Unraveled, Week 49/2024

Oh dear, that number is getting awfully close to 52 and the end of the year! It's Wednesday again, so time to join Kat and the Unravelers. I'm sure not one of you will be surprised by what I'm working on at the moment:

If I'd used brown for the body, this would look like a potato.

Don't let appearances fool you; this gnome is not as close to being finished as he appears. But I am pretty confident that he will be finished up today or tomorrow at the latest. I finished up the body on Monday, including the wonky stuffing (but I think in a gnome, wonkiness adds personality). My big accomplishment yesterday was finishing a leg that ends in a tiny sock, and lest you think that's not a big deal, here's a close-up photo of it:

Including the color used for the leg, there are five color changes involved with this sock! I did make a minor modification to the gusset set up (yes, there is actually a heel flap and gusset!) so that I could avoid cutting my main sock color, but I still had nine ends to deal with in a sock that's only a few inches long. Fortunately, because the leg is sewn closed at the top when it's attached to the body, it's just fine to let those ends hang out on the inside. I secured them so the knitting would start to fall apart, but I didn't worry too much about weaving in my ends all that carefully. Once leg/sock number two is complete, all that will remain is knitting the beard and the nose and assembling everything.

This project has been taking up pretty much all my time, but I will pull out my sister-in-law's socks and start the much simpler gnome for my nephew once it's complete.

I did not get as much reading time in as I would have liked over the long weekend (frankly, I think I was so overwhelmed by all the peopling that my brain wasn't up for thinking much), but I have finished two books this past week.

Katie alerted me to the fact that the audiobook of Louise Erdrich's Antelope Woman (read by the author) is available on Hoopla, so I'd had it bookmarked until I had time to listen. First of all, listening to Louise (in my head, we're on a first-name basis) read her book is always a treat and is a rare occurrence. But this book also has an interesting history. It was first published in 1998 as The Antelope Wife, but she has since revisited and revised it, and the audio version just came out last year. I found it to be pretty typical Erdrich: It centers Indigenous characters and incorporates their legends and stories, and there's humor even when dealing with very sad and serious subjects. I have to admit that I had the problem with this book that I often do with audio: I missed bits here and there because my attention wandered, so there were several moments when I couldn't identify a character name or where I was confused about what was happening. But the writing is magical as always. I have a hard copy of the original book, so at some point I will get it out to see both what I missed and where it differs from the new version. I gave it 4 stars.

I have gotten better about not downloading the monthly Kindle freebie books (there have been only a few good ones over the years), but I still look at what's there, and when I saw Fredrik Backman's name last month, I didn't even really read the description. The Answer Is No is technically a short story and at only 60-some pages took me maybe an hour to read, but it was a fun little diversion. Lucas is a 30-something man who lives by himself, works from home, and orders his pad thai to be delivered to his door so he doesn't have to deal with other people. But then people start knocking on his apartment door, and soon he finds himself dealing with rather a lot of people. It's all rather ridiculous and not particularly realistic, but it has Backman's signature feel-good moments -- and did I mention it took only about an hour to read? I gave it 3 stars.

I am still reading Madness, taking my time both because I'm reading it before bed and because it deals with subjects worthy of thought and consideration, and yesterday I started Our Wives Under the Sea. The latter is a real departure from what I typically read given that it's classified as horror. I heard about it on a podcast and was intrigued enough to give it a try. I'm only a few chapters in, so there's nothing truly scary yet, but I continue to be intrigued. It's a short book, so I should be able to give a report next week.

What are you making and reading this week?

P.S. I'm headed to the orthopedist for my follow-up appointment tomorrow morning. Good thoughts are appreciated!