Unraveled, Week 8/2025

Happy hump day, friends! It's still quite frigid here -- it won't get above freezing until the weekend -- so I am making liberal use of all handknits. It's Wednesday, so that means it's time to join up with Kat and the Unravelers.

I've made a bit more progress on my vest since you last saw it, and it occurred to me that I could pin it out so you could see the shape a bit better (though you'll have to forgive this somewhat awkward angle):

I've completed the shoulders and am now working down the length of the armhole on the back. I'm alternating my two skeins every two rows and will switch to alternating every round once the front and back are joined for the body. I don't expect that much variation between the two skeins given how the yarn was spun (I had three batts that I spun onto their own bobbin and plied all three together), but it seems like the best way to manage the yarn. And I'm glad I decided to go with the handspun on its own, because that lace yarn would have obscured a lot of the flecks of color in it:

I'd encourage you to click on this to make the photo bigger.

I don't think I really knew exactly what the content of those batts was, but I know that there were bits of sari silk in all different colors, so there are bright pops here and there.

At the other end of the color spectrum are Molly's socks, which have seen a bit of attention this week because I've been editing an annual report and needed something in my hands that didn't also require my eyes to knit.

These are precisely the wrong colors to knit right now -- I'm so sick of the gray and drab of outside -- but the yarn was her choice and she so rarely asks me to knit her something that I couldn't turn her down.

Reading progress has slowed a bit, partly due to work and partly because I'm reading some longer books, but I did have one finish this past week.

Technically Permafrost isn't part of our Women in Translation study, but it was Eva Baltasar's debut novel, was translated by the same woman as Boulder, and includes a translator's note that I think we'll be discussing when we talk about the second book. This one similarly has an unnamed no-nonsense narrator who doesn't feel like she fits in in her family and often feels the need to uproot her life and move somewhere new. Amidst all of this, she is constantly thinking about suicide and how to do it, but the way she thinks about it is, ironically, a bit humorous. It takes a twist of fate toward the end of the book (which I won't spoil) to give her a sense of purpose and place in life. My one complaint is that there is some jumping back and forth in time but without any real indication of when the story is other than context. I gave it 4 stars.

I am currently reading South to America on Kindle and have started my reread of The Secret History on paper for the next Read With Us discussion. I also had a minor library victory yesterday: I got a notification from Libby that my library had acquired the audio of Blue Light Hours (gotta love the "Notify Me" tag!), and though it took me a few minutes before I could open the app, there was a copy available! It's only four hours long, so it should be an easy listen.

What are you making and reading this week?