Unraveled, Week 55/2024

Wednesday again, already? Time to join Kat and the Unravelers!

I join you this week halfway through my stay on Sleeve Island:

I did not particularly enjoy the part of my stay that involved colorwork done using magic loop with 32 inch needles, but those were the only ones I had in the correct diameter so I made the best of a less-than-ideal situation. I also ended up cutting the colorwork short because I wanted the sleeves to coordinate with the body. The pattern called for corrugated ribbing and applied I-cord on the sleeves, but I opted for 1x1 rib in the main color. I have no idea why the sleeve cuffs and the bottom of the body would be different, but the nice thing about making your own garments is that you get to be the boss of your knitting. In picking up for the second sleeve, I also discovered where I went wrong with the stitch count in the first one: I apparently did not do a very good job at reading the pick-up instructions and thus had two fewer stitches than I should have from the very beginning. But because I'm not about to rip back the first sleeve, I'm replicating that mistake in the second sleeve, and as it's just a matter of doing one less set of decreases, it's really not a big deal. The sleeve is roomy enough for me without those two extra stitches.

I've done a fair amount of spinning the past couple of days and am nearly 3/4 of the way through my first bobbin of singles:

While I don't want to spoil anyone's enjoyment of the colors, I will say that they do flow very nicely from one day to the next. I am spinning the entire set as a two-ply fractal, so for this first bobbin, I am spinning half of each portion of fiber in order. For the second bobbin, I'll split the fiber in half again and go through the whole sequence twice. (To simplify that, imagine I had only two colors, A and B. One ply would be spun AB, while the other would be spun ABAB.) As I was watching the colors progress from one day to the next, I briefly pondered spinning the second bobbin to match the first, but I think a fractal will be much more exciting.

With all the anxiety of the election making it hard for me to concentrate plus a lot of work last week, I haven't finished a single book! I am getting closer on finishing the two I'm in the middle of, though. I was delighted to watch the awarding of the 2024 Booker Prize yesterday to my pick from the shortlist, Orbital. If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend it! It's a short book, only about 200 pages, but it packs a real punch.

We're also officially on baby watch here! My sister-in-law is going to be induced, though we don't know exactly when -- she's only been told that she'll get a call "sometime on Thursday" with a two-hour window in which to report to the hospital. That means anytime from midnight to 11:59 p.m. tomorrow. I had no idea that scheduling an induction was like scheduling a repair person to come to your house! Of course, once she's induced, we have no idea how long the process will take. My parents will be watching my nephew while all this is happening, and so the plans for the end of the week/weekend are all up in the air. Perhaps by Friday I'll have news to share!