Playing Chicken

Happy Friday, friends. I am always happy to get to the end of a work week, but I'm especially glad this week, as it's been a long and hard one. I didn't mention it earlier in the week, but we found out that my cousin's son (who Mo, my parents, my brother and sister-in-law, and my nephew had all been with last weekend) tested positive for COVID after they got home, so in addition to dealing with work and the heat, I've been dealing with anxiety about that. Fortunately no one has had any symptoms, so it looks like (fingers crossed!) we've dodged the bullet. But that anxiety, plus my general issues with sleep, have meant some short nights this week, so I'm very much looking forward to getting a little extra time in bed this weekend.

Fortunately the lack of sleep has not impacted my ability to focus on a knitting pattern, even one that's not as well written as it could be. Behold -- a chicken ready for its head:

I expect I'll be able to finish this fine fowl up this weekend, over which I plan to watch a fair amount of Olympics coverage. Working from the pattern for a second time, and with the intention to knit it again, I think I will likely spend some time rewriting it for my own use so that it's a bit clearer. I've been able to figure it out, but I also think I could improve on it and make knitting a chicken a bit less of an effort.

One bright spot this past week is that we've gotten some much-needed rain! We're still at a deficit, but the garden has been very happy. I've got a handful of spaghetti squashes growing bigger by the day along the fence, and when I went to pick the ripe cherry tomatoes and check on the other plants yesterday, I got quite a surprise in the zucchini patch:

This zucchini was not there just two days earlier, or, at least, it was small enough that I didn't notice it. I imagine I might have even more surprises today!

On tap for today is a run (hello, lower humidity!), baking challah, working on yet another annual report for work, and squishing my nephew for the first time in nearly a month at dinner tonight. I wish you a relaxing final weekend of July!

Unraveled, Week 30/2024

Week 30?! We've really and truly tipped into the downhill portion of this year; I've noticed upon getting up for work this week that it's now not fully light when I'm getting up, and it's all a bit depressing. I will not feel sorry to bid the intense heat and humidity farewell, but I wish we could hang on to the longer days.

But enough whining about the weather and how quickly the year is passing. It's Wednesday, which means it's time for my weekly check-in with Kat and the Unravelers. This week's update contains a finished object!

Pattern: Rift by Jacqueline Cieslak, size 44 in./112 cm bust
Yarn: Knit Picks CotLin (70% cotton/30% linen) in Indigo Bunting, a bit more than five skeins (622 yards used)
Needles: US 8/5.0 mm
Started/Completed: July 11/July 21
Mods: worked to a different gauge; added body length

If you can't already tell from my smile, I'm extremely happy with how my second version of this pattern worked out. I like how my first one looks, but I really wanted some more positive ease and more length so I could wear it as an actual top and not as more of a decorative piece on top of a tank or dress. So this time around, I bought yarn rather than trying to make do with what I had in my stash so that I could be sure I had enough. I have worked with CotLin before and find it to be pretty easy on the hands for something with so high a cotton content, not to mention that it creates a very comfortable fabric, so I figured it would be a good option.

Gauge was elusive yet again for me with my second try. The pattern calls for a gauge of four stitches to the inch for a very loose fabric with a lot of drape. I knit a very generous swatch with both a US 8 and a US 9. I got closer to gauge on the 9's (17 stitches over 4 inches), but the fabric looked very sloppy to me, and I liked it better on the 8's, which gave me a gauge of 18 stitches over 4 inches. So I did a bit of math. My full bust is about 35 inches, and if I worked the second size in the pattern with my tighter gauge, I'd end up with a finished bust of around 39 inches. The pattern recommends 6-12 inches of positive ease, but I knew that if I went any bigger, I'd be swimming in the fabric. Four inches is plenty for me!

My only other modification to the pattern was to add a significant amount of length to the body. The pattern calls for splitting for the front and back when the back measures 9 inches; I worked instead to 16.5 inches. The front of the sweater (the back of the split hem is longer) hits right around my hip bones, which is precisely where I like my sweaters to fall. I'm also relieved that I had plenty of yarn, because deciding when to stop adding length to the body to ensure I had enough yarn to finish the top part of the sweater was a bit of a guessing game. In the end, I have nearly a full skein left, so I didn't have to play any yarn chicken.

If I were to knit this a third time, I might make the V-neck a bit deeper. I know that mine is shallower than the samples shown in the pattern because of a difference in row gauge, and when this first came off the needles, the neckline was even a little tight (but it loosened in blocking). I expect that if I had worked to the specified gauge, row gauge would also have been quite a bit different, so I might've ended up with a deeper V as a side benefit. I don't really have much to show off with a low neckline in any case; I think a bigger opening just would've added to the relaxed feel of the top.

Now that this is done, and quite quickly, I'm feeling the need to work on something a little more frivolous, so a chicken has been started:

This one is going to be for me, and it will end up being a bit smaller than the one I made for my nephew because I went down a couple of needle sizes. I'm using a skein of Fibernymph Dye Works worsted that I won earlier this year in a OOAK colorway. It doesn't photograph well, but there's a bit of a reddish purple tint to the gray in some spots, and I think it goes well with the burgundy yarn (some leftover HipStrings Buoy) that I pulled out for the accent bits of the hen. I'm still pondering names for this one, though rest assured it will be something punny.

Reading has been quite good the past week, in spite of work's efforts to keep me away from my books, and I finished two books.

I was really interested in Songs for the Brokenhearted after reading Bonny's review of it, so I immediately went to NetGalley to request an ARC and was delighted to be approved shortly after. I was mainly intrigued by this book because it deals with an aspect of Jewish and Israeli history that I knew nothing about: the immigration of Yemeni Jews to Israel in the 1950s and the experiences of that group trying to assimilate to a culture that was largely composed of European Ashkenazi Jews. I knew, of course, that there were/are Jews of color and Mizrahi Jews, who came from Arab lands, but I really didn't know anything of their experience. In this novel, which clearly draws largely from the author's own life and experiences, we follow Zohara, a 30-something Yemeni Israeli woman who has returned to Israel in the mid-1990s when her mother suddenly dies, and Saida, her mother, in her early days in an Israeli refugee camp in the 1950s. As Zohara learns more about her mother's experience, she also grapples with her own identity and the Yemeni culture she was so eager to reject as a younger girl. The book also explores the political landscape in Israel at the time of the Oslo Peace Accords and the tradition of Yemeni women's songs. I really enjoyed the book, primarily because I learned so much by reading it, though I'll say I wasn't blown away by the writing (it wasn't bad, just not especially notable). I gave it 4 stars. I received a digital ARC of this book from NetGalley and Random House in return for an honest review. This book will be published September 10, 2024.

My other finish was an audiobook that I listened to over the course of last weekend. I loved Angeline Boulley's debut novel, Firekeeper's Daughter, and had in fact requested an ARC of her second, Warrior Girl Unearthed, though I never heard back about my request. So I've been meaning to read it for a while, and luckily there was no wait at the library when I remembered it. This novel takes place in the same setting as the first book and has some of the same characters, though you don't have to have read the first book before the second. Our main character is Perry Firekeeper-Birch, a Black and Indigenous teen who gets roped into participating in a tribal internship program to pay for repairs to a car after a fender bender. Assigned to the tribe's museum, she learns about the efforts to repatriate Indigenous artifacts and human remains through NAGPRA, the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act. She soon finds that this is easier said than done, particularly when private collectors are involved, and gets involved in a dangerous plan to return the remains of her tribe's ancestors. This book is classified as YA but deals with some pretty mature themes, notably the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women. I gave it 4 stars as well.

I'm still slowly but steadily working my way through A Suitable Boy -- I've passed the halfway point! And I have started the next Read With Us selection, The Ministry of Time, and am enjoying it so far but still have a fair amount to read.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that we are all feeling a little more hopeful about the state of things in the United States this week. I know the election is still going to be a nail-biter, but I'm inspired by the excitement and increased level of engagement I've seen since President Biden announced he was bowing out and endorsed Vice President Harris. Mo won't be able to vote until the next presidential election, but she's very excited to have a female candidate to cheer on! I'm rather excited myself, and it's nice to have good news rather than the usual doom and gloom. We'll see what happens and keep our fingers crossed!

A Quiet Weekend

I groaned a bit this morning when my alarm went off and I realized it was Monday again, but I can't complain at all about the weekend because it was quiet and restful. Mo is old enough now that we don't have to make sure someone is home with her all the time, but all the same it was a bit strange not having her here. We did go out for a nice dinner on Friday night, but other than that, it was a very relaxed couple of days -- especially because I was able to get most of my typical weekend chores done on Friday.

A good portion of my weekend was spent working on my Rift tee, which, I'm happy to report, is officially done (but still needs to be blocked before I take official FO photos).

I can report that the fit is exactly as I wanted it, with a bit of positive ease and full length rather than cropped. I'll have a full report on it once it's washed and blocked.

Yesterday was the last day of Tour de Fleece, and though it was a much less productive Tour for me compared to years past, I'm happy with what I spun. I've finished the first bobbin of singles for my body skein:

I also spent part of the weekend tending to the garden, where I discovered we have some baby squashes!

I'd been checking the plants regularly, but as they did last year, the vines got sneaky and were growing over the fence on our neighbors' side, so I hadn't spotted the squash babies growing. This one is a spaghetti squash, but we have a few small butternut squashes growing as well. It's nice to see something other than tomatoes, which have been my main harvest thus far:

What is on the counter is what I picked yesterday -- our first zucchini, a handful of cherry tomatoes, and some basil. The tomatoes in the bowl were picked over the last week, and I used all of them, plus the basil, in the pasta I made for dinner last night.

Today is business as usual, and I'm hoping work isn't too crazy. Have a good start to your week!

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

It's been a whirlwind of a week and I didn't remember at first that it was Friday when I woke up, which I guess is a good thing. My boss is off today, and as I finished up a project yesterday, I'm hoping that means a quiet work day for me. We are also having some blissfully cool weather this morning, so I am looking forward to a much more comfortable run today.

As promised, today's post is all about last week's trip to the TwinSet Summer Retreat. This was my first time attending the event, so I didn't know exactly what to expect, but I was pretty sure I would enjoy it. My only experience at a knitting retreat before this was at SSK, a much bigger event. This one was much smaller, with only about 40 attendees, and much less structured -- there were no classes or workshops or special activities, which meant it was much more focused on talking to people and having time to sit and knit. I think that made it especially good for Mo's first retreat; she would have been completely overwhelmed at SSK! But this was a good first retreat for her, and she was warmly welcomed.

The only real "event" of the retreat was Thursday night's Swap Melee. This was a sort of white elephant exchange: Each participant brought a wrapped gift and drew a ticket with a number at random. The person with the first number picked a gift and opened it. The next person could either pick a new gift to open or steal the item the first person opened, and so on. An item could only be stolen three times and then it was off the table. The items were only supposed to be about $20-25 in value, but some people went way over that. I didn't really care what I ended up with, though I didn't necessarily want to bring home more yarn, and given how many packages contained multiple skeins, I was pretty successful. I had a later number, and I ended up stealing a gift for the third time, which meant I got to keep it without risk of its being stolen.

This contraption is an Amish-style swift; in the white box is a ball winder. Now, I already have a swift (umbrella style) and winder, but I know they won't last forever, and I like the idea of having a backup. They were packaged in a large cardboard box, so I didn't realize at first that there was a skein of yarn in there, too, but it's a skein that looks like it'll be good for gift socks or a hat, so it'll get used.

Mo ended up keeping the package she opened, which ended up being something pretty perfect for her:

It was basically a kit with everything she would need for a project -- a skein of yarn, stitch markers, a row counter, scissors, a pen, a notebooks, stitch stoppers, and a yarn ball cozy -- plus a sweet little ceramic plate and a sticker that says "I'd rather be knitting."

We also came home with goodie bags, which I didn't expect:

Everything came stuffed in that bag on the right, which is actually a two-bottle wine cooler (Mo got a tote bag instead). Inside was two skeins of Sueño, an extensive DPN set, a set of Knit Blockers, scissors, darning needles, and an insulated cup. The wooden thing with all the holes is a DPN holder hand made by Jan's husband, who is a woodworker. Mo ended up with yarn in her colors:

The swap was the only organized event that everyone really participated in. On Friday evening, there was a chance for attendees to show off things they made, and there was a round of knitting-themed charades on Saturday evening. Many attendees chose to visit area yarn shops during the day on Saturday, which we, of course, skipped, but we did choose to go out to dinner that evening; the retreat center where the event was held provided all meals, but the food was pretty bad. That ended up being more dramatic than we anticipated because there was a sudden thunderstorm and the power went out, so we had a dinner of shared salads by the light of a window.

All in all, it was a successful and enjoyable retreat. I sold more than 20 skeins of handspun yarn -- much more than I was anticipating or even hoping for! -- and we both got a lot of crafting done and made some new friends. And I proved to myself that I can drive a long distance without too much stress. Mo has already said that we have to go back next year, and I think we've both decided that more mother/daughter road trips are in our future.

Mo left with my parents, my brother and sister-in-law, and nephew this morning for a quick trip up to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where they're meeting my cousin and his son (a rising high school senior) from Chicago to visit the University of Michigan. That means the Mister and I will have a child-free weekend, though we don't have anything planned except dinner out tonight. I'm hoping I can get some laundry and cleaning done today so that it can be a relaxing weekend for me and I can make up for all the time I spent behind the wheel last week and couldn't knit.

Have a good one, friends!

Unraveled, Week 29/2024

This week is flying by -- I can't believe it's already Wednesday! That means it's time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers and to talk about making and reading. And today I have a finished object to share with you.

I actually finished my Little Plinth Tee preview knit last week before we left, but I didn't have a chance to block it until we got back. I'm so happy with how this turned out! I knit the 6 month size, with the intention of putting it away for my niece (due in November) for next spring. I used Lolabean Yarn Co. Bean Sprout (fingering weight superwash merino/nylon) in the colorway African Violets that I had bought at Indie Untangled before Rhinebeck in 2019 -- not the oldest yarn in my stash, but certainly one that was well marinated! I had some issues with the pattern that were purely user error, namely my apparent inability to count accurately, but no problems with the pattern itself. I believe Kerri is planning to release the pattern next week. It's sized from 3 months up to 12 years -- and there's an adult version (Ravelry link), too!

I'm still working on my Rift tee, but it doesn't look all that different from the photo I shared on Monday, so I'll wait to update you until you can actually see the progress that has been made. Instead, here's how my sweater spinning project is going:

This is the third bit of fiber for the first ply of my body skein (got that?). The body skein is the biggest of the three I have left to spin for this project, but compared to the blue skeins, this is taking a lot less time to complete. This first ply is three parts silver, one part orange; the second will be two of each and the third one part silver and three parts orange. The finished yarn, once plied, will gradually transition from all silver to all orange. The sleeve skeins will do the same but be smaller.

For the first time in a long time, I have finished no books in the past week! That's largely because I spent most of my reading time last week on A Suitable Boy to ensure that I got my weekly pages done before we left on our trip (because I was not taking that brick of a book with me!). I am, however, close to finishing Songs for the Brokenhearted, which I started while we were away, and I'm really enjoying it.

What are you making and reading this week?

And We're Back!

Hello, friends, and happy Monday! I fully intended to post on Friday, but I decided it was more important to be present and enjoy the retreat than to sit at my laptop in my room. I will recount the retreat in more detail later this week when I have a little more time to do the experience justice, but for now suffice it to say that we had a wonderful time and arrived home happy but exhausted.

A real highlight of the trip (and totally independent from the retreat) was getting to meet up with Bonny, Dee, and Vera on Saturday morning:

We met up at an adorable coffeeshop in Easton, PA, in a former mansion that's been beautifully restored. I tried to look around and appreciate all the gorgeous details, but the company and conversation were too good. We spent a couple of hours knitting (Mo crocheted) and chatting, and I can tell you that these three women are just as lovely, if not more so, than they are on their blogs. It was too short of a visit, but I'm so glad that we were all able to meet up and hope we can do it again!

I worked on a sock WIP that morning, but for the rest of the weekend, I was pretty much monogamous with a project that I cast on Thursday evening and, as a result, have a lot of progress to show for it:

This is my second (new and improved!) Rift tee. In the swatch I shared last week, I'd used both size 8 (5 mm) and size 9 (5.5 mm) needles. I was closer to gauge with the larger needles, but I didn't really like the fabric I was getting; this is supposed to be a loose(ish) and relaxed garment, but on the 9's it just looked sloppy. So I'm going with the 8's again. My gauge is off (I'm getting 18 sts/4 in. rather than the called-for 16), but I did some math to figure out that I could knit the next size up and still get several inches of positive ease. Though I haven't tried on what I've knit so far, I can see from holding it up that it's going to be significantly bigger than my first attempt (which, incidentally, I am wearing in the photo above!) I also have more than 100 yards than the pattern specifies for the size I'm knitting, I'm adding length to the body so that this version isn't quite as cropped as my first one. I'm on my third of six balls of yarn, and last night when I put it away, the body was measuring 10.5 inches. I'd like to add at least a few more inches of length, but as I don't know exactly how much I'll need to complete the upper body, it's going to be a guessing game of how much yarn I can use. Fortunately it's a quick knit, so if I have to rip back and redo, it won't take too long.

It was a long weekend of many firsts. Obviously it was the first time I'd attended this retreat, and it was the first time Mo had attended any kind of retreat. It was also the first time I'd driven such a long distance, which was a big deal for me -- I don't particularly like driving, mainly because other drivers make me nervous. But thanks to Mo's company and GPS, I did it. I'm not in any rush to do it again, mind you, but I have a lot more confidence in my ability to do it should I need or want to. And it seems kind of appropriate that my odometer hit a nice even number upon our arrival at home:

This might seem like a low number for many of you, but keep in mind that I don't drive every day and when I do drive, it's often only a few miles at a time. In fact, it's a running joke in my family how low my car's mileage is -- so low that I can't remember the last time my car wasn't exempt from the state emissions test because I drive so little!

I have a pile of work waiting for me, so I'd better get to it. I will see you back here on Wednesday and will share a full wrap-up of the retreat on Friday. Have a good week and stay cool out there!

Unraveled, Week 28/2024

Wednesday again? Time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers and talk about what I'm making and reading (and rather quickly, because it's a very busy week at work in spite of the fact that it's only a three-day week for me).

My main focus continues to be the Little Plinth Tee, which is *almost* done!

The pooling isn't as dramatic in real life.

Although the stockinette roll isn't helping any here, you may be able to see that the fronts are done and the shoulder stitches are on waste yarn. I'm maybe halfway through the back at this point; once I've finished the back, the only things left to do are join the shoulder seams and do a quick edging on the neckline. There is a long-sleeved option for this sweater, but as I've sized it for springtime wearing, I went with the easy short sleeves.

I have also swatched for my next Rift tee, which I am planning to take with me to the retreat.

I made this swatch extra large to get a really good sense of gauge and used both US 8 (on the top) and US 9 (on the bottom) needles. It should say something about how often I use needles on the larger end of the spectrum that I had no fixed circulars in a US 9 and had to get out my old Knit Picks interchangeable set for that size. I don't use them very often anymore because the cables have a rather annoying tendency to pop out of the needle tips, but they were my only option. Fortunately, it looks like I'll be closer to gauge on a US 8, at least before blocking, and I don't expect the yarn (a cotton/linen blend) to change very much, but I'll know for sure as soon as the swatch is dry.

I got more reading done this past week, in large part thanks to audiobooks and the extra days off from work. I finished three books.

The first of the three was an ARC that I was invited to review (or maybe NetGalley sends those invitations to all its members?). Like Mother, Like Mother is a multigenerational story that appealed to me initially because I'm a daughter and the mother of a daughter and the family at the center of the story is, like mine, Jewish with roots in Detroit. I'll leave you to click over to the Goodreads synopsis rather than repeating it all here, and I'll add that it was intriguing and drew me in. But there were some strange things about the writing that detracted a bit from my enjoyment. The characters, though it's clear the author had very detailed ideas of them, feel rather one-dimensional and not particularly believable as actual people. There's a lot of dialogue, which makes the book feel more like a screenplay than a novel. There are also some oddities like questions ending in period rather than question marks (naturally, that sort of thing jumps out at me) and characters quoting something -- books? movies? -- that the other characters seem to get the reference to but that were lost on me as reader. It's definitely a book that made me think about big things like identity, parenting, and the stories we tell ourselves and whether or not they're truth, but as an editor, I felt it could have been better. I gave it 3 stars.

I received a digital ARC of this book from NetGalley and Random House in return for an honest review. This book will be published October 29, 2024.

I was ready for a new audiobook a week ago, and I wanted something I knew I would like. I was delighted to find A Place to Hang the Moon available after both Mary and Katie had recommended it. This is middle-grades historical fiction set in WWII Britain. Siblings Anna, Edmund, and William, whose parents died when they were younger, have just lost their only living relative, their grandmother, who never seemed to care for them much and who made no arrangements for their guardianship following her death. Her solicitor decides to take advantage of the evacuation of children out of London to see if the children can find someone willing to take them in. There's a rather predictable plot from that point, but it doesn't detract from a lovely story of siblings looking out for one another above all in a fraught time. It reminded me a lot of The War That Saved My Life and its sequel, and it was a quick listen (especially because the reader was so slow, I had to increase the speed to 1.75x!). I will just point out that the cover of the audio shown here has an error -- Anna is the youngest sibling, though it appears she's the middle child in this illustration. Whoever did it missed out by not actually reading the book! I gave it 4 stars.

That one went so quickly that I needed another audiobook to get me through the weekend, and I decided to try something a little outside my comfort zone. A Darker Shade of Magic is fantasy, set in a world in which there are four different Londons -- White, Grey, Red, and (previously) Black -- all with different levels of magic in them. Only a few can travel between these worlds, and doing so can be dangerous -- as Kell, the main character, soon discovers when the rulers of one London try to take over another. I enjoyed the book, though I think I would have enjoyed it more had I read it with my eyes; it was tricky to keep a lot of the fantasy elements straight simply by hearing them, and I think that might have been easier for me if they'd been seen. This is the first book in a trilogy, so if I decide to read the others, I'll be sure to read with my eyes. I gave it 4 stars.

I am still steadily working my way through A Suitable Boy, and after Bonny reviewed it recently, I requested and was approved for an ARC of Songs for the Brokenhearted, which I plan to start soon and take with me to read this weekend.

What are you making and reading this week?