Unraveled, Week 42/2025

Good morning! It's Wednesday again, and although Kat is away this week and there's no formal link-up, I like sticking to a schedule.

Here is where my WIPs stand:

As of Tuesday afternoon, when I took this photo, I had one repeat of Chart B left on my shawl (each pattern repeat is three repeats of the chart). By the time you're reading this, I'm hoping to be further along and may well have finished, but the rows are so long by now that I'm counting on needing another day to get through those last dozen of them. And then, of course, I'll have to weave in ends and block. I'm fairly certain that I will have an FO to share by the end of the week, however, and that will mean I can also turn my attention back to the socks for my sister-in-law. I've been ignoring them for the past several days while I focused my attention on the shawl, but I'm nearly ready to start the heel flap on the second sock and don't expect to need much more time to finish up the pair.

Reading this week has a study in extremes -- two very short audiobooks and one long digital book.

Coming from the Booker Prize longlist was Universality, a very short novel (I listened to all of it in less than 24 hours) that packs a punch. Like the author's first novel, I suspect this is one I'm going to need to reread with my eyes because so much went by so fast in the audio. This starts out with article written about an event at a farm owned by a banker during COVID lockdown in which a member of an anarchist group is seriously injured with a gold bar. But is that really what happened? The story is reexamined through the point of view of various people involved directly or indirectly in the incident, and these alternate points of view show just how much power can be held in the written word. There's also a lot here that probably went over my head because it's focused on the UK and British views on race, class, money, etc. As with the earlier book, I was impressed by how much heavy stuff could be crammed into such a brief novel without having the feeling of being overwhelmed. I gave it 4 stars.

My next finish was one I'd been waiting for from the library for a while, and it was worth the wait (and the time it took to read when work kept getting in the way). Katabasis is the third R.F. Kuang novel I've read and my favorite so far. As was the case in Babel, there's a strong element of magic in this one, principally that it's a field of serious study ("Magick") and the scholarly focus of the main character, Alice Law, who determines that, following the death of her Cambridge advisor, she must go to Hell to find him and find some way of bringing him back to life, if only so that she can achieve her goal of having a career in academia. She is horrified to discover that her fellow advisee, Peter Murdoch, has done the same thing, and now both of them have to navigate the courts of Hell to find their advisor. In the process, they discover much more about themselves. I love that Kuang, in her typical genius way of skewering a particular segment of society, make Hell resemble a college campus, turning this into a truly funny work of satire of academia. But it's also clear how smart she is in how much actual knowledge of math, philosophy, physics, religion, language, and classics she weaves throughout the narrative; frankly, sometimes I didn't feel smart enough to understand the book! It's funny at times, sad at times, and at times goes on a little too long, but I really enjoyed it and felt it had an especially satisfying ending. I gave it 4.5 stars.

I really enjoyed Sarah Moss's memoir earlier this year but had only previously read one of her novels, so this past weekend I listened to another. Ghost Wall follows 16-year-old Silvie, who is on holiday with parents in the north of England joining an experiential archaeology course. Silvie's father, a bus driver, is obsessed with England's ancient history and insists that she and her mother be as authentic as possible in this experience, which means eating only what they can hunt or gather and wearing clothing that people then would have worn. He is also harsh and demanding and physically punishes both women when he feels they've disobeyed him or embarrassed him. Silvie longs to escape her stifling home and gets a taste of what life might be like as a university student from her interactions with the students on the course, but it's made clear to her again and again that she is still under her father's control. It all comes to a head when her father and the course professor decide to reenact a human sacrifice. Will Silvie be a willing participant, and how far will her father go? It's a very well-written book that captures some very strong emotions in few pages (or, in my case, few hours of listening time). I gave it 4 stars.

I'm currently reading three books: on paper, Celestial Bodies, for our Women in Translation study; digitally, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny; and on audio, Is a River Alive? (which just mentioned the term "katabasis" -- don't you just love it when there are connections like that in your reading?!).

October Weekending

Don't weekends always go by too quickly? This one certainly did. I have to work today, but somehow it feels like partly a vacation day because Molly is off from school (in-service day), so I don't have to do the school pickup run, and it isn't a day I have to go into the office, so I'll take it.

Molly had a great time at her dance on Saturday, though she complained about her feet killing her yesterday. She gave me permission to share this photo, which we took when we dropped her off at the park across the street from her school (it's rather picturesque, as you can see, so her group of friends was meeting up there first to take photos).

The photo doesn't really show how pretty her dress was -- it had sequins and purple fabric flowers on it. She and one of her friends got ready beforehand and made their own bouquets.

We also had a nice visit with my aunt and uncle last night, though the scene was quite chaotic with two dogs, two little kids, and two "new" adults. Ruthie was a bit overcome and pooped in the house again (I think she was just overly worked up), so she had to be put on her leash and kept close to me while we ate. Next time, we'll leave her at home. The important thing was that we were able to be together, and my aunt was touched by our cards and presents. And there was cake!

I made a point to focus on my shawl this weekend because I'd really like to get it done, and I'm just about through the last repeat specified in the pattern. It's gotten bigger -- too big, in fact, to fit on my 40 inch circular needle without being bunched up.

I'm going to do at least one more repeat, but the ball of the darker color is dwindling, so I may not be able to do more than that. We'll see!

This week I'm hoping for a typical week without too much undue stress -- and I'm hoping my new reading glasses will arrive this week! Hope your Monday isn't too harsh. Be sure to treat yourself to a little something special if you need it.

Joy Bits

Today I'm taking inspiration from Juliann and sharing some things that have brought me joy this week.

The Weather
After more dry days and a good stretch with highs in the 80s, we finally got rain again on Tuesday. It never rained very hard for long but rather was a gentle on-and-off rain all day that was slow enough to actually absorb into the ground. We actually have a little green grass on our lawn! Sadly at least half of it is dead, so we'll do some reseeding and fertilizing this fall.

The rain also brought with it a cold front, and it was a brisk 41ºF when I took Ruthie out first thing yesterday. We are under a frost warning (or advisory? something) this morning, so I'll be getting out the wool socks and maybe even a sweater later.

New Shoes
I have been wearing Dansko clogs for more than two decades, since I first discovered them when I was in grad school and was spending a lot of the day on my feet when I was student teaching. These days, they're the fastest thing for me to put on when Ruthie needs to go out. It's been years since I bought a pair, so when I happened across a thread on Ravelry about there being a new knit print, I decided to treat myself.

Should you need your own pair, you can find them here.

They were pricey (the cost has gone up $40-50 since I last bought a pair), but I know that they last for years and they're good for my feet and knees.

Weekend Plans
Tonight, we're going out to dinner with my in-laws. Tomorrow is Molly's homecoming dance (she's just going with friends, no date), which means that the Mister and I can have a date night. And on Sunday, my aunt and uncle from Michigan are coming to visit on their way down to Florida for the season, and we're having a big family dinner because Monday is my aunt's 80th birthday. This is the aunt who taught me to knit and likely is responsible for my love of reading because she sent me and my brother a book every week when we were little kids. There will be lots of good food and good company!

Finally, this sweet girl has been challenging this week, but she always brings me joy:

No, mom. I'm not ready to go to bed yet.

Have a great weekend, friends, and be sure to look for joy!

Unraveled, Week 41/2025

I can tell that it's going to be another long week because I woke up yesterday thinking it was Wednesday and it was only Tuesday. But I've checked and today is actually Wednesday, which means it's time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers.

I haven't made much progress on my knitting projects this week, mostly because I've been busy with work, but I also opted to spin and read one evening. Still, here is your weekly update photo of my shawl:

And I've added a little to my sister-in-law's socks, or rather the second sock of the pair:

Reading has been a little better, thanks to shorter books. I've finished three this week.

One of the nice benefits of being a member of NetGalley (other than, of course, getting to read books before they're published) is that sometimes publishers will reach out to you and ask you to read one of their books that they think you'll like. That happened to me recently with This Is Not About Us. I'd so enjoyed Allegra Goodman's Isola that I was interested to read more of her work, plus the description of the book made it sound right up my alley. This book is labeled "fiction" rather than a novel, and that's because while it's not quite interconnected short stories, it feels like a series of vignettes that are all connected. The story begins with three sisters, the youngest of whom is dying. In the wake of her death, there is an incident involving a homemade apple cake that causes a rift to form between the two surviving sisters. The rest of the book takes the reader through the repercussions of this estrangement as it has an impact on the other members of the family, who are at all different stages of life. There are births, bat mitzvahs, midlife crises, and divorces. There are holidays and normal days. But family is what ties all these stories together. The characters feel real and the situations relatable, though perhaps that's largely because the experiences of this Jewish family felt so familiar to me. It's never happened in my family, but I could easily imagine an estrangement happening because of food! I really enjoyed my time with this family and gave it 4 stars. Thank you to Random House/The Dial Press and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published February 10, 2026.

When I was ready for an audiobook over the weekend, I went back to my Hoopla bookmarks and decided to listen to another Kevin Wilson. Now Is Not the Time to Panic is set in a small town in Tennessee in the mid-90s. Sixteen-year-old Frankie feels like she doesn't fit in until she meets Zeke and the two of them decide to create a mysterious work of art with a strange saying and post it all over town. Before it became a thing on the Internet, their poster goes viral, leading to unforeseen and even tragic results. Twenty years later, Frankie finds that her role in the panic has been uncovered and has to face the fact that a long-kept secret will be revealed. While this book wasn't as outrageous as Nothing to See Here, it is a bit of leap to accept that photocopies of a poster could lead to full-on satanic panic. Still, it raises some interesting questions about art and ownership, and it certainly gives a very realistic portrait of the discomfort of adolescence. I gave it 3 stars.

Finally, I revisited a book I read quite a long time ago. I first read Mrs. Dalloway in my senior year of high school for my AP British literature class -- in fact, for this reread, I pulled out the very same copy I used in class (and inside was a bookmark on which a classmate and I had exchanged notes about our college decisions). I didn't remember much of it, but I think I probably made more sense of it then, when it was discussed and analyzed as we read. The brilliance of the stream-of-consciousness narrative is still there, but I think the fact that I read this at night right before going to sleep took away from my enjoyment of it. I would like to read/reread more Virginia Woolf, and this seemed like a logical place to start, but I think my expectations of her were higher than the actual reading of it. I gave it 3 stars.

I am currently trying to get through Katabasis as fast as I can (does anyone else feel immense pressure when they have a library book with a long wait?) and have just started Celestial Bodies for the women in translation book group Mary is leading.

What are you making and reading?

A Fall(ish) Weekend

As per usual, the weekend went by too quickly and it is Monday again. At least I can say that though it was fast, it was a beautiful, warm weekend -- it did not much feel like October! We had sunshine, blue skies, and highs in the low 80s both days.

I was successful at donating blood on Friday, and I'm eligible again at the end of November, so as long as I can find a drive nearby during the three-week stretch between then and when we leave for Florida and my hemoglobin is okay, I will hit the magic six donations for the year. (Worst case, I'll bet I could find a drive in Florida, but it would be good to be done before we're on vacation.)

We did end up going to see the Downton Abbey movie on Friday night, thanks in large part to the Mister volunteering to take Ruthie out for her last walk of the night, and it was delightful. Did we really need a third movie? Probably not, but it was nice to spend two more hours in that world. I also made sure that I was through the gusset decreases on my sock WIP before the movie started so that I could work on the straightaway of the foot in the dark. That good dedicated knitting time, plus Ruthie's naps and the drive to and from the farm on Sunday, enabled me to finish up the first sock and get a good start on the second.

It does help that these are for the adult family member with the smallest feet (my sister-in-law whose feet are only 9 inches long)! Both skeins of yarn I had were in the same point in the stripe sequence, more or less, so naturally I'm making the two socks match.

The farm/pumpkin patch/orchard was fun, mostly to see my nephew and niece enjoying it. We came home with apple cider donuts and apple butter; Molly is past the age of being excited by carving pumpkins, so we passed on those. We did take part in taking goofy family photos, though:

The week ahead is likely to be long. I've got a big, high-profile project on my desk, which means little reading time for me other than before bed. But we're also supposed to have more fall-like temperatures (and even a little rain), so I might get to break out my wool handknits this week!

That's a Wrap

Even though it messes with my schedule when the High Holidays fall in the middle of the week, it is nice to take a day off from work and only have to come back for Friday. So today it's a wrap on the work week and on the big holidays. I'm still recovering from fasting yesterday (not eating isn't so hard, but not drinking is a challenge when I'm used to having my big bottle of water next to me). Fortunately we had a beautiful day with warm sunshine, and after services Ruthie and I took a long walk and then curled up on the couch for a few hours until it was time for break fast.

Not a whole lot of knitting has gotten done in the past couple of days (for obvious reasons), but while Ruthie snoozed yesterday, I finished reading a book and got through the heel turn on this sock:

Molly, my mother, and I might go to see the Downton Abbey movie tonight, so today's goal is to get through the gusset decreases so I have movie theater-appropriate knitting.

It looks like the weekend is going to be beautiful and warm, and we've got a trip to the orchard/pumpkin patch planned with my brother's family for Sunday morning. Saturday Molly is going to see the Taylor Swift album launch movie with a couple of friends, and the Mister is taking her to the theater and waiting there to bring her home -- and because it's right next door, he also offered to do a Costco run for me (who says the romance is dead after 18 years?). That means I'll pretty much have Saturday to myself, which works out just fine because I am scheduled to donate blood this afternoon. If I'm successful, that'll be my fifth donation for the year and will have time for one more to make it to the maximum of six, which was a big goal for me this year.

Although we're still having summery weather, I took a peek at next week's forecast and it looks like sweater weather is on the way, with highs only in the 60s. I can't wait to wear some wool!

I hope you've got something fun planned for the first weekend of October, and I'll leave you with this photo because this week's posts have not featured any Ruthie yet:

Life is exhausting and there's a lot of bad news out there, so try to find your inner puppy (or kitten, if you prefer) and forget your troubles while you take a rejuvenating nap.

Unraveled, Week 40/2025

Hello, friends, and happy Wednesday! And happy October! Even though it's the middle of the week, I feel like it's been forever since I did a catch-up post because of Monday's OLW post. So I've got a lot for you in today's Unraveled post, and as usual I'm linking up with Kat and the other Unravelers.

For starters, how about a pair of finished socks?

I used my SHaGS pattern (Ravelry link) and 95 g of a skein of Woolens and Nosh Targhee fingering, one of two that came home with me from SSK this year. The colorway name is Penwings, which is a strange name, so I did some digging and it turns out that it has to do with Benedict Cumberbatch and his apparent difficulty with pronouncing the word "penguins" (thank you to Bonny for directing me to this video that explains it all). I used my usual US 0/2.0 mm needles for these, magic loop, and I'm quite pleased with myself for getting them to match pretty much perfectly:

I'm typically pretty successful in getting striped socks to match through the leg, but sometimes something goes off kilter in the heel and the toes end up being slightly mismatched. Not so with this pair (though it may appear that way just because of how they're stacked in the photo). I also grafted the toe of the second sock in a moving vehicle, so I think I earned some sort of knitter's merit badge with these? We're supposed to have some cooler weather for a couple of days, so perhaps these will get their inaugural wearing.

As for WIPs, here's where things stand:

I have a third of the current repeat and two more full repeats on my shawl remaining in the pattern as written, but it's looking like I will have enough yarn to knit some more. I also discovered four more balls of Felici in my stash, despite thinking I had used up the last of it earlier this year, so they are becoming socks for my sisters-in-law for Christmas. I've already started on the first of these.

On to reading! Last week was kind of chaotic, with not as much downtime, but that's life. I've finished two books since this time last week:

Flashlight is on both the longlist for the National Book Award (fiction) and the shortlist for this year's Booker Prize, and it was highly praised by some readers I admire, so I'd been waiting rather impatiently for my hold to come up from the library. It turns out to have been well worth the wait. This is a family drama at its core. At the outset, we learn that Louisa and her father have gone for a walk on the beach; he is carrying a flashlight and cannot swim. Later, Louisa is found alone, her father presumably having drowned. But then we go back in time and learn about her father's life, from his time growing up in Japan as the son of Korean immigrants to his emigration to the United States to his disappearance in the sea, and we go forward with Louise and her mother, Anne, as they navigate their new reality and their difficult relationship. This is a big book, with a twist I did not expect, and writing that requires one to read slowly. I loved it -- 5 stars.

The Listeners is a work of historical fiction set in West Virginia in the early days of the United States' involvement in WWII. It takes place in a fictional luxury hotel called the Avallon but has its basis in reality: When the United States declared war on Germany and Japan, and its citizens were detained in those countries, the government decided to sequester diplomats and their families from those hostile countries in resort hotels. At the Avallon, June Hudson is the general manager, trained for the role by the recently deceased patriarch of the family who owns it, and she must walk the fine line between maintaining the high level of service the hotel prides itself on and cooperating with the state department and FBI officials who are overseeing the unusual guests. There is also a special relationship between June and the "sweetwater" the hotel is known for, water that is reputed to have therapeutic powers and that somehow enables the hotel to be a success but also is somehow influenced by the events that take place in the hotel and the emotions of those involved. I thought this was a really interesting read in the sense that I learned about an aspect of WWII that was previously unknown to me, but I was also frustrated by how much was left unexplained or skipped over. I gave it 3.5 stars.

As I should have expected, I've gotten a bit overwhelmed by my library holds right at a time when work is going to get busy, so I've had to suspend some holds for a bit while I get a handle on things, particularly as I also have a couple of ARCs on my Kindle shelf. I'm still trying to get through Mrs. Dalloway, though I haven't read more than half a page or so in the past week. Perhaps this weekend there will be more reading time.

Also, by way of a life update, I took a sick day on Monday (which ended up being a good thing, as I really needed to recover from both the race and my COVID shot) primarily because I was going to the eye doctor for a much-needed checkup, and I'm here to report that I am officially middle-aged because I came home with a prescription for reading glasses!