Unraveled Wednesday: Closing In on the Cover-all

It seems it's becoming a new tradition for me to blog on Wednesdays now, joining up with Kat and friends, and as my reading pace is showing no signs of slowing, I am here for it! Earlier in the week I officially hit my Goodreads Reading Challenge goal for the year, more than four months early, so that should give you some idea of just how much reading I've been doing.

Here's what I've finished since last week:

 

I heard about The Things We Cannot Say from Katie, who raved about it and who, like me, is a fan of the WWII novel. I had a fairly long wait for it from the library, but given how much is available to read, I didn't get too impatient waiting for it. When I did finally get it, I ended up plowing through it in a couple of days. I had some issues with it (which I detailed in my review), but overall I really enjoyed it. It was definitely a page-turner. I really enjoyed having two connected, parallel stories to follow -- one looking back at WWII, one in present day, and I appreciated (and I hope this isn't considered a spoiler) that the stories came together in a satisfying ending. I gave it 4 stars.

I'd been meaning to read Grit for several years, in part because I've "known" Angela Duckworth for many years -- when I was in college and she was in graduate school, we took a seminar together. We weren't exactly personally acquainted, but I was impressed by her at the time, and since then I've followed her accomplishments. And though I didn't take my psychology degree any farther than my college graduation, I'm still interested in the field and wanted to learn more about her research. I listened to the audiobook of this while I was out running, expecting it to be a little dry (as many academic books are), but I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. At one point I even laughed out loud at her comments about Marty Seligman, who taught that seminar we took together. This is a book I expect I will buy a hard copy of and reread at some point -- it's great! I gave it 5 stars.

 
I had another long wait from the library for the ninth Inspector Gamache book, How the Light Gets In, but my goodness, it was so worth it! This was my favorite book in the series yet. Those of you who have read the books will likely understand why I felt so unsettled at the end of the previous book, and this one resolved all of those feelings and then some. I sensed a bit of a departure in this installment, in that the murder investigation seemed secondary to the plot. Instead, the main focus is on the key characters and their relationships. And I loved that, because as much as I enjoy the process of solving the mysteries in these books, what I love about them are the characters and how they related to each other. I gave this a very enthusiastic 5 stars.

I know a number of you have read Brown Girl Dreaming already, because one or more of you put it on my radar. I picked it for the "Author of Color" square on my bingo card and chose to borrow the audiobook from the library because, in my opinion, the best way to experience poetry is by hearing it read -- and as the author reads the work herself, it's even better. This is a really imaginative way of writing a memoir, if you ask me, and how Woodson structured her narrative reminded me a lot of how I think of my childhood: not as a continuous narrative but as snapshots in the form of individual memories. It was wonderful to listen to, and I have even more insight into Woodson and how she became a writer now. I gave it 4 stars.

There There was a book that was on my radar because it was much talked about, but I didn't really know much about it when I bought a hard copy earlier this year as a way to support Rainbow's school through their book fair (which likewise supported a local independent book store). The book fair happened after lockdown had started, and so book selections were put online. This was one of the adult selections. It'd been sitting on my nightstand ever since, and I picked it up last week when I realized it would be perfect for the "Told from more than two points of view" square on my bingo card. I wasn't too impressed with it at first, and it takes a while to keep all the characters straight, but it's a slow burn that's well worth sticking around for. At less than 300 pages, it's a pretty quick read, too, and it builds to an exciting finish. I gave it 4 stars.

Let's take a look at my bingo card (my second card, that is), which is getting pretty close to being covered!

I'm currently reading two books, Ordinary Grace (on the Kindle app) and Stamped from the Beginning (in hard copy). I'm already a bit more than halfway through the former and may even finish it today, but the latter is a bit of a tome and, I expect, will be the book I'm rushing to try to finish to complete my square.

I'd love to hear what you've been reading and enjoying, and if you have any suggestions for my unfilled bingo squares, I'm happy to hear them!

One final note before I sign off for the day: I wanted to mention that while I really appreciate all the comments I receive on the blog and love interacting with you, to this point I've been responding only via email to those of you whose email address I have (either because you have a Blogger account that is linked to your comment or because I've emailed with you before). I've noticed recently that a number of other bloggers have been replying to others' comments by replying in the comments, and this surprised me a bit because I've never thought to go back to posts I've commented on to see if I have a reply. What are your thoughts on this? If I can't reply to you via email, do you come back after you comment to see if I've replied to your comment (and if you do, would you prefer that I reply to you that way)? Please let me know -- I don't want anyone to feel that I'm ignoring them!

My Mission: Do Not Unravel

I have a history of depression and anxiety, and giving my natural tendencies, the current state of the world would normally be something that would push me over the edge. I am really thankful right now that I have coping strategies I've learned from therapy and that I've been taking medication to help take the edge off. Even so, I'm sure that I'm not alone in feeling more anxious and sad than usual. I know that if I don't take an active role in combating those feelings that they will overtake me, and that's not an option right now. So I am choosing to focus on taking steps to ensure that I stay healthy -- both physically and mentally -- and to focus on the good things that are still there.

In yesterday's post, I talked about things that are bringing me joy. Even though I've found it something of a challenge to knit, my stash still brings me a lot of joy, and I've had a little bit of enhancement over the past week that's been extra joyful.

As you can see, these are all from Fibernymph Dye Works, which I suspect will surprise exactly none of you. Lisa is a dear friend who happens to dye yarn that I love working with, so I am always happy to buy yarn from her (not least because she lives close enough to me that shipments from her generally make it to me in one day). I actually only purchased one of these skeins, the one on the far left, which arrived yesterday and is her special ninth anniversary colorway. The other two skeins were prizes from last year's Monthly Makes programs.

Reading is generally a good way for me to get out of my head, and though it's been harder to focus on what I'm reading lately, I'm still managing a little. I finished the next Read with Us book, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, on Monday. I didn't really love it and in fact found it rather sad, but perhaps I'll appreciate it more once we start discussing it as a group. I turned next to something comforting, inspired by Katie, and decided to listen to the audiobook of Anne of Green Gables. I've read it before, of course, but it's been a while, and as last week I binged my way through the newest season of Anne with an E on Netflix, I've been wanting to escape to Anne's world again. It's been an absolute delight. Last night I also started one of the freebies I had in my Kindle library because I wanted to read something for a few minutes before bed, so I picked In an Instant at random. I've only read one chapter so far but it seems like it's only going to be so-so.

Exercise is always a good idea (gotta love those endorphins!), and it actually feels a bit like a treat now that it's one of the few reasons why we can legitimately leave the house. I've been trying to take a long walk every day, at least when the weather permits, but yesterday I realized that it was going to be the first day of April today, and April is typically when I start running again -- and then I had a somewhat crazy thought. I have no desire to run an entire marathon, and the Pittsburgh Marathon has already been canceled for this year in any case, but a fun challenge to myself might be to run enough miles to add up to the equivalent of a marathon by the time the Pittsburgh Marathon would have been held (that's Sunday, May 3). So today I slept in a bit and skipped my morning shower, and later today I'll be heading out for my first run of the season. I'm putting this out there publicly so I can be held accountable to more than just myself!

Finally, one additional strategy to ward off the feelings of helplessness that so often accompany depression and anxiety is to do something useful and productive. I love to bake and have often wanted to learn to bake bread, but yeast has been sold out at the supermarket. So what's an aspiring baker to do? Start a sourdough starter! I started the process on Monday and wasn't feeling too optimistic, but this is what I discovered when I went downstairs this morning:

Houston, we have fermentation! Clearly this jar was not big enough, so my starter has been transferred to another container. I've still got several days until I'm ready to make bread, but I'm happy to see that things are moving in the right direction.

On Keeping Calm and Carrying On

I'm now into my second week of working from home full time and have somewhat settled into the new schedule. Because I no longer have to get up and get everyone out the door on time and walk to my office, I've been able to sleep in a bit (only an extra half hour, but it makes a difference). My morning routine isn't so rushed because I'm no longer bothering to put on makeup (my family knows what I look like without it, so I'm saving it). I can linger over my email and blogs and drink all my coffee at a leisurely pace. And then I go back up to my bed room to sit in my comfy chair and log in to work.

The lack of the normal frenetic pace in the morning is helping to keep me calm, as is staying mostly away from the news during the day (I'll still peek at Twitter a few times during the day, but I usually wait until the evening news to see what's happened because it's rarely anything good). And I'm doing as much crafting as I can whenever I can -- I suppose that's one major benefit to working at home, because during my down time I no longer have to look busy. Yesterday after I finished up what I needed to do, I read a book and worked on a sock for Rainbow:

As you can see, I'm now past the heel, for which I used some of the coordinating mini skein that came with the self-striping yarn to do a garter stitch Fish Lips Kiss Heel. The heel itself is a little shorter/shallower than the usual stockinette heel, but it's nice and squishy and I've also made the sock a bit bigger than Rainbow's foot on purpose so that she won't outgrow it right away. She mostly wears her hand-knit socks around the house and to bed anyway, so I'm not concerned about this not fitting in a shoe.

Today featured two other crafts. First, this morning, I did some spinning. Then, during a large conference call this afternoon, I pulled out my granny square blanket, which is frankly starting to get a bit unwieldy.

I've found that I've been reaching for this project quite a lot, probably because it's very soothing and easy to work on. I have officially finished up the last of my holiday mini skeins and have started adding in the remaining sock leftovers I had in my project bag. I also have a small number of minis in a separate bag that I can add in when I get through all the leftovers if I want the blanket to be bigger. I honestly thought this blanket would be in progress throughout the year, but if I continue at this rate, it might be done in another week or two!

The yarn that you saw me unraveling over the weekend has now been washed and caked up, ready to be knit:

The colors are terribly off in this photo, but at least you can see that I have a decent amount -- in fact, not including the half skein leftover from Rainbow's mittens, I have about 1,160 yards salvaged from the sweater, so I'd say probably enough to make about 10 pairs of mittens. I keep thinking about how great it would be to come out of this pandemic (because, let's be honest, we could be at home a while) with a bunch of warm things to donate come next winter.

It's making me feel better to think about helping others, and having something like this to contemplate and plan for gives me a little sense of control. I'd say feeling like there's nothing I can do to stop or help with the crises is what's most stressing me at the moment (well, that and not being able to see my family in person). As of 8 p.m. last night, my county is officially under a stay at home order, so at least I know everyone else is stuck, too! I will say this for these extraordinary times: Thanks to the current situation, I was able to have a virtual meet-up of my old knitting group last night, something we haven't managed in person in many years!

So how are you doing? Are you finding comfort in yarn? Do you miss going to places? I hope we can continue to support each other for as long as this crisis lasts.

Making Yarn Two Ways

Spinning continues, and I'm now probably a bit more than halfway done with my singles because I am on the third of four balls of fiber:

I spun quite a bit yesterday while watching video podcasts and during a virtual knitting group that Mary hosted this afternoon. If the pace continues, I expect to be plying by next weekend.

Meanwhile, I made yarn a slightly different way this morning. After doing a lot of snipping and unweaving of ends last night, this morning I was able to unravel my sweater.

I wasn't able to salvage all the yarn and in fact lost quite a bit due to some haphazard snipping last night, but I did end up with a decent pile of yarn ramen:

All this yarn has now been washed and is hanging to dry, and once it's dry I'll wind it into cakes and weigh it to see how much I have to work with. Seeing as we may end up being home for a while, I figure I can at least use some of that time to make some charity items, and this pile is all destined to become felted mittens (though I'm planning to keep one pair for myself).

This weekend seemed a little less surreal than last, though I still only left my house to take a long walk each day -- thankfully the sun was out both days though it's been a little chilly. Rainbow and I had our Hebrew class via Zoom this morning and then she had Sunday School, and the Mister went out to brave the supermarket. We're well stocked with food and have a lot of flour, butter, and eggs (but they were out of yeast; I thought I might try making challah for this coming Friday night), so it appears that I might have to try my hand at making pastry. Somehow I don't think that's entirely a bad thing! I'm really trying to focus on the good things, even if they seem inconsequential, like how neatly I managed to fold the sheets this morning and how lovely the sunshine feels on my face. Then I saw this hanging from a tree in front of one of the houses in our neighborhood on my walk this afternoon and nearly lost it:

Be kind to each other, friends. I think it's the only way we're all going to get through this.

What to Do While the World Unravels; Or, a Few Good Things

Hello, friends. I figured since I'm home for the foreseeable future, I can probably get some extra posts up, so today I'm joining Kat and friends to discuss some knitting, some reading, and some happy things in this time of so much trouble and sadness.

First, I can't believe I forgot to mention it yesterday, but I started out my week with a very good thing: I got my braces off first thing Monday morning! My orthodontist's office had called me on Sunday to see if I'd be willing to reschedule. I'll admit I was a bit selfish and asked if I could still come in, and they told me that was okay. Frankly I couldn't see being home for as long as we may be and having to deal with the braces for much longer. The office was almost completely empty when I got there (I was the only patient, and the doctor did the work himself in about 15 minutes), and I washed my hands as soon as I walked in. I think I also got in just under the wire, as apparently they're now telling people to delay dental treatment unless it's an emergency.

Ohai. Working remote = no makeup and crazy hair.

Second, I've been engaging in a little retail therapy to cheer me up. I placed a small order from Knit Picks and took advantage of some sale prices on Felici as well as getting a few other things (the white Swish is to make Rainbow a pair of fox mittens for later in the year as a surprise):

I also ordered a sweater's quantity (oops!) of yarn from HipStrings, seeing as I just finished up my last SQ. Jill told me I really needed to try their Targhee Worsted next, and as it was on sale and she was offering free shipping, I couldn't resist.

This very Gryffindor-esque color combo is going to become a Goldwing. The colors are really quite far outside my usual comfort zone, but I think it's a good opportunity to push myself.

Next: knitting! I was anticipating that getting my braces off would take a while (they'd told me to allow an hour and a half), but I guess when it's just the boss, it goes very quickly. I didn't know that beforehand, of course, so in anticipation of waiting time, I cast on a new pair of socks for Rainbow and completed the toe on Sunday night. I think I knit all of one round while I was actually in the chair. Thankfully, I had a couple of conference calls when I got home, and it proved to be just the ticket.

This is Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce in the colorway Gimme Some Sugar (Cookies), which was a club colorway last year. Yes, I'm using the not-so-great needles again, mainly because they coordinate so well with the yarn. I'm weird like that.

Finally, reading! Over the weekend, I finished Lab Girl, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was not what I expected, but in a good way. I'm thankful for my library every day for being able to read just about any book I want via digital tools, but I expect my app is going to get a lot more use in the weeks ahead.

That's it for me for today, but I'll be back tomorrow with, I hope, some more crafting! Stay healthy and wash your hands!

Time to Say Good-bye

Don't panic -- I'm not going anywhere. Instead, I'm joining in with Kat and friends to talk about knitting and reading today, and specifically I'm going to talk about unraveling.

If you've been knitting long enough, chances are you've looked back at some of the projects you've made and wondered about some of your questionable decisions. Maybe you used a highly variegated yarn with a busy stitch pattern. Perhaps you knit something that's entirely unflattering on you. Or maybe you were in total denial about your gauge until you finished and discovered your FO was laughably large or small. I had my share of those when I was a baby knitter, but in recent years I made a boo-boo that I should have been wise enough to avoid. It was this sweater:

This is the State Fair Cardigan, which I knit back in 2015. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the pattern, and in fact despite all that heavy cabling I managed to knit it in less than a month. It even fit me quite well. The problem, though, was the yarn. I made the big mistake of using yarn that I had (in this case, yarn I'd won in some sort of contest or giveaway from my now-former LYS) rather than yarn that was appropriate for the project. This yarn is lovely to work with and really soft, but it's a 50% wool/50% alpaca base. And while it made for a really cozy sweater, it has not held up well over time. I'm a little smaller now than I was when I made this, so it's already a little big on me, and it's also drooping quite a bit. The worst part is that the cabled ribbing at the bottom really flares out; I like the waist shaping, but I don't want or need width added to my hips. You can probably also see that the buttonholes are starting to gape a bit, and the fabric is getting fuzzy at the usual friction points as well as anywhere I've managed to brush up against something rough. So I've decided to pull this sweater apart and unravel it in order to reuse the yarn -- mainly because I've discovered that it felts beautifully and makes some really cozy mittens! I'd much rather use the yarn to keep some hands warm that have it be in a sweater that just sits in a drawer. Someday I hope to knit the pattern again, because I really love the sweater, but next time I'll be sure to use a bouncy 100% wool yarn!

Thankfully my current projects are all behaving themselves and no unraveling has been required. I will be starting on the ribbing on my sweater this evening, as it's seen a lot of action the past couple of evenings, and I'm getting close to the ribbing of my first Louisette sock:

I've been reading quite a lot, too, though I haven't quite managed the pace of January. Over the weekend, I started and finished White Nights, the second book in the Shetland series by Ann Cleeves, and quite enjoyed it. I was tempted to borrow book three from the library, as there's no wait on it right now, but my next hold should be coming up soon enough that I decided to wait for now. I've got about 50 pages left to read in Olive Kitteridge (my before-bed reading these days, so that'll probably take me the rest of the week), and yesterday I started reading An American Marriage through Hoopla. Hoopla can be nice when there's something that has a really long wait at the library, but I don't love the interface. Still, I'm enjoying the book so far.

How about you -- what are you knitting and reading this week?

It Averages Out

My knitting this week has been, well, interesting. On the one hand, sweater progress is good. I tried it on last night before putting it down before bed and it's just about time to start the fun at the bottom -- I figure another half inch/four rounds should do it.

I realize what I'm wearing here isn't the best for showing where the sweater is hitting, so let me tell you that it's just above my hip bones. My ideal length for sweaters is about five inches longer than that, so that the bottom of the sweater covers my hips and the top of my rear (basically so that if I squat or crouch down, that part of my back just above the top of my pants stays covered). I'm going to knit those four additional rounds in the main color and then reintroduce the contrast color for one more band of stranded colorwork. That should measure roughly an inch and a half, then I'll knit a few more rounds of main color, and finally I'll finish the body with two inches of ribbing. Then it's on to the sleeves!

While the amount of knitting on the sweater has been going in the right direction, I'm unfortunately doing a bit of unraveling and tinking on my brioche hat. I've been working on it mainly during my lunch breaks at work, and sometimes during those breaks I get into a bit of a postprandial stupor (that's a fancy way of saying I start to nod off). It seems that I did that on Tuesday while somehow continuing to knit, though not completely successfully. When I pulled out the hat yesterday, I discovered that I had dropped a couple of stitches and they had unraveled several rounds. I tried fixing that section twice, but even after those attempts, I still wasn't happy.

I don't think I worked the strands quite in the right order when I reknit up the problem areas, so even though the tension issues would have worked out eventually, you'd still be able to see the mistakes. And for a pattern sample, that won't do. So in my bit of knitting time this morning, I started undoing everything from the mistakes up. I probably should have done that from the get go yesterday when I found the dropped stitches, as by now I'd probably have reknit everything I frogged, but I suppose if I'd been able to fix it without ripping that would've saved me some time. What's done is done, though, and I'd rather it be right that close enough.

The weekend ahead is going to be a busy but fun one. Saturday is the bridal shower for my brother's fiancee, and several family members are coming in from out of town -- my aunt and uncle from Michigan and my other aunt and one of my cousins from Chicago. The shower is a brunch on Saturday morning, and then we'll have dinner with all the family Saturday night. On Sunday, the Mister and Rainbow and I are headed to see the Lion King (the stage show) with a bunch of friends. I'm excited for Rainbow to see it and to see it again myself -- the first time I saw it was in New York City when I was in college and my parents and brother met me there to celebrate my 21st birthday. (I should also add that I'm looking forward to seeing it again because the first time I was a bit hungover from having my first legal drink on an empty stomach earlier in the day!) I hope your weekend has some fun in store for you!