Unraveled, Week 51/2024

It's that time again -- time to join Kat and the Unravelers! And I've got another finished hat (though this one is so tiny, I'm not sure it really counts all that much).

I totally winged this little hat, casting on 72 on size 4/3.5 mm needles, working until the body of the hat measured 4 inches (with the brim rolled), decreasing to 8, and then working a three-dimensional leaf. I used a whopping 30 grams/69 yards of yarn. And with this project complete, I am officially done with holiday knitting for the year!

I've actually cast on for another hat, which I'm trying to finish before we leave on our trip (but it's okay if I don't). The pattern is Coronal, which has been in my library for a number of years and is designed by one of my fellow Giftalong mods. I'm using the leftovers from my youngest nephew's gnome, though as I sat down to cast on, I realized that one yarn is DK and one is worsted. They are close enough that it shouldn't make a big difference, and this one is going into the charity pile in any case, so if the sizing comes out a little weird, I won't have to worry about it not fitting a specific recipient.

There's not been a ton of time for reading in the past week, but I've finished one book.

I'm a big fan of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and have wanted to read more of her novels, so when I got an email from NetGalley inviting me to read her forthcoming novel Dream Count, I didn't hesitate. This is a novel about four women, all African and all connected. We open with Chia, who is our primary narrator, during the early days of COVID lockdown. She is living in Maryland but is originally from Nigeria and has traveled widely in her career as a freelance travel writer. Unable to go anywhere, she takes the time she must stay at home to reflect on her relationships and her regrets related to them. Then there's her friend Zikora, a successful lawyer who has wanted to get married and have children more than anything and who finds herself abandoned by the man she thought was her soulmate when she tells him she's pregnant. There's Omelogor, Chia's cousin, who has made a career working in Nigerian banking (and made a lot of money by being involved in money laundering), who is now trying to help other women succeed in business and fending off pushy relatives who pressure her to marry and have a family. And finally there's Kadiatou, who came to the United States with her daughter after being widowed and who brings the other three women together when she is sexually assaulted at her job as a hotel housekeeper. We get to spend time with all of these women and to experience their heartaches, their frustrations with racism and misogyny, and their hopes and dreams. Though they all have very different personalities, what they have in common is their strength and boldness -- these are no shrinking violets. I gave it 4 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book will be published March 4, 2025.

I am trying to finish up The Glorious Heresies before we leave so I don't have to schlep it with me; I've got about 100 pages left. I know my mother will have books for me to read there, plus I have a ton of books on my Kindle shelf and library holds. I am looking forward to lots of extra reading time!

Fifteen

Despite some seriously gross weather, I'm happy to report that Molly had a wonderful birthday!

I have to tell you that we did not plan to match -- I was trying to dress up my athletic pants a bit (they're really the only pants I can wear that fit in the boot, which I'm still wearing when we go out), and I only discovered she was wearing stripes shortly before we left to go to my parents' for brunch! I also can't get over how old and mature she is looking, especially when I see her next to me.

We had the whole family -- both sets of grandparents plus our siblings and their kids -- for brunch, and Molly was of course pretty well spoiled. We also got all the cousins together for a photo before the youngest ones had to go home for their nap:

I think it's pretty impressive that we got them all to sit, even if we didn't get everyone to smile and look at the camera!

Other than yesterday's celebration, it was a fairly quiet evening. Molly and her friend made holiday cookies and homemade pizza while we watched the Pitt women's volleyball team punch their ticket to the NCAA Final Four, and I did the usual cleaning and laundry. I also finished the last planned holiday knitting project! This is the hat for my oldest nephew, and in spite of my oversight in weighing my yarn before I started, the finished hat weighs 103 g and I still had 3 g leftover.

I say planned because yesterday I realized that I'd knit things for my brother, nephew, and sister-in-law but not my niece (not that I think she'd complain, mind you). But I felt like they all should have something handmade, so I started a quick hat for her that I can whip up this week. This is going to be a simple stockinette beanie with a rolled brim, and I'll add a leaf to the top. It might still be too big for her at the moment (it seems she has a smaller-than-average head), but if so it'll fit her eventually.

It's our last week before vacation, and of course it's going to be a busy one. Molly's holiday Glee Club concert at school is Tuesday evening, which the Mister will miss because it's the same night as his office holiday party. I'm expecting work to be busy. At some point we all have to pack, too -- which means I have to decide what knitting to take with me! I'm sure the next several days will fly by, so I'd better get started on my day.

Let's Wrap It Up

I am always happy to see Friday come, but this one is especially welcome. The Mister has been on two work trips this week, which means more school runs for me, and we've had frigid temperatures and some snow to boot. I do not like driving in winter conditions at the best of times, but it's even more scary when I have a not-fully-healed broken foot! Thankfully Molly's school isn't far and I don't have to worry about coming home and walking into the office after I drop her off.

The week's been fairly quiet as far as work is concerned, but my boss let me know yesterday that another magazine just arrived, so I imagine that it will take up all of my remaining work days until our winter break (don't you just love it when other people want to clear off their desks before a break and push all their work on you?). I'm sure she'll tell me that I don't have to get it all done before the break, but who wants to think about the work they still have to do the whole time they're on vacation? At least it will make the break feel even better, and as this week has given me lots of knitting and reading time, I can't complain too much.

Here's a very bad, very early morning photo of my nephew's hat as it is currently:

That marker in the middle was placed Wednesday evening, so you can see that in about 24 hours, I knit up about five or six inches. I weighed my remaining yarn last night before I put the project away and it's around 50 g, so I'm past the halfway mark. It would be great if I could wrap up this project by the end of the weekend, not least because we need to wrap all the holiday gifts for the niblings soon!

Today's to-do list includes baking challah, which I haven't done in a while. One loaf will come with us to dinner tonight and one will go in the freezer for a future dinner. My father and brother have a client holiday party to go to this evening, so the rest of us will be taking dinner over to my sister-in-law (much easier for her to deal with two small children at her own house!). This weekend we'll be celebrating Molly's 15th birthday (can you believe this tiny thing is going to be 15?!) with a family brunch on Sunday morning.

Have a wonderful weekend, and please take a moment to go congratulate Vera on the arrival of her granddaughter!

Unraveled, Week 50/2024

Week 50! The end of this year is getting awfully close! But Wednesday keeps coming around reliably every week, and this week, as always, I'm joining the fun with Kat and the Unravelers. This Wednesday, there's more gnome fun:

Pattern: Never Not Gnoming, largest size (Gnorbert), by Sarah Schira
Yarn: Fibernymph Dye Works Bona Fide in OOAK (blue) and Teddy Bear (brown) and Lion Brand Baby Soft in White
Needles: US 3 (3.25 mm) and US 4 (3.5 mm)
Started/Completed: December 6/December 10
Mods: omitted arms

This is the gnome I've been making for my youngest nephew, who's only 19 months old, so I've stuck with the very simplest pattern. I've also eliminated the skinny arms that are called for because I figured he'd just pull them off (his parents are frustrated with his current habit of yanking on and tearing book pages). I had a slight snafu with the needles, discovering only after I finished closing up the body that I was using a US 4 and not a US 2 as I thought (I was trying to knit at a dense gauge so the stuffing wouldn't show through), but I wasn't about to undo it all and start over. I think it's fine. Straightforward, simple, and (in true fashion for me) a little wonky. I just hope my nephew is still into gnomes when he opens this guy!

I've also made some progress on the hat for my oldest nephew, and now that I've moved into the long straight stockinette portion, this should fly.

Funnily enough, I made a snafu with this project as well. This is going to be a double-ended hat, and the idea is to use up as much of the yarn as possible, so I intended to weigh the yarn before and after I finished the crown so I'll know how much I'll need to leave to finish the other end. But guess who forgot to do that? Oops. I did weigh the yarn after I finished the increases and I still had 98 g (meaning my skein was likely more than 100 g to start), so I think I'll just go with about 10 g and hope for the best. Worst case, I can add some scraps if I run short.

I have finished two more books this past week, both good reads.

I had heard about Our Wives Under the Sea on a podcast, but it was one of those books where the person talking about it didn't want to say too much because it would give away a lot of the book. The basic premise is this: Miri is struggling because her wife, Leah, has recently returned home from a work trip in a research submarine that was meant to last three weeks and turned into five months, and Leah no longer seems like the Leah who left on the trip. In alternating chapters, Leah tells the story of what happened on the sub. This book is categorized as horror, which is not a genre I typically read; aside from a few icky body-related things that happen (and which aren't described in detail or at length), this didn't read like horror to me. Rather, there's a building tension as the reader learns more about what happened to Leah and begins to question things. It's intriguing and mysterious and in many ways ambiguous -- and it's very well written. I gave it 4 stars.

Madness: Race and Insanity in Jim Crow Asylum is the first book selected for a new community read effort in my area. I was already interested in reading before I heard about this program, and I was even more excited to get a free copy of it from my local bookstore! It's hard to say that I enjoyed this book, because it deals with some very difficult subjects, but I did find it to be very informative and enlightening. This book looks at the history of mental hospitals through the lens of Crownsville Hospital in Maryland, which was built specifically to house Black patients. The author looks at the history of the hospital and its residents to paint a picture of the impact of systemic racism and connection between mental health care and the criminal justice system. The online blurb about this book connects it to The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and I'd say that's a good one -- and there's even a direct connection between the two. I gave this book 4 stars; really what kept it from being a 5-star read for me was that I was unable to turn my internal editor off and was just bothered enough by what I felt was poor editing -- sentence fragments that didn't seem to be intentionally included for emphasis, improperly placed commas, etc. I would have made a lot of changes if I had edited this book! But most people likely won't notice this kind of stuff, and the content of the book certainly makes it worth reading.

I'm currently reading the last selection for the small group of us exploring past winners of the Women's Prize for Fiction, The Glorious Heresies, which frankly I'm having trouble getting into but that I am committed to finishing (and I see that Kym enjoyed it, so I'm optimistic!). I'm actually going to miss the Zoom discussion of this one because we'll be flying home from our trip, but seeing as I went to the trouble of buying the book, I might as well read it anyway! I'm also about a quarter of the way through an ARC of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's forthcoming novel, Dream Count.

A Rainy Start

It's a dark, wet Monday morning here. After a partially frigid weekend, we are due to hit the mid-50s today, but it's going to rain most of the day. We need the water, so I won't complain, but it'll be a dark day. Not great for taking blog photos!

We had a pretty relaxing weekend, and the big excitement for me was being able to do a Target run on Saturday now that I can drive. The funny thing about being out and about with the boot on is that you start seeing other people with the same predicament, and as we were walking into the store, we passed a man in the same boot, and we laughingly acknowledged each other. Molly's Glee Club performance went well that night, though we all were a bit frozen after. Yesterday was mostly about catching up on the to-do list: Molly spent much of the day doing homework, while I did laundry and finished up my sister-in-law's socks:

I used my SHaGS pattern (Ravelry link) for these and Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce in the colorway Wild Atlantic Wildflowers. I didn't bother to get the stripe sequence to match (just too long of a repeat for that), but I did cast on at the same transition point, where the gray in between changes over to one of the bright colors. As usual there was apparently just enough variation in my gauge that the toe of the second sock (right) didn't have the same blip of gray at the end that the first one did. I know for a fact that my sister-in-law will not care, so I'm not stressing about it.

I also cast on for the last two planned holiday gift knits over the weekend:

On the left is the gnome for my youngest nephew, which is being knit in DK, and on the right is a double-ended hat for my oldest nephew. Because of the weather, the colors are looking more drab than they are in reality (they're sitting on top of our duvet cover, which is gray and white, not brown and white). There's really not all that much knitting left on the gnome, and once I get past the increases on the hat, it'll be a ton of mindless stockinette, so I very well could have both projects wrapped up this week.

The Mister has a couple of quick work trips this week, and I'm trying to wrap up my last big project for the year. I'm also working on trying to get in my physical therapy exercises on my foot and getting it stronger before our trip, but it still feels very weird to walk around without the boot. Here's hoping it's not too stressful of a week for all of us!

A Mixed Bag

TGIF! It's been a long week, with the Mister on a work trip and wintry weather moving in. But at least we're now at the end of it.

I appreciated all the good thoughts for my visit with the orthopedist! The bad news is that I'm not done with the boot altogether. He said to keep wearing it for the next three weeks, especially when I'm out of the house -- BUT I am supposed to start walking around without it when I'm at home and I can take it off to sleep! And I can drive again! The timeline means that I'll still be wearing it for a bit when we go to Florida, but maybe they'll have some pity on me when we're boarding the plane and let me get on early. He gave me a bunch of exercises to do to, so I will be working those into my routine and trying to get around bootless as much as possible at home so that my foot gets stronger. While part of me is disappointed that I couldn't ditch the boot completely, I had a feeling it wasn't going to happen anyway, and now I officially don't have to worry about showing up at the office for the rest of the year.

In other good news, look what I finished on Wednesday night!

Pattern: Someone to Write Gnome About by Sarah Schira
Yarn: Fibernymph Dye Works Mountain Tweed BFL in Mid-Winter (hat and socks), Knit Picks Gloss Fingering in Dusk (body and legs), and handspun wool of mystery (nose, beard, and sock accents)
Needles: US 1/2.25 mm and US 1.5/2.5 mm
Started/Completed: November 24/December 3

I think I may have mentioned before that I really had no idea how big this guy was going to be, despite the fact that the dimensions are written right there on the first page of the pattern. (I fully admit that other than the needle sizes needed, I didn't really read the first page all that closely.) But I'm not sure this photo really gives you a good sense, so how's this for scale?

I know my brother will love him, so knitting him was worth it, but I doubt I will do it again. And I'm quite happy that I've chosen a much simpler pattern for my nephew. There is nothing wrong with the pattern -- Sarah writes excellent patterns with lots of great information about techniques! I just found it a bit too fiddly for my taste.

Now that the big guy is done, I'll be casting on soon for the one for my nephew, and I've pulled out my sister-in-law's socks. I've just started the heel on the second sock, and they're in stockinette, so I can easily work on them while reading, in a meeting, etc.

Tomorrow night Molly is performing with the school Glee Club at a local neighborhood's light-up night, and on Sunday evening we've been invited to dinner at the new house of some friends. Now that I can drive again, we girls might also get wild and crazy and do a Target run! Mostly I want to hide inside where it's warm and get used to not having a boot on. Stay warm out there, friends, and have a restful weekend!

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!