All Good Things

Friends, the news continues to be horrible, so I thought I would use this post as a reason to share good things. (I'm also doing it because I have a dearth of fibery content to share, so yes, it's a bit of a cop-out.)

Good Thing #1:
I successfully went for my first run since breaking my foot on Monday! I took it slow (about a 10-minute mile pace) and my foot did fine, but it's clear my legs are not used to this type of exercise. This is probably the first time that I had to stop and walk not because I needed to catch my breath but because my legs and knees were yelling at me. I've been feeling it all week, but today the aching seems to be gone, so I'll be going out to run again this morning. I also bought myself another pair of running shoes earlier this week (I got an email from Zappos about a sale on Hokas), so I am all ready to resume my regular runs, albeit perhaps not three times a week for a while yet.

Good Thing #2:
While I was out on that run on Monday, I ran into a neighbor I haven't seen in a while because I haven't been outside much in the past several months. I usually see her out with her dogs Max and Star. This time, Max wasn't with her, and though I didn't ask, I presume he has crossed the rainbow bridge (he was an elderly Westie). But this time Star was accompanied by a tiny, fluffy puppy, who looked like some sort of Doodle. He is six months old and very friendly, and his name is BAGEL!

Good Thing #3:
Speaking of dogs, if you're a fan of them and you need a little pick-me-up, take a few minutes to watch these videos of dogs' reunions with their owners. Have some tissues handy!

Good Thing #4:
Today's day is 3/14 -- which means it's Pi(e) Day! I totally forgot about it until Molly reminded me this morning, but it's a perfectly good excuse to eat some pie. You know, if you needed one.

Good Thing #5:
We have had a week of amazing weather here in Pittsburgh. It's been sunny and warmer than average -- we might even hit 80ºF today! I'm not ruling out the possibility of more snow (we've had it in April before), and there are highs in the 40s in the five-day forecast, but it sure seems like spring has arrived. Case in point: I saw crocus flowers on my way to the office yesterday:

I also spotted at least one daffodil bud in my yard, so it appears we'll have some flowers soon. If that's not a reason for celebration, I don't know what is.

I hope you've got some good things in your life right now, and if not, I hope you can at least be happy about the fact that it's almost the weekend. Enjoy it, friends!

Unraveled, Week 11/2025

It is Wednesday -- already and again! Time to join up with Kat and the Unravelers!

As work is entering a busy cycle, there's been less time to craft and read during the day, so I don't have a lot to share. But I do have a finished hat, which you saw the brim of on Monday. Once I finished up the brioche, it flew pretty quickly.

There is no pattern for this, as it's just a basic beanie. I cast on 88 stitches with two colors of Knit Picks Chroma Twist on US 3/3.25 mm needles and worked in two-color brioche until I didn't have enough of the lighter color (Sandpiper) to do another round. Then I switched over to US 5/3.75 mm needles and knit until the hat measured 6 inches (about 15.5 cm) and did basic swirled decreases at eight points. I still have a bit of the darker color (Cousteau) of yarn left and could have made it a little longer, but I wasn't in the mood to play yarn chicken. This will get a bath and then will be added to the bags of charity hats, and perhaps Molly will use the leftovers in one of her many scrappy crochet projects.

I'm still working on my sister-in-law's socks and have gotten to the heel. I'm pondering what to cast on next -- one WIP doesn't usually do it for me if it's not especially engaging, but maybe I should just focus on these socks in the interest of getting them done quickly. We shall see.

I've only finished one book in the past week, but when it's a five-star read, that seems like enough. And I have Bonny to thank for putting it on my radar.

The Correspondent is a book of letters. Sybil Van Antwerp, a 70-something woman who lives alone, spends regular hours at her desk taking care of her correspondence, just as she has done her whole life. She writes to her brother and her best friend. She writes to former colleagues and acquaintances she met through her career as a lawyer and judicial clerk. She writes to a teenage boy who has shared his secret troubles and fears with her and with whom she has shared some of her own secrets. She writes to authors whose books she has enjoyed, including Ann Patchett and Larry McMurtry. She has a regular correspondence with Joan Didion. And she writes, regularly and continuously, to someone who is unnamed and unknown until the very end. Though all these letters, we get a complete view of her life's struggles and triumphs, from her early years as an adopted child who felt so unlike her peers at school; to the loss of one of her children and her subsequent divorce; to the struggles in her later life to maintain a relationship with her daughter and her diagnosis of a degenerative eye condition that will eventually take her sight. Though the letters she writes and the letters she receives, we learn about her regrets and the things she blames herself for, and we are able to see how even a woman in her 70s who has had a long, satisfying life can still learn new things, can find ways to right the wrongs, and can find new ways to experience joy. It's a beautiful, quiet novel -- one that will likely make you want to write a letter! I gave it 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in return for an honest review. It will be published April 29, 2025. And Goodreads has a giveaway for a hard copy open right now, if you're interested! Just click on the link above and you should see the giveaway on the left.

I'm getting very close to the end of The Secret History and am pondering what lighthearted or funny book I can read next as a palate cleanser.

What are you making and reading this week?

In Which I Complete Another Trip Around the Sun

Good morning, friends. I hope you've all sufficiently recovered from the time change. While I enjoyed the later sunset time, I would have been happy to wait another month for it to occur naturally and had that hour of sleep instead. I suppose the best thing I can say for changing the clocks is that at least we don't do it on a Monday morning!

Yesterday was, of course, my birthday, and it was probably also the most relaxing part of the weekend. Our plans for Friday night went a bit haywire: We had the table set, the food waiting, and the water glasses filled and my in-laws had arrived, but my brother-in-law, sister-in-law and nephews hadn't shown. When the Mister called his brother to find out where they were, they were wondering where we were because they had apparently cooked dinner at their place. So we all loaded up in the car and went there, and dinner was good, but it was not the quiet night at home I was hoping for. I think what says it all is that my birthday cake -- a chocolate almond torte -- got smushed in the refrigerator and ended up saying "Hapy day h!"

Fortunately the rest of the weekend's plans went ahead as scheduled. Molly and I thoroughly enjoyed Kimberly Akimbo on Saturday afternoon (did you know that they figured out a way to ice skate on the stage as part of the show?), and then the three of us had a nice dinner out. On Sunday morning, my brother and my nephew stopped by to drop off a gift, and then Molly and the Mister and I went for a fancy brunch at one of our favorite local restaurants -- including a pear cardamom mimosa! I took the opportunity to wear my vest again.

Photo taken by the Mister, which is why he's not in it

After some wet snow fell on Friday night, the sun was out all weekend, and it was warm enough yesterday afternoon (low 50s) to take a walk in just a sweatshirt:

That sweatshirt was my birthday present from my brother and his family. It's from my local bookstore -- the neon whale is above their cafe and is named August Whale-son in honor of one of Pittsburgh's literary native sons.

While most of the weekend seemed to be spent eating, there was some knitting as well. As many of you predicted, my needles didn't stay empty for long. I pulled out some leftovers from the two hats I test knit this year and combined them for a charity hat, and I also started a new pair of socks for my sister-in-law so I'd have something to knit at the show.

I didn't manage to get the full cuff of the sock knit before the show started and couldn't see enough in the low light to measure it, but I got close enough to an inch. Somehow I dropped a stitch but also created one when I switched over from ribbing to stockinette, so I had to get out my fix-it tool in the intermission to ladder down and pick it back up. I also had no idea how the yarn was going to stripe, so that was a fun surprise when the lights came up. This is a OOAK Fibernymph Dye Works self-striper on a superwash merino base that has sections of natural dark fiber. It's not as tightly plied as the Bounce base I usually use, so it's a little splitty, but I do love the colors and I think my sister-in-law will as well. I'll likely put these away for her birthday in September. The hat is just basic two-color brioche for the brim, which I knit until I ran out of the color I had less of, and the rest will be plain stockinette. I think both of these projects will be handy this week, as I'm expecting a magazine project to come in and will have a lot of reading to do.

It may be Monday, but it's supposed to be another beautiful day here and there are signs of spring arriving. Let's hope we can make the most of it!

Weekending Early

Today is my "spring break" at work; the students are off for spring break all this week, so staff get this one day off. Years ago, it was referred to as Great Americans Day, at least according to my former boss. A quick Google search didn't turn up anything useful, so maybe he was pulling our legs. Regardless, I'm happy to have the day off from work, even if I had to get up at the usual time to get Molly to school. (That just means I'm appreciating more of the day, right?)

Speaking of Molly, she has some brand-new socks to wear, which is a good thing because it snowed again yesterday. It didn't stick anywhere but on grassy surfaces, but it was cold and blew in my eyes the whole way into the office yesterday morning. Yuck.

These were knit with Fibernymph Dye Works Mountain Tweed BFL in the colorway Signature Series: Neutrals. I used 62 g of yarn or about 271 yards. They haven't been blocked, obviously, and may not be -- she may want to wear them right away. She asked for slightly shorter legs (4.5 inches), so they knit up a lot faster than I was anticipating. And I'm happy to be done with the neutrals!

At the other end of the color spectrum is the yarn I plied earlier this week, which is a welcome pop of bright color. This was Polwarth from FatCatKnits in the colorway Flamingo, but it made me think early '90s and Miami Beach (or maybe Miami Vice?).

I think I mentioned that I split the fiber up to be a fractal, which essentially means that both plies follow the same color progression but at different rates. For this particular skein, I found when I pulled the braid apart that I could fold it in half and the two sides matched up, so I broke it in half at the fold, then split one piece into two lengthwise and split the other into four lengthwise. There's a lot of barberpoling but also a fair number of spots where the colors of the two plies line up. Some people might think this yarn was overplied, but I love this round, bouncy look. After washing and drying, the yarn looks to be about sport weight on average, and I estimate its length to be about 276 yards. I have no clue what to do with it and probably will just stick it back in the stash for now, but it was great fun to spin.

The weekend ahead is my birthday weekend. The number is unexciting and I'm not expecting any big gifts, but I am looking forward to eating several meals that I do not have to cook myself. Tonight the Mister's side of the family is coming over for pizza, and tomorrow the three of us will go out after Molly and I see Kimberly Akimbo. My actual birthday is Sunday, so we're going to go for a fancy brunch at one of the places we go to for dinner a lot but for which I've never gone for brunch. I'm a bit annoyed that I will get one less hour of sleep that night, but maybe I'll make up for it by sleeping in. I've reached that stage in life where the only reason I really look forward to a birthday is because it's a chance to be with my loved ones for a happy occasion. This year I'm especially happy to be in better shape physically after two pretty traumatic injuries last year, and given the current political situation, I'm also feeling very thankful to be gainfully employed and not struggling to make ends me. I know I'm very lucky, and I'm hopeful that there will be many more trips around the sun ahead of me. In honor of my birthday, I hope you'll all treat yourself to a little something special this weekend!

Unraveled, Week 10/2025

We've made it to the midpoint of the week, one that's seemed longer than normal to me thanks to not one but two migraines (I blame the extreme swings in weather). The most recent was yesterday afternoon, which is why this post is a bit later than usual because I often get started on my Wednesday posts on Tuesday afternoon and skipped it yesterday. Joining Kat and the Unravelers is always a high point for me, though, so here I am with an update on my making and reading.

First, I have to thank you all for the lovely compliments you gave me on my vest. I've already worn it twice this week, including yesterday, when we reached the low 60s F for a high and it was the perfect light layer. I also found myself admiring the colors in the fabric frequently, so now I'm pondering how I could take fiber that's in my stash and mix it up to have that same tweedy look.

My only project on the needles at the moment are Molly's socks, which are now in the home stretch:

I took them to a long work meeting last Thursday and was able to finish the first sock and start the second over the weekend. I think I will easily finish these up by the end of the week, and I'm going to need to cast on some stockinette project soon because we're going to see Kimberly Akimbo on Saturday afternoon and I'll need something to keep my hands busy.

Yesterday afternoon I sat down at my wheel and plied up the yarn I started spinning last week; skeining and washing are on today's to-do list. It looked lots of fun while I was plying, so I'm excited to see the full skein!

I've finished two books this last week.

First was a reread: Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. I borrowed an audiobook via Hoopla, and there are so many versions that I couldn't find the one I listened to on either Goodreads or StoryGraph! I've read the book at least once before, but it's been many years, and I wanted to reread it before I read a modern retelling that's in my Kindle library. This book tells the story of Fanny Price, who is taken in by her aunt and uncle as a young girl; she is one of many children, and her mother's sisters have decided that bringing her up is a sufficient act of charity. Though she is brought up in better circumstances than her siblings, she doesn't rank as high as her cousins in terms of the opportunities available to her and thus is mostly an observer of their lives. Like all Austen novels, the subject of marriage as a means of social advancement looms large, and though I knew to expect it, I was struck on this reread by how little regard was paid to Fanny's feelings and moral beliefs when it came to who she might marry -- and how well she stood up to the pressure. Revisiting this novel was very pleasurable. I gave it 4 stars.

You might think that The Dream Hotel, set in a technology-rich near future, is the complete opposite of Austen, but in fact it shares the theme of a woman whose freedom to make her own choices is limited by her society. In this novel, the United States has taken an extreme step in fighting violence by using an algorithm to detain individuals deemed at risk of committing a violent act. It's no longer about just making threats, either; in this world, implantable devices design to help people sleep better also can read their dreams, and the content of their dreams can be used against them. That is what happens to Sara Hussein, a mother of young twins who sought help for her extreme exhaustion and ends up in a retention facility because the algorithm predicts she is at risk of harming her husband. Once she is in the system, she finds that it is hard to escape it, because not only can her own dreams and data be used against her, but she is also of value to the private company that runs the retention facilities. She is subject to the whims of those who supervise the retainees, who enforce the endless and often changing rules of the facility, and is under constant surveillance by cameras, microphones, and the device that continues to record her dreams, and every infraction lengthens her stay. She is torn between trying to follow the rules in the hopes of being released and fighting against an unjust system. What is so chilling about this book is that it doesn't seem that far-fetched, given how much of our lives we put online and how little attention we pay to the terms and conditions of the apps and sites and devices we use every day. Who is to say that all our data won't be used against us, particularly in the current political climate? Thank you to NetGalley and Pantheon for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. This book was just published yesterday! And thank you to Bonny for putting it on my radar.

I'm still slowly making my way through The Secret History, with about 200 pages to go. And I've got another Bonny-recommended title up next on Kindle.

What are you making and reading this week?

A Vest for All Seasons

Here it is, blocked, dried, and modeled!

Pattern: All Season Vest by Noriko Ichikawa (Ravelry link), size 3 (41.5 in./105.5 cm bust circumference)
Yarn: Handspun from three HipStrings batts (fiber content unknown)
Needles: US 5/3.75 mm (for stockinette) and US 3/3.25 mm (for ribbing)
Started/Completed: February 16/February 27
Mods: none, other than working to a slightly different gauge (which gave me a smidge more positive ease) and picking up some extra stitches around the neck and armholes

If you think this knit up quickly, you're right; I guess not having to deal with sleeves makes a lot of difference when knitting a garment! I didn't even feel that I was particularly pushing myself to get this done quickly, so that should tell you that even with lots of short-row shaping and alternating skeins, this is a fast project.

I've really been enjoying knitting myself garments with handspun, and the two skeins that I used in this vest really begged to be something simple and without a lot of texture so that the yarn could shine. I know that the batts I spun to create the yarn were mostly/nearly all wool, and a lot of the pops of color are from bits of sari silk, but if I had any sort of tag indicating their composition, it's long gone. It really doesn't matter at this point -- I'm going to hand wash this vest in any case -- but it does leave me scratching my head a bit because I'm usually so good about keeping records of these sorts of things. It's also, of course, possible that they came to me as mystery batts and I never knew much more than I've shared to begin with! I do know that they were beautiful and that they were carded by my friend Jill, and that makes my enjoyment of the resulting garment even greater.

You might think, looking at the finished garment, that this is a very simple project, but it's impeccably designed and more complicated to execute than you'd think. I've already shared in a previous post how it's constructed and how extensive short rows are used to shape the shoulders. There's also shaping along the armhole to allow the ribbing to sit out a bit from the body and then gussets under the arm to reduce the extra stitches (which you might be able to see in the above photo -- the gusset is right on top of that slightly lighter vertical line where the vest was folded to block).

The color of the yarn and the finished garment continue to give me trouble when I'm photographing it, so I had to edit the images a bit. It keeps blowing out and showing up lighter than it is in real life. But the pops of color from the sari silk are that bright, and they bring me so much joy, as any bright color does in the gray that is a Pennsylvania winter. I ended up using approximately 658 yards and 294 grams of the yarn and have a good amount leftover (though, as per usual, at one point I was worried about a game of yarn chicken). The vest is light but warm, not enough for me for a really cold day but great on top of a long-sleeved tee for the March weather we often get, when the sun is warm even when the air temperature is still only a little above freezing. I have a feeling I'm going to be wearing it a lot this spring and fall, and I would absolutely recommend the pattern. I'm also absolutely going to knit another handspun garment, and likely soon, but I have to do some more pondering on what and with what.

Well That Was Easy!

It's Friday and the last day of the month, and I have a finished vest!

Obviously this isn't a formal FO post; this project still needs a good blocking and a proper photo shoot. But it's off the needles and the ends have been woven in, so it's just a matter of time for the last steps. It feels good to have knit a garment so quickly, especially after my last two sweaters.

I expect soon I'll be casting on another larger project, but in the meantime I thought I'd take a little spinning break because I haven't had anything on the wheel in a while. I was craving some color and pulled this braid out from my stash:

This is from FatCatKnits and purchased a number of years ago when Ginny was closing up shop (she's since reopened). I am picturing this spun as a barberpoling two ply, so I'm going to split it in half lengthwise and then split at least one of those halves again for a fractal.

I'm still making slow but steady progress on Molly's socks and got at least an inch knit yesterday while sitting through a very long work meeting:

We will likely have winter-ish weather for a while yet, but I expect that the days that are cold enough for her to wear wool socks are likely limited, so I'd better get a move on.

We've got a fairly quiet weekend ahead. We're having a pre-birthday dinner with my parents tomorrow (my birthday is next weekend, but they're going to be away, so we're celebrating a bit early), and I expect we'll watch some of the Oscars on Sunday, but that's all that's on the calendar -- and that's just fine with me! I will Molly take some photos of me modeling the vest at some point, so you can expect a full FO post on Monday. Have a good weekend, friends!