Unraveled, Week 49/2025

Good morning and happy Wednesday, friends! Today I'm very happy that all our immediate family members live in the same city we do and that we don't have to travel for Thanksgiving. I know we're very lucky in that respect, and I hope anyone who does have to travel makes it to their destination without too much difficulty.

Kat said on Monday that she intended to post, so I am joining with her and the Unravelers today with my update.

Over the weekend, I hunkered down with my crochet and managed to finish up the silly turkey hat -- and I'm delighted with it!

I'm glad that the wonkiness of my sewing (though some was certainly intentional) added to the personality of the whole thing, so it's okay that nothing is really aligned. The hat base was made with Knit Picks Brava Worsted; Molly had ordered a bunch of skeins of it last year and decided she didn't want to use this color, so we conveniently had two skeins of it in stash. The red, yellow, and orange are all Loops & Threads Soft Classic -- 100% pure acrylic! The white for the eyeballs was some leftover Blue Sky Fibers Organic Cotton from many years ago, and I used a whopping 1 g of the Fibernymph Dye Works Confetti Tweed leftover from my two most recent charity hats for the pupils. I used an I hook (5.5 mm) for the hat and an H hook (5.0 mm) for all the other bits. Originally I was going to add braids or tassels to the earflaps, but the Mister pointed out that I might find those annoying while running, so I left them off. Altogether, I used 164 yards of yarn and had a fun little break from knitting!

This week, as I continue to work on my brother's hat, I'm also knitting on a gift that I will take to dinner this coming Sunday evening that we and my parents have been invited to. These friends decorate their house beautifully for the holidays, so I thought I would make a little something that could be used during the season:

The pattern is Worsted Tree Coasters (Ravelry link), and I'm using two colors of Knit Picks Dishie. The plan is to make four coasters, two that look like this and two with the colors reversed. If I manage to get them done really quickly and have enough yarn left, perhaps I'll make two more. This is a mosaic knitting pattern, so you knit with one color at a time, alternating every two rows. It's potato-chippy in much the same way stranded knitting is but without having to wrangle two strands of yarn at the same time.

I've read a fair amount in the past week, though I can't say all of it was good. I have four finishes to share with you today.

The best of the week was definitely Jane Austen's Bookshelf. Written by Rebecca Romney, a rare book collector and dealer, this work of nonfiction explores female authors writing in roughly the same time as Austen who published works she likely read, based upon mentions in her personal letters and even some of her novels. Each chapter focuses on a different author, providing a bit of a biography as well as a look at her published works and how those books influenced Austen and literature in general. Romney's project to read the works of these writers and give them context in the world of Austen shows how (unsurprisingly) the work of women writers has long been discounted, especially within the canon of so-called "great literature," and reveals that Austen's work wasn't revolutionary or unique but rather informed by the work of other women writers whose books she read. It also raises the question of why Austen's works have been so celebrated over the years and these other writers and their books have faded into obscurity. I gave it 4 stars.

While browsing audiobooks on NetGalley, I came across The Story Keeper, written by an author I'd read before, and the description was intriguing: After trouble in her personal life, Fiona, a middle-aged woman with grown children, returns to the family estate in Australia where she spent her childhood. The house has a long history and reputation for being haunted. It's been years since she was last there following the death of her uncle, and the house is in a state of disuse. As she works on cleaning and getting the place back into order, she comes across a case of books that arrived just around the time of her uncle's death and was left unopened. Figuring that her uncle wanted his family to read them, she dives in -- only to discover that the story in the book feels strangely familiar. The Fiona's story alternates with the narrative of the book she's reading throughout. This novel is billed as a mystery, but I was able to figure out what was going on about a third of the way through, including the mysterious noises and broken household objects in the house that might suggest something supernatural. The book-within-the-book also wasn't as well written as the more present-day narrative, and I even caught one instance where a character name from one story was used (incorrectly) in the other. There are some lingering questions at the end, once everything has been revealed, and that felt unsatisfying to me. I gave it 2 stars. Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Audio for providing me with a free copy of this audiobook in return for an honest review. This book will be published July 21, 2026.

While waiting for my next library hold, I spent an afternoon reading The Serviceberry. This is really a long essay more than a book, though it was still enjoyable. Robin Wall Kimmerer, perhaps best known for Braiding Sweetgrass, uses nature in general and the serviceberry in particular to show how a gift economy and a society based on giving could present an alternative way of living that would benefit us all and combat climate change at the same time. I have a feeling that this is a work I will want to reread from time to time; the message it sends is a hopeful one, and I think that's a message we could all use right now. I know many of you have already read this (I'm late to the party as usual!), but I'd recommend it if you haven't. I gave it 4 stars.

Flesh is this year's Booker Prize winner, and really that is the only reason I read it. The book follows Istvan throughout a good portion of his life, starting when he is 15 and living in Hungary. It then follows him through a stint in the army serving in Afghanistan, working in London as a strip club bouncer and then personal security officer, running his own business in real estate development, and then living back in Hungary. Throughout the book, he seems entirely detached from things that are happening to him and doesn't seem to have particularly strong feelings about anything. He does seem to like having a lot of sex, though, especially with married women. I didn't particularly like this book, but I felt strangely compelled to see where it was going. In the end, I though it was just, to quote Istvan, "okay." I gave it 3 stars (and I think there were better books on the shortlist that should have won).

I am currently reading The Idiot on paper and Kate & Frida on Kindle, the latter because I know it'll be light and happy!

Tomorrow, the three of us will be running in the Turkey Trot and then will be hosting a crowd for Thanksgiving dinner. It's been a hard year for many people for many reasons, so I am glad to have an excuse to slow down and be grateful for so many things. If you are celebrating the holiday tomorrow, I hope your food is delicious and your company enjoyable! Gobble gobble!

Less in 2025: November

It's the final Monday of the month, so it's time for my penultimate check-in with my One Little Word.

When I think of Less this past month, the first thing that comes to mind is that there is less daylight. The days are getting noticeably shorter, and even in the middle of the day, the sunlight is weaker. While in the summer, I was able to sit with Ruthie in the afternoon with all the lights off, I need the lights on now to see what I'm reading or working on. This is probably my least favorite thing about the fall and winter; I don't like the cold, but being a knitter, I know how to properly dress for it. I can't do anything about the lack of light, though, and it definitely has an effect on my mood. This year, I'm hoping that many of my neighbors put up twinkle lights to bring some extra light to the dark evenings.

Another area of Less this month has been a fewer number of daily walks with Ruthie. She is 11 months old today, and she doesn't need to go out as often. We're down to about five bathroom breaks a day now, which includes first thing in the morning, when we literally just go next door. I take her for three longer walks during the day (generally 0.75 miles to 1.1 miles, according to my Apple Watch), and as of the last week or so, she hasn't wanted to walk when we go out right before bedtime and instead has done her business next door. I know that on the really frigid days of winter, that's going to be very welcome! 

I don't think Kat is hosting a link-up for this OLW update or on Wednesday, but I will be back with an Unraveled update. In the meantime, enjoy your Monday!

I'm a Hooker, Too, Sometimes

You know what's even better than getting to Friday? Getting to Friday before a long holiday break! Molly and I just have to get through today and then we're (mostly) free until early December. That feels darn good.

I hinted in my last post that I was working on a crochet project, and in truth I didn't want to share photos until I was sure it was going to turn out okay -- I mean, I'm pretty good at the basics of crochet, but I don't have a ton of experience following a pattern to get something that fits. Fortunately, with a couple of instances of ripping back (because apparently I can't count), all is well and I have this after a couple of evenings with my hook:

There's a lot of embellishment left to do, but I'm reasonably certain you can all identify that as a hat. It's this hat, specifically, that I'm making to wear in this year's Turkey Trot. People really do dress up for it here, and of course as a crafter I figured I could manage something fun. Molly and I were planning to make them together last year before my broken foot messed up our plans; it still remains to be seen if she'll make one for this year, if I'll make it for her, or if she decides she doesn't want one after all.

This weekend we have absolutely nothing on the schedule, other than some errands I need to run tomorrow morning, and that's just the way I like it. One of those errands is to Costco, so I may pick up a rotisserie chicken or two and make chicken broth for the freezer. Molly will likely be working a shift or two, and we'll have to plan for next week's cooking. I'm hoping the weekend includes plenty of reading and knitting time.

Finally, I just wanted to mention that the Indie Designer Giftalong kicked off on Ravelry yesterday evening, and the 25% off pattern sale runs for the first week of it. If you're interested in any of my eligible patterns, you can find my bundle here. The coupon code is the same for all participating designers: giftalong2025.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Unraveled, Week 48/2025

Is anyone else a bit panicked looking at that number -- we're really on the 48th Wednesday of the month? Egads, I don't know where the time goes! But I do know that this morning I'm here to update you on my making and my reading*.

After finishing up those two WIPs over the weekend, I naturally needed to cast on something new, particularly something I could work on during Ruthie's "snoozy time" while I work or read. I thought instead of a pair of socks (because his feet are so big and they'd be interminable), I'd make my brother a hat. So I found a OOAK skein of Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce from a grab bag that seemed suitable and cast on one of my hats:

It's not yet big enough to qualify as a partial Ruthie.

The colors lean more blue than they appear here; it was snowing and raining and generally gray all day here yesterday, so the lighting was not optimal. I've finished the crown increases and am now in the knit-until-the-cows-come-home phase of the project, which is just perfect for when I've got a computer on my lap and a dog wedged next to me.

I've also started a special seasonal crochet project, but you'll have to wait a bit to see any of that.

I've finished four books this week, evenly split between digital and audio.

First up, Endling from the Booker Prize longlist. This is a strange book that's a bit hard to describe, though I'll start by saying that it's set in Ukraine in 2022, just before the start of Russian aggression. Yeva is a biologist whose main focus is on snails and who is traveling through the country with a camper ("mobile lab") trying to find rare snails in the wild in an effort to save them from extinction. Funding for this kind of work is hard to find, so to earn money, she gets involved in the thriving romance industry, in which foreign men come to take romance tours and meet native women. She's not interested in meeting a husband, but the money is good. Also involved in this industry are Nastia, barely a legal adult, and her sister, Solomiya, who works as her interpreter. Their mother, once a radical protestor of the industry, has disappeared, and Nastia hopes that if she stages something involving the bachelors, it will make the news and cause their mother to return. One of these bachelors is a man who was born in Ukraine but left it for Canada as a child and is seeking to find his heritage in some weird way. And then come the Russians, with their bombs, their guns, and their propaganda makers. In the middle of all this, the author pops in with a bit of her own history and her worries about her grandfather, who is still back in Ukraine and refuses to leave. Though I honestly wasn't sure what to make of this book, I enjoyed it, and it was good on audio (the author even narrates her own interjections). I gave it 4 stars.

While I was waiting for some holds, I turned to my Kindle library and decided to read the second installment in the Thursday Murder Club series. The club is back at it in The Man Who Died Twice, when a man from Elizabeth's past shows up at Cooper's Chase looking for safety in a situation involving the mafia, international ne'er-do-wells, and a middleman who brokers the deals between them. Meanwhile, the club's police friends are trying to finagle a way to arrest the local drug kingpin, and three members of the club are looking after the fourth when he's injured in a mugging and plotting a way to avenge his injuries. There are spies, assassins, and perhaps double agents. There's also quite a lot of humor. I can't say I find this series to be at all realistic, but it's good light fun, at least if you can consider a murder mystery to be light. I gave it 3 stars.

Several of you have already read and recommended When the Cranes Fly South, and though I usually prefer to read with my eyes, I opted for the audio from the library because the wait was shorter. I'm sure it's good either way, but it was wonderful on audio thanks to the excellent primary reader. This novel tells the story of Bo, an elderly man who is physically and mentally struggling more and more but who is determined to keep living as he has been. His wife is in a nursing home with dementia, and now his adult son is threatening to take away his beloved dog, Sixten. Bo spends his day thinking back on his earlier life, recalling his childhood and his difficult relationship with his father, the early days of his marriage, and his sometimes challenging relationship with his son when he was a child. His thoughts are interspersed with notes from the carers who come in to prepare food for him, help him bathe, and check that all is well around the house. This is a sad book, but I think it's well worth reading for the reminder for those of us who are younger to treat our elders with the dignity they deserve and to give a better understanding of why so many people seem so stubborn about leaving their homes or giving up aspects of their lives. I gave it 4 stars.

Finally, I was excited by how quickly I got The Black Wolf from the library given the demand -- I'm pretty sure I had it on hold less than a week! It has been almost a year since I read the previous book in the Gamache series, so I'd no doubt forgotten some of the details, but that didn't seem to hold it back. After stopping a plan to poison the water of Quebec, Gamache and his team have realized that was only a prelude to a bigger plot, but they're not completely sure what that bigger plot is, who is behind it, and who to trust. As I've come to expect from Louise Penny, there are twists and turns, people who appear to be allies turn out to be enemies (and vice versa), and the same characters in Three Pines who bring levity to the plot are there -- though I would have liked more of them. I'll admit I found it hard to keep a couple of the non-regular characters straight, so sometimes I felt a bit lost, but I always know I'm in for a good time when I pick up a book in this series. This one felt a little too real at times; thank goodness for Rosa the duck! I gave it 4 stars.

*I want to close by noting that there's no link-up this week -- if you haven't seen it already, Kat has posted a sad update on her blog. Please keep her family in your thoughts.

The Slowdown

It feels like the weekend was just starting, but here we are back at Monday again. It was a quieter weekend for a number of reasons. Molly ended up staying home from school with a cold on Friday. Thankfully she was feeling well enough Saturday morning to attend the birthday brunch, but she was kind of grumpy all weekend because she didn't feel well and had lots of homework to do. I'm glad she rallied because the birthday party was fun. It was just immediate family, but there was plenty of good food and plenty of amusement in the form of my nephew, who wanted to open all the presents for his little sister. The sweater was a hit, and we finally took a photo of the photo of Molly wearing it so I could share it here:

Can you see the spot of drool?

Once we got home from the party, it was time for Ruthie's midday walk and then "snoozie time," during which I read the newest Louise Penny, having just gotten my hold from the library, and knit. On Sunday morning, I was on a two-hour Zoom with the dog trainer (super useful!) and then another one-hour Zoom before, again, the midday walk and puppy nap time. So I didn't get in any walks on my own, but sometimes it's nice to take a little break from a lot of physical activity. I figure I had a really good run on Friday and was still getting in a few miles in walks each day with Ruthie, so I embraced the slower pace. It also allowed me to finish up two projects.

First up was a charity hat using some leftovers -- most of the remaining Fibernymph Dye Works Confetti Tweed DK that I had remaining from the last hat held together with fingering scraps (two other FDW yarns and about half of the leftover Felici from the first sister-in-law socks). I used the Sagamore Flyover pattern (Ravelry link), with a slight modification to the crown decreases, and US 7/4.5 mm and US 8/5 mm needles. I've knit a bunch of these hats this year, though all the previously completed ones have now been donated, so this is the first in my rebuilding of the charity hat stash.

I also finished the Ryoko wrap for my mother-in-law -- and as you can see, it needs very badly to be blocked to be a triangle rather than a diamond!

I don't have any idea how busy this week is going to be at work, but even if it gets chaotic, I know I only have to get through the next five days and then I'm off for a week -- nine days in a row, if you include the weekends on either end! I think I can manage whatever gets thrown at me if I keep that in mind. Here's hoping I didn't just jinx myself!

I hope the week is off to an okay start for you -- and if you have a minute, be sure to go wish Mary a happy birthday today!

An FO and a Blast from the Past

It's Friday, finally! It's not been too bad of a week, but the shorter days and the cold have made it feel like it's dragged on, so I'm happy to see the weekend almost here. I'm even happier that I have another pair of socks off the needles:

These are for my larger-footed sister-in-law and used my last two skeins of Knit Picks Felici (unless there is more buried deep in the stash). The colorway is Secret Garden. I tried my best to get them to match, but obviously I got a little off somewhere. They're close enough for me, though, and the recipient, if she even notices, is too nice to say anything. I still have some leftovers from the most recent pairs, all of which will become charity hats of some sort.

Today is an exciting day because it's my niece's first birthday! We will be celebrating her at brunch tomorrow. She's going to be getting a contribution to her college fund for her main present, but I thought I would also give her something a little sentimental.

This is a sweater I knit back in October 2010 -- for Molly. In fact, she wore it when we had photos taken of her to commemorate her first birthday (sadly, we don't appear to have any digital versions). I'm not sure if she wore it other than that one time, but I kept it, just in case. And as it's still in great shape, I think it's time to pass it along to my niece. It got a nice wash and block, and it'll be wrapped up for her parents to open tomorrow.

Other than the birthday brunch tomorrow, we don't have much planned for the weekend. I have a Zoom scheduled Sunday morning for a consultation with a dog trainer who I'm hoping can give me an idea of what we can do next to help her have some better manners, and there might be some chicken soup on the stove at some point. We are supposed to get some heavy rain tomorrow afternoon, so I plan to stay cozy inside as much as possible!

Have a good weekend, friends, and see you back here on Monday!

Unraveled, Week 47/2025

How is it Wednesday again already? Time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers!

I am still working on the same two projects but at least am getting closer to finishing them. I got a bunch of work yesterday and so only managed a handful of rounds on the socks, but the evenings have been dedicated wrap/shawl knitting time, and the rows are getting shorter:

I managed to leave Ruthie for about two minutes to snap a photo of this upstairs while the sun was actually out (not that it did much to warm things up) so you could get a better sense of the actual color of the yarns. I'm hoping I'm able to stretch this out and get a bit more length when I block it, because as written it's not a very big wrap, but I think the mohair/silk will make it very cozy. I might have to find a pretty shawl stick or other closure for it.

I've once again had a good week of reading with four finishes, though two of them were ARCs.

In Life: A Love Story, 92-year-old Flo has received a terminal diagnosis and knows she doesn't have much time left in her life, so she resolves to write a letter explaining some things to Ruthie, the now-grown little girl who used to live next door and was like a daughter to her. Flo has decided to leave her house and all her possessions to Ruthie, but she also wants to leave behind some life lessons she's learned. In giving the history of some of the objects in her house, some of which might seem worthless or mundane, she shows that what matters isn't always things but the memories and the people they recall. This is a quiet book, and while it's not without difficulties that arise in people's lives and marriages, it's a peaceful and welcome departure from the news. That said, I also found it to be rather schmaltzy and, at times, a little over-the-top with religion. Your mileage may vary. I gave it 3 stars. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published March 17, 2026.

After enjoying her forthcoming novel so much, I decided to listen to Anna Quindlen's most recent release. After Annie follows a family in the year following the sudden death of its mother. There's the husband who is overwhelmed at being the sole parent and the one who rarely did much of the heavy lifting of parenting before. There are her four children, the oldest of whom, her only daughter, finds herself feeling responsible for her three younger siblings. And there's her best friend, who finds herself slipping back into drug addiction without Annie to keep her on the straight and narrow. It's a sad story, as you would expect, and it certainly highlights how much work mothers do to keep their families running, but it paints a picture of how families can come together after a tragedy. I gave it 4 stars.

Some time back, I bought a used copy of The Language of Goldfish because I couldn't find it any of the library apps (probably because I think it's been out of print for a while). This is a book I can remember reading multiple times as a young teenager, and I wanted to revisit it as an adult because my memories of it were vague and I was curious about what it was about it that spoke so loudly to me. This book follows 13-year-old Carrie as she struggles to adjust to living in a new place and growing up. She begins to have episodes of visual hallucinations and even has an instance of losing awareness of time and where she is before she attempts suicide. Following that, she is hospitalized and then goes to see a therapist every day to address what was causing her such distress. I can't say that I loved this book as much on a reread (at least as an adult) as I did as a young teen, but it at least held up relatively well in the time that's passed. It was probably pretty advanced for when it was published, in fact, in that it addressed mental illness frankly and as something that should be talked about and addressed. Adult me, however -- particularly the adult me who has a degree in psychology -- felt a little frustrated that Carrie's illness was never really defined and that her therapist didn't seem to do much other than listen to her talk. But all the same it was nice to read something from my childhood that didn't surprise me with something like overt racism for a change. I gave it 4 stars.

If there's one historical era I've read more about than any other, it's the Holocaust and WWII, so it's always a pleasant surprise to learn something about the history of that time period that is new to me. Once There Was a Town: The Memory Books of a Lost Jewish World introduced me to the documents known as yizkor books, volumes created as memorial records of the towns and shtetls essentially erased by the Nazis. They describe what life was like in these places and what sort of people inhabited them in addition to containing lists of the names of those killed. While the book addresses this topic generally, there's also a focus on the town where the author's relatives came from, making this a memoir of sorts, too, as her study of the yizkor book for their shtetl was able to tell her things about the family left behind that her grandmother and great uncles could not and would not discuss. I found it to be a fascinating read. My only disappointment in the book is that the ARC I received did not contain the photos that are referenced in the back of the book -- I would have loved to see those family photos! But that just gives me an excuse to pick up a physical copy of the book when it's published. I gave it 4 stars. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published January 20, 2026.

What are you making and reading this week?