the neckline was even a little tight (but it loosened in blocking). I expect that if I had worked to the specified gauge, row gauge would also have been quite a bit different, so I might've ended up with a deeper V as a side benefit. I don't really have much to show off with a low neckline in any case; I think a bigger opening just would've added to the relaxed feel of the top.

Now that this is done, and quite quickly, I'm feeling the need to work on something a little more frivolous, so a chicken has been started:

This one is going to be for me, and it will end up being a bit smaller than the one I made for my nephew because I went down a couple of needle sizes. I'm using a skein of Fibernymph Dye Works worsted that I won earlier this year in a OOAK colorway. It doesn't photograph well, but there's a bit of a reddish purple tint to the gray in some spots, and I think it goes well with the burgundy yarn (some leftover HipStrings Buoy) that I pulled out for the accent bits of the hen. I'm still pondering names for this one, though rest assured it will be something punny.

Reading has been quite good the past week, in spite of work's efforts to keep me away from my books, and I finished two books.

I was really interested in Songs for the Brokenhearted after reading Bonny's review of it, so I immediately went to NetGalley to request an ARC and was delighted to be approved shortly after. I was mainly intrigued by this book because it deals with an aspect of Jewish and Israeli history that I knew nothing about: the immigration of Yemeni Jews to Israel in the 1950s and the experiences of that group trying to assimilate to a culture that was largely composed of European Ashkenazi Jews. I knew, of course, that there were/are Jews of color and Mizrahi Jews, who came from Arab lands, but I really didn't know anything of their experience. In this novel, which clearly draws largely from the author's own life and experiences, we follow Zohara, a 30-something Yemeni Israeli woman who has returned to Israel in the mid-1990s when her mother suddenly dies, and Saida, her mother, in her early days in an Israeli refugee camp in the 1950s. As Zohara learns more about her mother's experience, she also grapples with her own identity and the Yemeni culture she was so eager to reject as a younger girl. The book also explores the political landscape in Israel at the time of the Oslo Peace Accords and the tradition of Yemeni women's songs. I really enjoyed the book, primarily because I learned so much by reading it, though I'll say I wasn't blown away by the writing (it wasn't bad, just not especially notable). I gave it 4 stars. I received a digital ARC of this book from NetGalley and Random House in return for an honest review. This book will be published September 10, 2024.

My other finish was an audiobook that I listened to over the course of last weekend. I loved Angeline Boulley's debut novel, Firekeeper's Daughter, and had in fact requested an ARC of her second, Warrior Girl Unearthed, though I never heard back about my request. So I've been meaning to read it for a while, and luckily there was no wait at the library when I remembered it. This novel takes place in the same setting as the first book and has some of the same characters, though you don't have to have read the first book before the second. Our main character is Perry Firekeeper-Birch, a Black and Indigenous teen who gets roped into participating in a tribal internship program to pay for repairs to a car after a fender bender. Assigned to the tribe's museum, she learns about the efforts to repatriate Indigenous artifacts and human remains through NAGPRA, the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act. She soon finds that this is easier said than done, particularly when private collectors are involved, and gets involved in a dangerous plan to return the remains of her tribe's ancestors. This book is classified as YA but deals with some pretty mature themes, notably the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women. I gave it 4 stars as well.

I'm still slowly but steadily working my way through A Suitable Boy -- I've passed the halfway point! And I have started the next Read With Us selection, The Ministry of Time, and am enjoying it so far but still have a fair amount to read.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that we are all feeling a little more hopeful about the state of things in the United States this week. I know the election is still going to be a nail-biter, but I'm inspired by the excitement and increased level of engagement I've seen since President Biden announced he was bowing out and endorsed Vice President Harris. Mo won't be able to vote until the next presidential election, but she's very excited to have a female candidate to cheer on! I'm rather excited myself, and it's nice to have good news rather than the usual doom and gloom. We'll see what happens and keep our fingers crossed!

A Quiet Weekend

I groaned a bit this morning when my alarm went off and I realized it was Monday again, but I can't complain at all about the weekend because it was quiet and restful. Mo is old enough now that we don't have to make sure someone is home with her all the time, but all the same it was a bit strange not having her here. We did go out for a nice dinner on Friday night, but other than that, it was a very relaxed couple of days -- especially because I was able to get most of my typical weekend chores done on Friday.

A good portion of my weekend was spent working on my Rift tee, which, I'm happy to report, is officially done (but still needs to be blocked before I take official FO photos).

I can report that the fit is exactly as I wanted it, with a bit of positive ease and full length rather than cropped. I'll have a full report on it once it's washed and blocked.

Yesterday was the last day of Tour de Fleece, and though it was a much less productive Tour for me compared to years past, I'm happy with what I spun. I've finished the first bobbin of singles for my body skein:

I also spent part of the weekend tending to the garden, where I discovered we have some baby squashes!

I'd been checking the plants regularly, but as they did last year, the vines got sneaky and were growing over the fence on our neighbors' side, so I hadn't spotted the squash babies growing. This one is a spaghetti squash, but we have a few small butternut squashes growing as well. It's nice to see something other than tomatoes, which have been my main harvest thus far:

What is on the counter is what I picked yesterday -- our first zucchini, a handful of cherry tomatoes, and some basil. The tomatoes in the bowl were picked over the last week, and I used all of them, plus the basil, in the pasta I made for dinner last night.

Today is business as usual, and I'm hoping work isn't too crazy. Have a good start to your week!

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

It's been a whirlwind of a week and I didn't remember at first that it was Friday when I woke up, which I guess is a good thing. My boss is off today, and as I finished up a project yesterday, I'm hoping that means a quiet work day for me. We are also having some blissfully cool weather this morning, so I am looking forward to a much more comfortable run today.

As promised, today's post is all about last week's trip to the TwinSet Summer Retreat. This was my first time attending the event, so I didn't know exactly what to expect, but I was pretty sure I would enjoy it. My only experience at a knitting retreat before this was at SSK, a much bigger event. This one was much smaller, with only about 40 attendees, and much less structured -- there were no classes or workshops or special activities, which meant it was much more focused on talking to people and having time to sit and knit. I think that made it especially good for Mo's first retreat; she would have been completely overwhelmed at SSK! But this was a good first retreat for her, and she was warmly welcomed.

The only real "event" of the retreat was Thursday night's Swap Melee. This was a sort of white elephant exchange: Each participant brought a wrapped gift and drew a ticket with a number at random. The person with the first number picked a gift and opened it. The next person could either pick a new gift to open or steal the item the first person opened, and so on. An item could only be stolen three times and then it was off the table. The items were only supposed to be about $20-25 in value, but some people went way over that. I didn't really care what I ended up with, though I didn't necessarily want to bring home more yarn, and given how many packages contained multiple skeins, I was pretty successful. I had a later number, and I ended up stealing a gift for the third time, which meant I got to keep it without risk of its being stolen.

This contraption is an Amish-style swift; in the white box is a ball winder. Now, I already have a swift (umbrella style) and winder, but I know they won't last forever, and I like the idea of having a backup. They were packaged in a large cardboard box, so I didn't realize at first that there was a skein of yarn in there, too, but it's a skein that looks like it'll be good for gift socks or a hat, so it'll get used.

Mo ended up keeping the package she opened, which ended up being something pretty perfect for her:

It was basically a kit with everything she would need for a project -- a skein of yarn, stitch markers, a row counter, scissors, a pen, a notebooks, stitch stoppers, and a yarn ball cozy -- plus a sweet little ceramic plate and a sticker that says "I'd rather be knitting."

We also came home with goodie bags, which I didn't expect:

Everything came stuffed in that bag on the right, which is actually a two-bottle wine cooler (Mo got a tote bag instead). Inside was two skeins of Sueño, an extensive DPN set, a set of Knit Blockers, scissors, darning needles, and an insulated cup. The wooden thing with all the holes is a DPN holder hand made by Jan's husband, who is a woodworker. Mo ended up with yarn in her colors:

The swap was the only organized event that everyone really participated in. On Friday evening, there was a chance for attendees to show off things they made, and there was a round of knitting-themed charades on Saturday evening. Many attendees chose to visit area yarn shops during the day on Saturday, which we, of course, skipped, but we did choose to go out to dinner that evening; the retreat center where the event was held provided all meals, but the food was pretty bad. That ended up being more dramatic than we anticipated because there was a sudden thunderstorm and the power went out, so we had a dinner of shared salads by the light of a window.

All in all, it was a successful and enjoyable retreat. I sold more than 20 skeins of handspun yarn -- much more than I was anticipating or even hoping for! -- and we both got a lot of crafting done and made some new friends. And I proved to myself that I can drive a long distance without too much stress. Mo has already said that we have to go back next year, and I think we've both decided that more mother/daughter road trips are in our future.

Mo left with my parents, my brother and sister-in-law, and nephew this morning for a quick trip up to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where they're meeting my cousin and his son (a rising high school senior) from Chicago to visit the University of Michigan. That means the Mister and I will have a child-free weekend, though we don't have anything planned except dinner out tonight. I'm hoping I can get some laundry and cleaning done today so that it can be a relaxing weekend for me and I can make up for all the time I spent behind the wheel last week and couldn't knit.

Have a good one, friends!

Unraveled, Week 29/2024

This week is flying by -- I can't believe it's already Wednesday! That means it's time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers and to talk about making and reading. And today I have a finished object to share with you.

I actually finished my Little Plinth Tee preview knit last week before we left, but I didn't have a chance to block it until we got back. I'm so happy with how this turned out! I knit the 6 month size, with the intention of putting it away for my niece (due in November) for next spring. I used Lolabean Yarn Co. Bean Sprout (fingering weight superwash merino/nylon) in the colorway African Violets that I had bought at Indie Untangled before Rhinebeck in 2019 -- not the oldest yarn in my stash, but certainly one that was well marinated! I had some issues with the pattern that were purely user error, namely my apparent inability to count accurately, but no problems with the pattern itself. I believe Kerri is planning to release the pattern next week. It's sized from 3 months up to 12 years -- and there's an adult version (Ravelry link), too!

I'm still working on my Rift tee, but it doesn't look all that different from the photo I shared on Monday, so I'll wait to update you until you can actually see the progress that has been made. Instead, here's how my sweater spinning project is going:

This is the third bit of fiber for the first ply of my body skein (got that?). The body skein is the biggest of the three I have left to spin for this project, but compared to the blue skeins, this is taking a lot less time to complete. This first ply is three parts silver, one part orange; the second will be two of each and the third one part silver and three parts orange. The finished yarn, once plied, will gradually transition from all silver to all orange. The sleeve skeins will do the same but be smaller.

For the first time in a long time, I have finished no books in the past week! That's largely because I spent most of my reading time last week on A Suitable Boy to ensure that I got my weekly pages done before we left on our trip (because I was not taking that brick of a book with me!). I am, however, close to finishing Songs for the Brokenhearted, which I started while we were away, and I'm really enjoying it.

What are you making and reading this week?

And We're Back!

Hello, friends, and happy Monday! I fully intended to post on Friday, but I decided it was more important to be present and enjoy the retreat than to sit at my laptop in my room. I will recount the retreat in more detail later this week when I have a little more time to do the experience justice, but for now suffice it to say that we had a wonderful time and arrived home happy but exhausted.

A real highlight of the trip (and totally independent from the retreat) was getting to meet up with Bonny, Dee, and Vera on Saturday morning:

We met up at an adorable coffeeshop in Easton, PA, in a former mansion that's been beautifully restored. I tried to look around and appreciate all the gorgeous details, but the company and conversation were too good. We spent a couple of hours knitting (Mo crocheted) and chatting, and I can tell you that these three women are just as lovely, if not more so, than they are on their blogs. It was too short of a visit, but I'm so glad that we were all able to meet up and hope we can do it again!

I worked on a sock WIP that morning, but for the rest of the weekend, I was pretty much monogamous with a project that I cast on Thursday evening and, as a result, have a lot of progress to show for it:

This is my second (new and improved!) Rift tee. In the swatch I shared last week, I'd used both size 8 (5 mm) and size 9 (5.5 mm) needles. I was closer to gauge with the larger needles, but I didn't really like the fabric I was getting; this is supposed to be a loose(ish) and relaxed garment, but on the 9's it just looked sloppy. So I'm going with the 8's again. My gauge is off (I'm getting 18 sts/4 in. rather than the called-for 16), but I did some math to figure out that I could knit the next size up and still get several inches of positive ease. Though I haven't tried on what I've knit so far, I can see from holding it up that it's going to be significantly bigger than my first attempt (which, incidentally, I am wearing in the photo above!) I also have more than 100 yards than the pattern specifies for the size I'm knitting, I'm adding length to the body so that this version isn't quite as cropped as my first one. I'm on my third of six balls of yarn, and last night when I put it away, the body was measuring 10.5 inches. I'd like to add at least a few more inches of length, but as I don't know exactly how much I'll need to complete the upper body, it's going to be a guessing game of how much yarn I can use. Fortunately it's a quick knit, so if I have to rip back and redo, it won't take too long.

It was a long weekend of many firsts. Obviously it was the first time I'd attended this retreat, and it was the first time Mo had attended any kind of retreat. It was also the first time I'd driven such a long distance, which was a big deal for me -- I don't particularly like driving, mainly because other drivers make me nervous. But thanks to Mo's company and GPS, I did it. I'm not in any rush to do it again, mind you, but I have a lot more confidence in my ability to do it should I need or want to. And it seems kind of appropriate that my odometer hit a nice even number upon our arrival at home:

This might seem like a low number for many of you, but keep in mind that I don't drive every day and when I do drive, it's often only a few miles at a time. In fact, it's a running joke in my family how low my car's mileage is -- so low that I can't remember the last time my car wasn't exempt from the state emissions test because I drive so little!

I have a pile of work waiting for me, so I'd better get to it. I will see you back here on Wednesday and will share a full wrap-up of the retreat on Friday. Have a good week and stay cool out there!

Unraveled, Week 28/2024

Wednesday again? Time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers and talk about what I'm making and reading (and rather quickly, because it's a very busy week at work in spite of the fact that it's only a three-day week for me).

My main focus continues to be the Little Plinth Tee, which is *almost* done!

The pooling isn't as dramatic in real life.

Although the stockinette roll isn't helping any here, you may be able to see that the fronts are done and the shoulder stitches are on waste yarn. I'm maybe halfway through the back at this point; once I've finished the back, the only things left to do are join the shoulder seams and do a quick edging on the neckline. There is a long-sleeved option for this sweater, but as I've sized it for springtime wearing, I went with the easy short sleeves.

I have also swatched for my next Rift tee, which I am planning to take with me to the retreat.

I made this swatch extra large to get a really good sense of gauge and used both US 8 (on the top) and US 9 (on the bottom) needles. It should say something about how often I use needles on the larger end of the spectrum that I had no fixed circulars in a US 9 and had to get out my old Knit Picks interchangeable set for that size. I don't use them very often anymore because the cables have a rather annoying tendency to pop out of the needle tips, but they were my only option. Fortunately, it looks like I'll be closer to gauge on a US 8, at least before blocking, and I don't expect the yarn (a cotton/linen blend) to change very much, but I'll know for sure as soon as the swatch is dry.

I got more reading done this past week, in large part thanks to audiobooks and the extra days off from work. I finished three books.

The first of the three was an ARC that I was invited to review (or maybe NetGalley sends those invitations to all its members?). Like Mother, Like Mother is a multigenerational story that appealed to me initially because I'm a daughter and the mother of a daughter and the family at the center of the story is, like mine, Jewish with roots in Detroit. I'll leave you to click over to the Goodreads synopsis rather than repeating it all here, and I'll add that it was intriguing and drew me in. But there were some strange things about the writing that detracted a bit from my enjoyment. The characters, though it's clear the author had very detailed ideas of them, feel rather one-dimensional and not particularly believable as actual people. There's a lot of dialogue, which makes the book feel more like a screenplay than a novel. There are also some oddities like questions ending in period rather than question marks (naturally, that sort of thing jumps out at me) and characters quoting something -- books? movies? -- that the other characters seem to get the reference to but that were lost on me as reader. It's definitely a book that made me think about big things like identity, parenting, and the stories we tell ourselves and whether or not they're truth, but as an editor, I felt it could have been better. I gave it 3 stars.

I received a digital ARC of this book from NetGalley and Random House in return for an honest review. This book will be published October 29, 2024.

I was ready for a new audiobook a week ago, and I wanted something I knew I would like. I was delighted to find A Place to Hang the Moon available after both Mary and Katie had recommended it. This is middle-grades historical fiction set in WWII Britain. Siblings Anna, Edmund, and William, whose parents died when they were younger, have just lost their only living relative, their grandmother, who never seemed to care for them much and who made no arrangements for their guardianship following her death. Her solicitor decides to take advantage of the evacuation of children out of London to see if the children can find someone willing to take them in. There's a rather predictable plot from that point, but it doesn't detract from a lovely story of siblings looking out for one another above all in a fraught time. It reminded me a lot of The War That Saved My Life and its sequel, and it was a quick listen (especially because the reader was so slow, I had to increase the speed to 1.75x!). I will just point out that the cover of the audio shown here has an error -- Anna is the youngest sibling, though it appears she's the middle child in this illustration. Whoever did it missed out by not actually reading the book! I gave it 4 stars.

That one went so quickly that I needed another audiobook to get me through the weekend, and I decided to try something a little outside my comfort zone. A Darker Shade of Magic is fantasy, set in a world in which there are four different Londons -- White, Grey, Red, and (previously) Black -- all with different levels of magic in them. Only a few can travel between these worlds, and doing so can be dangerous -- as Kell, the main character, soon discovers when the rulers of one London try to take over another. I enjoyed the book, though I think I would have enjoyed it more had I read it with my eyes; it was tricky to keep a lot of the fantasy elements straight simply by hearing them, and I think that might have been easier for me if they'd been seen. This is the first book in a trilogy, so if I decide to read the others, I'll be sure to read with my eyes. I gave it 4 stars.

I am still steadily working my way through A Suitable Boy, and after Bonny reviewed it recently, I requested and was approved for an ARC of Songs for the Brokenhearted, which I plan to start soon and take with me to read this weekend.

What are you making and reading this week?

Here Comes Another Short Week

It is hard to go back to the usual routine after an extra-long weekend, but thankfully I'd already planned for a three-day work week this week, as Mo and I will be retreat-ing Thursday through Sunday. I'm sure it'll be a busy three days, but there's a lot to look forward to at the end of it.

The weekend was mostly relaxing. I'm happy to report that my blood donation was successful (my arms weren't scrutinized at all this time around) and took only about five minutes once I was hooked up. But I ran in the heat that morning and then was on my feet in heels for at while at the wedding that evening, so on Saturday I was wiped out. I cleaned the bathrooms and managed to walk -- slowly -- about four miles and I was done. I am very glad we had nothing planned and could lay low. I took the downtime to separate my fiber for the rest of my sweater spin:

What you see here is the fiber split and arranged for the body (left) and two sleeves (center and right). I've split up the two colorways so that I will end up with three skeins of three-ply yarn that gradually shift from all silver to all burnt orange. The papers underneath are my cheat sheets so that I can cross off each section of each ply as I complete it. You may recall that I did this sort of fade effect with this skein, though as both of those colors were so light and similar, the effect is much more subtle. I didn't get too into the weeds with measuring out the fiber, but I looked at the pattern numbers for the body and the sleeves and calculated how many stitches were in each for the colorwork to see what my proportions were like. Those numbers told me I'd need a little more than half for the body and the rest for the sleeves (which I obviously split in two). I've already started in on the first ply of the body skein, though I haven't gotten very far.

Mainly what I tried to work on over the weekend is my Little Plinth Tee, as ideally I'd like to get that done before we leave for the retreat. The body did move very quickly once I had the right number of stitches, and by yesterday morning, I was ready to start working the neck shaping. Unfortunately, I had just bound off stitches for the center of the neck opening when I realized that somehow or other one of my side markers was misplaced and my stitch count was all off, so I had to frog/tink all the way back to the start of the sleeve increases. So now it looks like this:

It is lucky that this is a small garment (I'm previewing the 6 month size) and I can quickly get back to where I was, but that likely means less time spinning and more time knitting this week. And really that's fine; it's just a matter of focusing my energies. In addition to wanting to finish this up, I want to swatch for my next Rift tee so I can take it with me on the trip.

Another task that got taken care of this weekend was labeling and inventorying all the handspun I am taking to the retreat -- approximately 90 skeins! I do hope that folks will take some home with them because it would be nice to come home with a lot less. There is still quite a lot that I didn't even get out, not to mention the stuff I wanted to keep, and much more fiber still to be spun, so it's clear that I need to make using handspun more of a priority.

In addition to whatever work throws at me this week, I'll be focused on packing, deciding what projects to take, and trying not to think about the fact that I will have to drive the whole way there (the Mister is typically the driver on road trips, but on this one, it has to be me!). I picked up an EZ Pass for my car after seeing that it would save me about half on tolls, and I'll fill up the gas tank before we leave. I am really looking forward to the weekend away with my kid, though -- and as an extra bonus, we are going to be meeting up with Bonny, Vera, and Dee at a coffee shop on Saturday morning, so soon there will be three more people in the fiber blogging world who can confirm I am a real person! While I always maintain that online friends are real friends, it's nice to meet people IRL, too, sometimes.

I hope your week gets off to a good start. Stay hydrated, friends!

It's Friday -- I Think

As much as I love an extra-long weekend, they do make it difficult to keep track of what day it is. Yesterday I kept thinking it was Saturday, so it was nice to wake up this morning (even if my regular weekday alarm woke me up) and remember it's only Friday. I'd already planned to take a vacation day today, but then the university decided to give us a bonus day off as a holiday and we had a 2 p.m. closure on Wednesday in my office, so my weekend is ending up longer than my workweek!

We had a very low-key Independence Day here. The weather wasn't great -- overcast, hot, and very humid -- so I went for a walk in the morning but then spent the rest of the day indoors. One project for the day was going through my handspun stash (well, part of it, anyway) and pulling out and labeling skeins to take to sell next week at the Twin Set Summer Retreat. Mo helped by attaching the tags after I wrote them out.

I still need to go through all of them to create an inventory, so I don't know exactly how many skeins there are, but let's just say I am feeling very overwhelmed by the amount of handspun I have and really need to focus on using it up, selling it, and/or giving it away!

I also spent some time yesterday working on my Little Plinth Tee preview knit. I was having an issue with it, and it turns out that it's all due to my apparent inability to count, so I had to do a little frogging back. But everything is back on track now, and I have a feeling I will finish it up very quickly now.

It's a bit off center here (the two white markers you can see are the center front), but you get the idea. Right now I'm in the "work even until body measures X inches" part, and everything you see above the ruffle was knit in less than an hour last night.

The most exciting thing to happen yesterday is that after finishing my plying on Wednesday, spending about an hour skeining, and then waiting a good 24 hours for the yarn to dry after its wash, I finally measured the yarn and confirmed that I have enough for the main color of the intended sweater!

It really is as shiny as it looks here! I wish I could show you how much drape this yarn has; you'll just have to take my word for it. I've got approximately 1,168 yards total, which is about 200 yards more than the pattern says I'll need. I've looked at the pattern and done a little math to figure out roughly the proportion of the contrast color I'll need for sleeves versus body, so now I am ready to split up the remaining fiber. I'll share how I'm doing that in a future post.

We don't have a lot planned for the rest of the holiday weekend, although today I'm attempting (this is attempt number four, if you're keeping count) to donate blood this afternoon, and this evening the Mister and I are going to a wedding (the son of one of his coworkers is getting married, so we won't know many people and likely won't stay too late). I'm hosting my mahj group on Sunday afternoon, and that's it! I hope to get some more spinning and knitting and reading it as well as to catch up on sleep (the Mister has been snoring a lot this week). I wish you a weekend full of whatever brings you joy and offer you the greetings of this tiny visitor to my zucchini:

Unraveled, Week 27/2024

Good morning! It's Wednesday, which usually means linking up with Kat and the Unravelers, but as Kat is taking a little break from being online right now, there's no official link-up. I like a routine, though, so I'm doing my usual post.

I am, still, plying my three blue singles. I had hoped to finish up the second bobbin yesterday, but I had some actual work to do (boo). I'm hoping it'll get finished today so I can skein and get an estimate of my yardage; I don't want to start splitting up fiber for the contrast until I know if I have enough main color for the sweater I have in mind (Ravelry link), though I do have a plan, which I will share if the blues end up being enough.

I've been continuing to work on my test knit in the evenings while we continue our watch of Gilmore Girls (we are almost halfway through the second season). I'm just about finished with the bottom ruffle and should be able to wrap that up this evening.

I also cast on a new project about a week ago that I never shared with you. I like to have something plain to knit while I'm reading something for work (I concentrate better if I have something to do with my hands, but it has to be something I can knit without looking), so I decided to start a pair of socks for my father-in-law for the holidays. It's been a while since I last knit him socks -- years, in fact -- so he was due to get a pair. He's a pretty plain guy, so I pulled some pretty plain yarn out of deep stash.

Want to know how old this yarn is? This is Knit Picks Essential Tweed, a yarn that was discontinued/rebranded as Stroll back in 2009. I wasn't too into rainbow-y tweed back then, which means that I probably bought this on clearance to get to free shipping and that was probably when the yarn line was on its way out. Even if I bought it in 2009, that means this yarn is still likely older than Mo. I know some of you might have stash that's a lot older, but considering that I only started seriously knitting around 2004/2005, that's still pretty old for me.

I haven't done as much reading this past week -- well, at least I haven't done as much finishing this week -- and only finished one book.

I was in the mood for a fun audiobook over the weekend and borrowed Sex and Vanity from the library. This is a modern retelling of A Room with a View, with the added complexity of issues of race and money. I'd enjoyed Crazy Rich Asians, and this book is very much in the same vein: lots of people who are too rich trying to outdo each other. It got a little tiresome in this book, though I think that was kind of the point (at least for one character), and I got a little annoyed with the narrator, who didn't entirely succeed in all the accents she was trying to do. That said, it was good entertainment while I was out exercising and cleaning. I gave it 3 stars.

I'm still chipping away at A Suitable Boy, and earlier in the week I started an ARC that I was invited to read and review from NetGalley called Like Mother, Like Mother. I'm halfway through and should finish it up soon.

I'll leave you today with a little life hack. I'm a big fan of iced coffee in the summer -- it's a special treat on those days when I run in the heat and find myself very sleepy after lunch. But I don't drink it quickly and get annoyed when it gets watered down, so a couple of years ago, I started making ice cubes from coffee. We tend to have a little left in the pot most days (not enough for another cup), so I've been pouring that into a silicone tray that I bought for freezing homemade baby food back when Mo was a little one:

When all the spots are full and frozen, I'll pop them out and store them in a Ziplock. Easy peasy!

If you're celebrating the holiday tomorrow, I hope it's a good one!

Hello, Monday; Hello, July

I was not very excited for my alarm to go off this morning after a not-so-great night of sleep, but at least it's a short week. And while the heat and humidity are coming back midweek, right now it's 56ºF with a 50º dew point, which means I'm going to have a very comfortable run this morning!

We had a fairly low-key weekend, with the usual chores and errands but also a lot of relaxation time. I started out by finishing up both of the projects that were close to the end, starting with the second Bousta Beanie:

Somehow I used less yarn (about nine yards) on the second hat, despite knitting them exactly the same way. No matter -- I'm very happy with them both! Now they're ready for a bath and a block before they're added to the donation pile.

I also finished up the Benny singles Friday evening, so I was ready to start plying on Saturday:

After several plying sessions over both days, I had one bobbin finished yesterday:

I was concerned about having enough of this yarn for the main color of the sweater pattern I have in mind, but based upon how long it took to fill this first bobbin, I'm feeling more confident. I'll have to wait until I skein up the yarn to know for sure, of course, but there seems to be quite a lot of yardage there. I will continue to ply the rest today, as work allows.

I also started my test knit of the Little Plinth Tee over the weekend:

This is the peplum/ruffle along the bottom of the tee, and I actually think this part is going to be the slowest of the whole project because I have to count rows and work a set of short rows every 12 rows. But I've gotten into a groove now and no longer have to check the pattern as closely, so I don't think it will take me too long to get the rest of it done. Once I pick up for the body and start working in the round, I think it will be even faster. It would be great if I could get the whole thing done before Mo and I leave for our retreat next week, but we'll see. I'm focusing on this week first and will think about retreat knitting next week.

As I mentioned, it's a short week. Obviously we're off on Thursday for the holiday (I'm hoping for an early dismissal from work on Wednesday to kick it off), but I decided to take a vacation day on Friday as well, both because I needed to use up some time and because the Mister and I have a wedding to go to in the evening. I'm also going to try to donate blood again (this is attempt number 4 in the last month) on Friday afternoon; I'll share that saga if anyone is interested, but I'm hoping this is the end of it. In the meantime, I'm hoping it's a quiet week at work given the holiday. I hope it's a good week for you!