Unraveled, Week 30/2026

Happy Fri -- er, Wednesday! It's the end of my workweek but only the middle of the week in general, and today as per usual I'm joining in with Kat and the Unravelers.

I'm still working on that sparkly purple charity hat and on my current spin, but today I'm planning on casting on a new project, a Sophie-ish scarf using this recent skein of handspun:

I figure I have knit enough shawls in my day that I can wing it without needing a pattern, though we'll see if I'm actually successful. I have a work meeting (online) right after lunch today that I have to attend but not really pay close attention to, so I'll be casting on then.

Because of a big project that got dropped in my lap late last week, my reading slowed a bit and I only have three finished reads to share this week (two of which were started at the beginning of the month). But they are all nonfiction, which is rather unusual for me!

In Abundance, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson argue that some of the policy decisions that were made decades ago and that may have been well intentioned at the time have led to major problems today: a shortage of affordable housing, worker shortages in certain industries, climate change, a problematic environment in which to conduct research. There's a lot of interesting content here, but a lot of it went in one ear and out the other (so maybe this wasn't the best book to read on audio and I would have retained more had I read with my eyes). It was a relatively short listen, despite having to slow down my usual speed (Ezra Klein can be a fast talker!), and I did feel I learned a few things, but when I finished I didn't feel like I had a solid grip on the content. I gave it 3 stars.

I have been wanting to read more of Toni Morrison's work (I have read only two of her novels, The Bluest Eye and Beloved, as well as her short story Recitatif and a collection of her essays and speeches), and some other readers I respect recommended that I read On Morrison before I do. Written by Harvard professor and novelist Namwali Serpell, this book is like taking a graduate seminar on Toni Morrison and her writing. It covers all of her novels and some of the other writings, examining their content, context, and creation. It's a comprehensive work and clearly written by someone who admires Morrison very much, but a lot of it was way over my head, especially when it got into the weeds about the mechanics of writing and literary devices. I think I got the most out of the chapters about the books I have read, and I can see myself going back to reread chapters as I read other novels and can make more sense of the discussion. I gave it 3 stars.

I previously read and enjoyed Patrick Radden Keefe's Say Nothing and his podcast, and I had been wanting to read his new book, so I was delighted when my parents passed along a hard copy. London Falling investigates the death of a London teenager, Zac Brettler, under mysterious circumstances made even more mysterious when Zac's parents discovered that he'd been posing as the son of a Russian oligarch and possibly gotten involved with some very shady characters. Like everything PRK does, this book is meticulously researched well beyond the inciting incident of Zac's death, even to the point of taking you down rabbit holes you didn't even know about to expect (did you know, for instance, that there was once a very large and prosperous Indian community in Uganda?). There are no clear answers and no real resolution, but it's a fascinating read nonetheless. I gave it 4 stars.

I'm now officially past the halfway mark on a very long new release on audio and have just started a digital ARC on another nonfiction work.

What are you making and reading this week?

The Beginning of the End

The end of July, that is. This month seems to gone by faster than any month yet this year, but I suppose when the weather is nice, we get busy doing a lot of things and that makes the time seem to go by more quickly. I'm not necessarily looking forward to August, but it does bring us closer to fall, my favorite time of year.

Thank you for all your good thoughts on Friday. If you didn't happen to see my midday update, I'm happy to share that Molly passed her driving test and is now a licensed driver! Amazingly she has not yet asked to take the car out ("the car" being my car), but one of her good friends has been on an overseas vacation with her parents for the past week and a half or so and will be getting home tomorrow, so Molly's already planning to drive over to see her on Wednesday. I'll admit I'm a little freaked out by the idea of her driving alone, but I know she is cautious and responsible, and frankly I'm very much looking forward to her driving herself to and from school everyday!

Our brief stretch of unseasonably cool weather ended this weekend, so it was a bit more uncomfortable outside. On Saturday morning Molly and I walked to a nearby farmers market to pick up some things for dinner that night. We came home with some focaccia, a gorgeous loaf of farm bread, fresh blueberries, and a couple of heirloom tomatoes. I had to go Trader Joe's anyway because we were completely out of coffee, so I picked up some fresh mozzarella. I picked some basil from our herb pot, and voila, caprese salad for dinner!

Your eyes do not deceive you -- that is purple basil!

After dinner, the Mister and I walked over to get ice cream and took Ruthie along for the first time. She was excited but I think a little disappointed that she didn't get any!

I did manage to get that charity hat finished up on Saturday, using up all but about 2 g of yarn (which means I used 101 g or about 495 yards!).

I almost immediately cast on for another one using the other skein I'd wound and taken with me on our family trip, when I was apparently a little delusional about just how much knitting I'd be doing. It's a one-of-a-kind skein from the now-defunct Steel City Fiber Collective. This is a sparkly base and should be faster to knit because it's only (hehe) 438 yards.

I've got a three-day work week this week, which feels like a great way to finish out the month. Molly and I are taking a short weekend trip up to Michigan with my parents and my brother and his family to visit my aunt and uncle. We'll be leaving Friday and coming back Sunday, but I'm taking Thursday and Monday off as well so I can drop Ruthie off at/pick her up from the dog sitter's (I prefer to have her in the car in the morning, before she eats, so there's less for her to throw up on the way!). Molly and I have tickets to go see The Odyssey on Thursday afternoon -- I'm excited! And I finished up a big work project at the end of the day on Friday, so I'm hoping this can be a calm and short week.

Feel-Good Friday, Late July Edition

This has been a challenging week for a number of reasons, most having to do with not getting enough sleep. I'll spare you the boring details; suffice it to say that I'm happy it's Friday. And instead of wallowing in the less-than-happy things, let's instead focus on the good in this week that was.

I mentioned at the beginning of the week that the Mister was going to be out of town for work for a few days this week. I took advantage of his absence to completely empty the stash closet and put everything on his side of the bedroom. Molly took a stab at organizing things on Tuesday while I was working, and then Wednesday night, after I put Ruthie to bed, the two of us went through all the bins and bags to put things together logically. Molly claimed some leftovers, some mini skeins, and some full skeins for herself (she's been doing a lot of crocheted motifs to make blankets). I consolidated handspun and unspun fiber into fewer containers. And we organized the yarn into bins containing full skeins/sweater quantities and collected all the fingering weight bits that could be used in charity projects. Some things were just plain thrown out because they were of no use to me or anyone else. And now the closet looks like this:

Spinning fiber is all on the left, handspun is in the center, and yarn is to the right. The Cascade bag on top of the fiber is all the bits of fingering, so I can just pull that out and pull out scraps as needed, and the soft plastic cases on top of the yarn bins is projects that have been packed away. I also want to point out that right at the top of the handspun pile is a smaller plastic bag that I deliberately left out -- it's the handspun I couldn't find that triggered this reorganization process in the first place!

Other good things: I finally blocked and photographed my most recent pair of socks (I'm writing up the pattern and will need photos, so that was good motivation):

And I've been continuing to spin almost every evening and finished the first 2 oz. (of 6 oz. total) of this lovely merino/silk/angora fiber that my friend Margene sent me:

I'm hoping we can finish up this week with some really good news: Molly is scheduled to take her driving test later this morning. She's been getting good feedback from the driving instructor (all the credit goes to the Mister for getting her out on busy and difficult roads), so I am feeling good about her chances. I know she's very much like me and won't be reckless, but nerves are always something to contend with. If you have some good thoughts to send her way at 11:30 this morning, I'm sure she'd appreciate it! Update: She passed!

I hope this past week has brought you clearer air if, like me, you were recently dealing with smoke from the forest fires. Our air has been so much better and our weather has been absolutely stunning the past couple of days -- it was in the 50s when I took Ruthie out first thing yesterday! I also hope you've been able to find some things to feel good about, and please feel free to share them in the comments, as I think we can all use a good lift! Have a lovely weekend.

Unraveled, Week 29/2026

It's Wednesday, so it must be time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers! This week's update finds me in an unusual spot: I have only one active knitting WIP. I have been spinning in the evenings when I'm upstairs, so the only knitting I've been doing regularly has been during the afternoons while Ruthie naps (and while I read or do work). That knitting, by necessity, has to be fairly simple, so it's generally socks or a hat. And a hat is what I've been working on this week.

It's been a while since I measured anything in Ruthies, and I think this particular system is well suited to this hat. The yarn I'm using is a light fingering weight, at 490 yards per 100 g. As if that's not enough, my skein was a bit heavy at 103 g, so I have a bit more than 500 yards. This is going to be for charity, so I figure I might as well use up as much of it as I can; worst case is that whoever ends up with it can fold the brim a couple of times. My parents were kind enough to drive me to and from the dinner Monday night (they were also attending), and the round trip took probably an hour and 45 minutes thanks to traffic, so I've gotten a fair amount done this week. I'm hoping I'll be able to finish in the next few days.

I've also done a fair amount of reading this week, but I'm busy enough that I don't have time to do full reviews and I apologize for that. I've finished five books since last Wednesday:

• Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke (digital from library): A tradwife online influencer wakes up in 1855 and has to figure out how she got there and how to get back to the life she knows. A wild ride with a highly unlikeable main character that is nevertheless a page turner. 3 stars
• Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann (audio from the library): A riveting true story of a rash of murders of members of the Osage nation and the investigation by the burgeoning FBI that revealed a pattern of efforts by white men to get the oil money of the Osage. 4 stars
• The Fine Art of Lying by Alexandra Andrews (digital from library): A thriller set in the world of fine art. Clare was ABD on an art history PhD when she married into a wealthy family and has become unfulfilled with her new life. She has an affair with an art dealer, and when he is murdered, it soon becomes clear that someone is trying to frame her for his death. Outrageous but fun, especially if you know art. 4 stars
• Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz (audio from library): The third in the Susan Ryeland series finds her back in London working with a tumultuous author hired to write a continuation of the Atticus Pund series. She discovers that his book is actually a thinly veiled account of his own family, and once again she finds herself at the center of a murder investigation. Well performed (by actors) but too long. 3 stars
• Dear Monica Lewinsky by Julie Langbein (digital from library): Jean, in her mid-40s, can't seem to move on from an affair she had with a professor while a college student studying abroad in France. So she turns to Monica Lewinsky, as one would pray to a saint for intercession, for help as she revisits that summer. Funny, irreverent, and empowering and totally original. 4 stars

I'm still slowly making my way through London Falling before bed and, now that a flurry of three library holds in a row coming in has subsided, will be getting back to On Morrison.

What are you making and reading this week?

Mid-July Weekending

Did I say I was going to have a relaxing weekend? If so, I must've jinxed it. That's not to say that I didn't get time to myself, but when your Saturday starts with an alarm going off at 5:45 (a certain spouse of mine turned on his weekday alarm without thinking) followed by a thunderstorm, it's probably an indication that things are going to be more exciting than you bargained for.

When I took Ruthie out for her morning walk, I noticed that it smelled like a campfire outside -- different from the smoke from the wildfires, which smelled more plastic-y. When we got to the business district of our neighborhood, I discovered the source:

It's hard to make out what's in the photos, but the black and red storefront you see just to the right of center is a ramen restaurant that caught fire Saturday morning. By the time we walked by, the fire was out, but there were still five fire trucks, at least two police cars (to block traffic), and a truck from the Salvation Army there as well as two news cameras, which you might be able to make out in the photo (one in front of the person wearing the blue shirt and one to the left of that, by the rear wheel of that black SUV). No one was hurt, thank goodness, but the building is now condemned. And it was much more excitement than we're used to on a Saturday morning -- I think Ruthie was a bit overwhelmed by the noise and the lights.

We had thunderstorms and heavy rain on and off all that day, including when I took Ruthie out at midday, and we both got completely drenched even though I'd checked the radar before we left and it was clear! The rain was very welcome, though, and it helped to cool down the temperatures and clear out some of the smoke. And yesterday was beautiful and so much more comfortable.

Some highlights from the weekend include going out to dinner on Friday night, where we were seated right next to my parents (no, we didn't plan it!); picking some more zucchinis that seemed to grow overnight as well as some more ripe tomatoes; making zucchini bread with some of those zucchinis; and sleeping in on Sunday (I made sure to tell the Mister to double-check that his alarm wasn't on when we went to bed). 

This is what happens when a zucchini grows up against the side of your fencing.

I also got to measure and photograph that skein of handspun:

I ended up with about 296 yards of two-ply that's roughly sport weight, though it varies a bit like any good handspun does. Because of the high silk content, it has incredible drape and sheen. I'm very happy with it. I might even knit something with it, and soon!

The weekend ended with dinner with my side of the family for my brother's birthday, for which I made an ice cream grasshopper pie:

It wasn't going to win any beauty contests, but it sure tasted good -- especially because I made the crust with Thin Mints!

The Mister is at a charity golf event today, and I'll be meeting him for the dinner portion. Then he's away on a work trip for a few days, so it'll be just us girls at home -- and I'm going to use his absence to do some stash organization because I can spread things out on his side of the bedroom. I'll be sure to share an update on that later in the week.

Have a good start to your week, and see you back here on Wednesday!

That's a Wrap -- Almost

A full week back at work after vacation is not for the faint of heart, so I am very relieved to have made it to Friday. It's not that work was all that difficult, but when you add in another heatwave, wildfire smoke, Internet service that keeps going down, and broken ovens, it makes for a lot.

Yes, I said broken ovens. Some of you might remember that just a little over a year ago, not long after Ruthie came home, our ovens died right before we were supposed to host Passover and we had to get replacements. We ended up with a slightly newer model from the same company because they gave us a deal. Well, that'll be the last time we buy that company's appliances because over the weekend, when the ovens were off and hadn't been used in a while, the control panel started beeping incessantly about an error. It was telling us something about a button being stuck, which made no sense because it was a touchscreen, and the only way to get the beeping to stop was to turn off the breaker. After getting nowhere with the company when he called, the Mister decided we were just going to replace them with something the local appliance place had in stock. I had to pivot a bit on some of the dinner plans for the week, but that was fine, and yesterday some very nice guys came to install our new double oven. And here's hoping it's functional for a good long time!

I'm also happy to report that Comcast did end up fixing whatever the issue was on Tuesday, and we've had no major Internet issues since then.

Though I can't share the finished skein just yet (because it's still drying), I did indeed wrap up the plying on my spinning project on Wednesday evening and skeined and washed it last night. For now, I'll just share this bobbin shot, and I'll share details once the skein is fully dry and I can measure it:

I also finished a pair of socks yesterday! I really had just a bit more than the toe to do on the second sock, and once the ovens were in and Ruthie was able to settle down, I wrapped that up in short order.

The weekend ahead is looking pretty relaxing from my perspective. Molly's got another driving lesson tomorrow afternoon, which might be interesting because there's a high chance of showers and potential thunderstorms (I keep saying it's because the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix is happening this weekend, and it seems like there's always a massive thunderstorm in the middle of it). I am certainly hoping for some rain and a break to the oppressive weather we've been having. And I am looking forward to a family dinner to celebrate my brother's birthday on Sunday. I've said I'd make an ice cream grasshopper pie, for which I'm planning to use Thin Mints for the crust.

I'll leave you with one last photo -- the first harvest from my garden! I went to water and check on the zucchini and this one totally surprised me because I hadn't spotted it growing. There are lots more tomatoes to come (they'll probably ripen all at once) but these four were the only ones ready.

I hope you have an enjoyable weekend. Remember to hydrate and wear your sunblock!

Unraveled, Week 28/2026

Happy Wednesday morning from the heat dome! We're supposed to have a heat index upward of 100ºF today, so I will be spending as much time as possible inside, where I can knit in comfort. Today I'm joining in with Kat and the Unravelers with a big update on my crafting and my reading.

Over the weekend and the past couple of days, we've been dealing with a Comcast outage (fingers crossed that it's fixed now), but the lack of internet on Monday night meant I was able to focus on my spinning and finished up the second bobbin of singles.

As I got this post ready on Tuesday evening, I will have already started plying when you read this, and I'm hopeful I can get that done and the resulting yarn skeined up in time to share it with you on Friday.

I've been continuing to work on my socks while I read and work, and I'm onto the foot of the second sock:

And my current charity hat has grown a bit since you last saw it, and I'm delighted that the yarn has decided to stripe, even though it's sock yarn and I'm working at a bigger circumference:

Because I'm a little pressed for time, I'm going to keep my book reviews brief this week.

Little One by Olivia Muenter

Digital library loan

3 stars

Told in dual timelines, a woman who grew up in what might be considered a cult and has tried to escape from her past is forced to confront it when a reporter finds her and starts asking questions. It was a page-turner that moved at a good speed, but I was distracted by a number of grammatical errors and thought the ending was totally unrealistic.

Slow Horses (Slough House #1) by Mick Herron

Audiobook library loan

4 stars

Slough House is where the screwups from Britain's MI5 get sent. This first book in the series is pretty much exactly the plot of the first season of the Apple TV show of the same name, which I'd already seen, so there weren't really any surprises, but it was still an entertaining listen.

The Palace on the Higher Hill by Karim Kattan, translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman

Paperback

2 stars

A Palestinian man living elsewhere returns to his family's home in the West Bank, where he is welcomed by ghosts and the memories of his childhood. I had a really hard time understanding what was going on in this book and probably wouldn't have finished it were it not part of my postal paperback club.

The Place of Tides by James Rebanks

Audiobook library loan

4 stars

A British sheep farmer travels to a remote island off the coast of Norway to learn about the life of Anna, a woman who has devoted much of her life to bringing back the Eider ducks whose feathers used to provide a living to earlier generations. Beautiful and respectful.

I'm currently reading a buzzy book, a recent narrative nonfiction release, and a work of literary criticism.

What are you making and reading?