Ready for Weekending

It's been a long week here, I guess because it's been the first full week of school since the new year started, and as classes are really ramping up, so is the stress. I'm happy to have a weekend ahead. Last weekend was filled with all the holiday observances and celebrations, so it didn't feel like a real rest, particularly as we didn't have our usual schedule. Here's hoping this weekend can be more typical.

Last night was Curriculum Night at Molly's school, where parents get to follow their child's schedule and visit all their teachers to hear a bit about what they'll be studying in the year ahead. Last year we both had conflicts and couldn't attend, and this year felt a little bittersweet because we'll only do this once more. It's a big year for her for sure, not just because of the course load but because looking ahead to college is getting much more real and serious. And as much as I love the fact that she can now drive herself to and from school, it means I no longer have the time in the car with her every day to listen to her unload on the day's events. I know this is all part of the process and that it's good for her to start pulling away to become a self-sufficient young adult -- but I'm allowed to be a little sad about it, right?

Progress has continued on my WIPs, with some noticeable growth. For one thing, the sock now has a heel and an almost-completed foot:

Yes, that is a cameo by Ruthie's tush.

In order to maintain the stripes on the instep (and because these stripes are narrower than I'm used to), I used the strand from the inside of the yarn cake for the heel turn. It means a couple of extra ends to weave in, but that's not such a big deal. This yarn base is finer than what I'm used to, so I had to do a bit of math to figure out when to start the toe based on my row gauge. Fortunately, my sister-in-law has the smallest feet of all the people I knit socks for, so I'm not too far off from that point now and expect to have the first sock down by the end of the weekend.

Then there's the sweater, which has just gotten enough increases to fit comfortably around my needle so I no longer need to knit magic loop:

I have added the second eyelet section and next will move on to the larger textured area that should be easier to see than the first one. I'm alternating strands every round, and you can see that one strand is still all ramen-y from ripping out my swatch. I'll be happy when I get through all that kinked-up yarn, as I don't think it's helping much with the patterning being hard to see.

We have a pretty quiet weekend planned, but Yom Kippur begins Sunday evening, which means we'll be having a large meal early on before the fast. We'll be hosting break fast at our place for my side of the family on Monday, and I very well may take the day off blogging that day (I'd be getting my post ready on Sunday regardless, but sometimes it's nice to take a break). I hope you enjoy this last summer weekend and will see you back here for sure next Wednesday.

Unraveled, Week 37/2026

Here we are at Wednesday again, and again it's time to join in on the fun with Kat and the Unravelers!

I've been working steadily on my sweater in the evenings (it's not really at a place where I can work on it with Ruthie in the same room) and have started the knit/purl texture sections, though I think my yarn might be a tad too busy for the patterning to be as visible as it could be.

I am hopeful that once the sweater is done and blocked, the patterning will be a bit clearer, but I'm not too concerned at this point. I'm enjoying working with the yarn and I think the sweater will be very comfy, and that's really what matters the most to me right now.

Sock knitting is still happening in the afternoon, but I needed something else to work on when we were at my parents' for lunch on Sunday (because the recipient of the socks was there), so I grabbed some dishcloth cotton and a crochet hook and started a quick dishcloth:

If the yarn looks familiar, it's because I was using it earlier in the summer to learn the crochet thermal stitch. Because I was just learning it, the resulting dishcloth was wonky and misshapen, and I decided to frog it once I got the hang of the stitch. I'm just using the basic corner to corner method here, with some single crochet around the outside edge to finish it of. I had about 3/4 of a skein of Knit Picks Dishie to start; I haven't weighed the finished cloth yet, but I'm hoping I can get at least one more of the same size out of the yarn that's left. It's a good instant gratification project when I need a break from the sweater.

I've finished three books this past week, two of which I really enjoyed.

I purchased House on Endless Waters when it was Kindle deal on a bit of a whim, having read only the description but not having heard of it or the author before, and I was very pleasantly surprised. In this novel in translation, the main character, a famous Israeli author named Yoel Blum, discovers a long-buried secret when he visits Amsterdam, the city of his birth and the city his late mother made him promise never to return to. His publisher finally persuades him to visit, and while he is there, he and his wife visit the local Jewish history museum, where he is shocked to see his mother in a film reel -- holding a baby that couldn't possibly be him. Confronting his older sister upon his return home, he learns the truth that has been hidden all these years and returns to Amsterdam to trace his family's experiences in WWII and write the novel he realizes his life has been leading him toward his entire career. As readers, we see Yoel explore the city and simultaneously see his family adapt to their changing circumstances as their lives as Dutch Jews become more and more difficult and desperate. As the Germans close in, arresting and deporting more and more Jews and prompting more of them to go into hiding, Yoel get closer and closer to the answer of his true identity and to understanding why his mother was so reluctant to talk about the war or connect with other Dutch Jews once they'd moved to Israel. This book was compelling and fascinating; though it is a fictional story, it reads in some respects like a memoir, and I think the author intended to highlight the struggles that many Dutch Jews who were hidden as children encountered once they uncovered the truth (some of them, for instance, had no surviving family after the war and were raised believing the families who hid them were their biological families, only learning the truth as adults). Though the stories aren't really similar, the setting and tone reminded me a lot of The Safekeep. I really enjoyed this one and gave it 4 stars.

I found The Girl Who Wrote in Silk on Hoopla and thought it sounded interesting, not least because it claimed to be based on true events. I would say very loosely based on true events. It's a dual-timeline novel, following Inara in present day and Mei Lein in the late 1800s, both of them in Washington State. Inara, having inherited a property on Orcas Island from her late aunt, sets out to renovate it into a boutique hotel and in the process discovers the heavily embroidered sleeve of a garment hidden under a stair tread. The embroidery shows a fairly gruesome scene of a ship and people (or demons?) in the water. Trying to figure out the origin of the sleeve and what the embroidery could mean leads her to a Chinese American professor at the University of Washington, to whom she finds herself very conveniently attracted (cue predictable romance interest here). Mei Lein, who lives with her father and grandfather and whose mother died when she was an infant, finds her family the target of anti-Chinese violence, as they are forced from their home and onto a ship they believe is bound for China. She overhears something that leads her to believe otherwise, however, and her father convinces her to jump ship in the hope of saving herself. She (again, very conveniently) is rescued by a white farmer who becomes her protector and eventually more than that. As the two timelines progress, the connection between all these individuals is revealed. While there is some basis of truth to the 1800s story (the anti-Chinese violence and expulsions from certain cities and towns), the defining tragedy was completely fabricated, and overall I found a lot of the two storylines to be a little too far-fetched, especially for historical fiction. I didn't find the characters and some of their actions to be particularly believable. I would have DNFed this if I wasn't curious enough to find out how it would all come together, and I wouldn't recommend it. I gave it 2 stars.

Thankfully, my most recent finish was much better. In The Astral Library, Kate Quinn takes a break from her usual historical fiction to dip into fantasy and sing the praises of libraries and stories. When times are tough, wouldn't we all love to disappear into a book? That's just what Alix does when she's fired from her main job, evicted from her shared apartment, and discovers that she's locked out of her bank account due to fraud. Opening a random door off the reading room of the Boston Public Library leads her to the Astral Library and its somewhat cantankerous librarian. Here, patrons can escape the world and their troubles and enter the world of any book in the public domain. They aren't main characters and can't change the story in any way, but they can be in the background of, say, Jane Austen's England or Jay Gatsby's New York. Alix is all set on disappearing for a while when the librarian begins receiving warnings indicating that the library is under attack, all while notices keep coming that the library board is ready to make changes to modernize (and monetize) the library, and she is swept into the action. There's no need for this caper to be realistic, and it's pure fun for readers and book lovers. I really loved the little details, like the snacks that are always available in the library (though while you're there, you're never hungry) or the fact that the library is haunted by ghosts of people who feel they can't cross over because their TBRs are too long. It was an easy listen and a great pick-me-up after the previous disappointment. I gave it 4 stars.

What are you making and reading this week?

Weekending, 5787*

I have mixed feelings about the Jewish holidays falling on the weekend. On the one hand, it's nice not to have to burn any vacation time. On the other, it does tend to eat up all the free time. But even if the weekend wasn't as restful as it could be, it was still enjoyable. We had a great meal (in spite of the chaotic environment) on Friday night. Ruthie was clearly a little more anxious than usual with so many people in the house, but she handled it very well, all things considered. I was hoping she'd sleep in on Saturday, but she was up and letting me know it at 6 a.m. as usual! We attended services on Saturday, which didn't start until 11 and didn't end until about 1:45; I left an hour earlier to take Ruthie out and then go get my hair cut (which I would have scheduled later in the afternoon if I thought services were going to go so long!). We ate more of the same meal at my parents' on Saturday evening and then went back there for lunch with some family friends on Sunday. I feel like all I did over the weekend was eat! Today I'm ready to get back to the usual routine.

Friday was such a busy day and I was so tired after running, cleaning, serving, and cleaning up that I didn't have any energy to knit once everyone was gone. But Saturday evening we were done much earlier, so I was able to proceed with my sweater. I had completed all of the short rows at the neck by Thursday night, so that meant I was able to join my second skein (I'm alternating to be safe) and begin the textured portion of the yoke. I've only done the first eyelet section so far, but at least it's starting to look like something:

As this isn't a project I can easily work on during the day, I cast on a new pair of socks for my sister-in-law using yarn from a dyer who recently shared some pretty ugly beliefs and so I won't be naming or recommending the yarn. It was already in my stash and it's pretty, so I thought I would use it for one of the most knitworthy people I know because she will love the colors.

Today Molly has an early dentist appointment and then will drop me off on her way to school (yes, she's driving herself now!), but otherwise we're back to the usual schedule this week, for the most part. We've got curriculum night at Molly's school on Thursday evening, and that basically gives me a night off from cooking because we have to be there at 6:30. Today I'm going to fully enjoy the fact that the high is only supposed to be in the low 70s and I probably will need only one shower!

(*In case you were wondering, the new year on the Jewish calendar is 5787. Yes, it's a big number -- we've been at this for a while! And it's a lunar calendar, which is why the holidays seem to be on a different date every year.)

Commemorations

It's Friday, but it's a special day. Today we mark 25 years since the events of 9/11. I so clearly remember that day, and it's almost incomprehensible to me that it's been 25 years since it happened. Though I don't know anyone who lost their life that day, it's always a solemn day for me and I suspect for everyone who was of a certain age that day. As I do every year on this date, I'll be pausing for a moment of reflection this morning.

On a happier note, this evening we will welcome Rosh Hashanah with a big family meal at our house. As we share apples and honey, we will share our wishes for a sweet new year. And that, dear friends, is what I wish for you -- a year ahead that is happy, healthy, and sweet.

Unraveled, Week 36/2026

Did anyone else wake up yesterday and think it was Monday? Apparently a lot of my neighbors were also confused about the day because they already had their trash out, forgetting that when there's a holiday on Monday, trash pickup gets pushed back a day, so ours isn't until Thursday this week.

Today, however, is Wednesday, which means it's time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers. And it's the first day of the NFL season, which means it's also the first day of the Pigskin Party and I can cast on my new sweater. I had a pretty good feeling about getting stitch gauge on my swatch, but I was astounded when I measured once it was dry and saw that I'd gotten both stitch and row gauge -- for only the second time, I think, in my entire knitting career!

As a reminder, I'm planning to knit a long-sleeved Seashore Stroll (Ravelry link) with this yarn, a blended merino from FatCatKnits that I spun (unbelievably) a decade ago. I think this will be a great fall/spring (and maybe winter in Florida) sweater, so I'm excited to get it on the needles.

I've finished four books since this time last week:

The Artist and the Feast by Lucy Steeds

My rating: 4 stars

In the summer of 1920, Joseph, a young British journalist, arrives in Provence at the remote house of the reclusive French painter Edouard Tartuffe to interview him. But Tartuffe wants nothing to do with him until his niece and housekeeper, Ettie, convinces him that Joseph could serve as a model for his next painting. As Joseph lives with the two for the summer, he and Ettie are drawn to each other and begin to learn about each other's secrets and painful pasts, but there's still something mysterious about Ettie and her painter uncle and why they've hidden away from the rest of society. This book raises questions about the value of art and who is allowed to create it -- and how who creates art determines its value to the wider world. I picked this up at Vera's recommendation and enjoyed it, though it does have its faults (some of which Kym pointed out in her review).

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann

My rating: 2.5 stars

I'd had this book on my TBR for a while but was moved to read it when it was mentioned last week on the What Should I Read Next? podcast. The premise sounds promising: A British explorer, following the many stories of the legendary city of El Dorado, determines to find it deep in the Amazon rainforest. After several failed expeditions, he sets off again with his teenaged son and his son's best friend -- only to vanish. Grann, a journalist who not only did the research but attempted to follow in the explorer's footsteps, chronicles the expeditions and the general fascination with finding the fabled City of Z, which may or may not have existed. But I found it hard to stay engaged with the narrative and frequently didn't remember names, and frankly there were many things related to the Amazon expeditions that were really hard to listen to, as they involved a great deal of illness and physical suffering. I kept with it only because I didn't have anything else queued up and also wanted to know if there was any great discovery in the end, but there was no particular resolution, and I wouldn't really recommend it. (Also, what is with audiobook narrators reading dates as cardinal numbers rather than ordinal?)

The Amateur by Chris Bohjalian

My rating: 4 stars

I put this new release on hold based on Carole's recommendation. At the end of the summer of 1978, teenage golf phenom Mira is getting ready to head to her freshman year at Yale when one of the practice shots she's taken at her family's golf club somehow goes through the net meant to stop it, hitting a caddy (and her former classmate) in the head and almost instantly killing him. Everyone agrees at first that it was a terrible accident, but then authorities start taking a closer look and Mira comes under suspicion, especially when her earlier instances of recklessness are viewed in light of the fact that she's been carrying on an affair with a much older married man. Mira tells the story, revealing that now, many decades later, she is a successful novelist writing her first memoir. She is brutally honest about her questionable behavior as a teen while also exposing the double standard applied to women versus men at that time. I have to admit that I felt a bit icky at the beginning of the book, namely because a male author was writing a certain way as a teenaged female narrator, but I'm glad I stuck with it. I wouldn't necessarily call it a thriller, but there is a bit of a mystery to be unraveled about what happened and who was responsible, and I enjoyed it a lot.

Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America by Beth Macy

My rating: 4.5 stars

Sometimes you pick a book at random because it's available from the library and you get really lucky. This was one such book. Beth Macy, a journalist and nonfiction writer probably best known for Dopesick, grew up in Urbana, Ohio, where her family struggled with her father's alcoholism and persistent poverty, but thanks to a Pell Grant was able to go to college, eventually moving on to bigger cities for her journalism career. But when she returned to her hometown in 2020 as her mother was dying, she found a drastically different city, both economically and politically. This book is part personal memoir and part exploration of how so many smaller American cities have changed, especially in the last decade. She interviewed family members and former classmates who had turned to far-right politics and conspiracy theories. She spoke with teachers, counselors, and social workers about high rates of truancy and falling graduation rates. And she spoke with scholars about the trends across the country, noting how a decline in the availability of reliable, fact-checked news sources has corresponded to a rise in distrust of the media in general and a growing acceptance of what we might call "alternative facts." There is a lot to unpack here, but I never lost interest or the thread, and in fact I might want to read it again on the page (I listened to Macy read the audio to me). I found it to be well written, well researched, and really fascinating -- and also disheartening. If you like this sort of book, I'd recommend it.

I am currently reading Shy Creatures in print, House on Endless Waters on my iPad, and The Girl Who Wrote in Silk on audio via Hoopla. What are you reading and making this week?

Like Magic

Oh, how I love having a Monday off! Of course, dogs don't understand federal holidays, so I was up more or less at the regular time today, but at least I won't have to attend any work meetings, check my work email, or be glued to my laptop all day.

We had a really nice holiday weekend, starting with our anniversary dinner. We went to one of our favorites, and it was as good as always, although I think they were short-staffed in the kitchen or something because it took at full hour for our entrees to come out and my chicken was still raw inside when I cut into it (they whisked it away immediately to cook it properly, and the host came to check that everything was okay when it was returned to me). We had all had a long week and went to bed early.

On Saturday, in between other things, I felted the two pairs of mittens I'd knit recently. I now felt exclusively in the dryer, getting the items good and wet and then tossing them in with a towel or two for friction. I've found that although I often have to run them for several cycles (usually because the load is small enough that the sensor thinks it's done way before the time runs out), the fabric felts very well this way, with minimal water used and the ability to check on things whenever I want. Here's what they looked like before felting:

and here they are after:

They felted so much, in fact, that the large ones are now my size, even though they were meant to be two sizes larger!

I also spent part of the weekend swatching for my handspun sweater, so now I wait for the swatch to dry so I can see if I got gauge. And it's not yet time to cast on a big project, so in the interim I'm knitting another charity hat holding lightweight leftovers double:

The pinky red is Dream in Color Jilly (a superwash merino single), the gold is a merino/ingeo (corn fiber) blend, and the orange is Fibernymph Dye Works sport weight. I started with the Jilly and the FDW, and when the latter runs out (assuming it does before the hat is done), I'll join in the merino/ingeo. I'm enjoying using up leftovers, but it's also fun to pull out these partial skeins and remember what I used them for previously. The Jilly was used for a sweater, the merino/ingeo for a shawl design, and the orange sport was used along with black for Halloween-ish hat for my oldest nephew.

We are all having a quiet day today. I plan to enjoy the cooler, less-humid weather (and, I assume, no road construction) on my run this morning, and Molly and I may do a little shopping this afternoon. Of course, we're not forgetting that it's Labor Day -- don't forget to thank your friendly neighborhood union member for having things like weekends!

Pre-Weekending

Phew, it's been a long week! Single-parenting is a lot easier now that Molly is self-sufficient (for the most part), but doing all the school runs and cooking and cleaning up all the meals and walking the dog and working full time and donating blood on top of all that, all while dealing with an extreme heat advisory has been a lot, to say the least. It's a good think we have a long weekend coming up without any big plans!

The Mister was due to get back from his trip very early this morning (I'm writing this post on Thursday) and will be working from home today, once he gets up. My office is closing at 2. Molly has school as usual but obviously is done mid-afternoon. I think we're all going to be looking forward to a nice dinner out tonight for our belated anniversary celebration.

I'm still in a weird in-between place in my knitting; I don't want to cast on anything too big because my next imaginary internet points thing starts next Wednesday, but I also don't want to be without knitting, so I'm working on strange things. If the mittens weren't finished by last night, they will be soon, and in the meantime I'm knitting a strange little hat with some fingering-weight singles that I thought were non-superwash but aren't (I was planning to knit up a piece of fabric to felt) and so I pivoted:

This will never be a full Ruthie.

What has become the brim is double-knit using just a single strand. The idea was that I'd knit up a tube, felt it, and then cut it open to make a little holder for scissors, darning needle, etc. But now that I know this won't felt (or at least not easily), it's become a baby/child's hat. I moved to bigger needles and joined the other end of the skein so I'm working double stranded, and I'll try to use up as much of the yarn as I can.

While I can't cast on for my next sweater until next week for it to count, I did wind the other skein and plan to swatch this weekend.

I spun this yarn back in 2016, originally intending to knit a different sweater with it, but it's been hiding in the stash ever since. I've got just a little less than 1,500 yards of it. The size of the sweater I'm planning to make specifies 1,345 yards, so I think I should be fine (especially because I'm pretty sure that's a padded estimate). The yarn is fingering weight, so I think it should make for a good fall/spring sweater.

The heat is finally supposed to break this weekend, and I'm looking forward to being outside without melting. Other than our dinner reservations tonight, our only plans at this point are a haircut for Molly tomorrow afternoon. Perhaps we'll do some grilling for Labor Day or attend the local parade! Or perhaps we'll just hang out, which would be just fine with me. Do you have any plans? Whatever they are, I hope you enjoy them!