Unraveled, Week 48/2024

We've reached that special Wednesday -- the one right before Thanksgiving, when it feels like everyone else is already on vacation. I used to actually enjoy working this day, in the time when I still went to the office every day, because there was usually almost no one there and I had nothing to do, and often we'd be allowed to leave early. Of course, now I can be a lot more productive on a quiet work day.

I am joining in with Kat and the Unravelers as I do every Wednesday to talk about what I'm making and what I'm reading. Now that my sweater and my big honking skein of yarn (more on that in a little bit) are done, what I'm making is gnomes. Yes, gnomes!

I think I have mentioned before that my brother has a thing for gnomes. I made him and my sister-in-law coordinating gnomes years ago and have given him gnome-related gifts in the past. This year, I think he's due for another one. I am making him Someone to Write Gnome About, Sarah Schira's most recent mystery gnome. I have signed up for one of her mystery make-alongs in the past and ended up not really caring for the resulting gnome, so I have learned to wait until I see finished projects and then decide if I want to buy the pattern. That was the case with this one. A number of people I follow made it, and I thought it was adorable. As you can see, I decided to go with the more muted skein of yarn for the hat (which is a lot bigger than I realized). It's Fibernymph Dye Works Mountain Tweed BFL in the colorway Mid-Winter, which I think has a muted University of Michigan colors look to it, making it quite suitable for my brother. I'll be using that dark blue (a very old skein of Knit Picks Gloss) for the body and the cream handspun for the beard and nose. And my nephew will also be getting a gnome, now that my brother has taught him the word and he can identify all the gnomes they have around the house. His will be the much simpler Never Not Gnoming using the bright blue and light brown (as well as that little ball of white). The pattern calls for fingering, but I'll be using DK to make a bigger gnome that's more of a stuffed animal size.

Speaking of the big skein of handspun, it's done and I have a color photo to share with you all -- I certainly hope I'm not spoiling anyone! It took me a good hour and a half to skein this yarn baby on Saturday afternoon, even with my Super Skeiner (which my shoulder was very glad I was using). I knew I was going to have a lot of yarn, but I didn't imagine it would end up being as much as it is: a bit more than 960 yards of fingering! It also weighs 270 grams, so clearly the bits of fiber that were supposed to be 10 grams each were a bit heavier.

I spun this as a two-ply fractal. What I did to achieve this was to go through the fiber packets in order, splitting each in half and spinning one half in order on one bobbin for the first ply. For the second ply, I split the remaining fiber in half again and went through the order twice (so if I had five colors, the first ply would have been spun ABCDE and the second ABCDEABCDE). The colors were clearly dyed and arranged to flow from one to the next, so the yarn I spun is very pleasing in that respect. Molly suggested I use this to make a big squishy shawl, which sounds good to me, but I won't be casting on just yet. I think this needs to marinate in the stash for a bit.

On to reading! I've finished two books this week.

I've been a big fan of Ina Garten for a long time. I always enjoy watching her Food Network show, and I've never had a miss when cooking from her cookbooks. I knew a little bit about her background, but not much, so when I heard she had a memoir coming out earlier this year, it immediately went on my list. I found Be Ready When the Luck Happens for sale at Costco last month and didn't think twice about buying a copy. In a word, this book is a delight. If you like Ina's personality on her cooking shows, you'll like this book. It's an easy read (but well written!) and reveals quite a lot about her life. If you think she's always been a rich lady from the Hamptons, you'd be wrong. As a bonus, there are photos and recipes sprinkled here and there. If you're a quick reader like my mother, who I've passed my copy on to, you could read this in a day. I gave it 4 stars.

I was invited to read and review All the Water in the World and was intrigued by a comparison in the pitch to Station Eleven, one of my all-time favorites. In an unspecified time in the future, global warming has become so severe that glaciers have melted and cities on the East Coast have flooded. Thirteen-year-old Nonie, her parents, and her older sister have taken shelter in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City with a small group of others committed to protecting the museum's collections. But life is precarious, with no medicines, new insect-borne illnesses, and superstorms that threaten all remaining structures. When one of those storms breaches the museum, Nonie, her sister, her father, and a friend -- the sole survivors -- must set out on a boat to try to get to higher ground, and there are plenty of dangers other than the water and the weather to contend with. While I appreciated the warning about our failure to address the threat of climate change and a look at what might happen if we hoard resources rather than work together to help each other, much of this book felt to me like something I had already read. In particular, I kept thinking of Parable of the Sower. I also felt that the writing was a bit lacking and at times confusing, and the editor in me couldn't stop myself from thinking of ways to improve it. I gave it 3 stars. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published January 7, 2025.

I am currently reading two books: Antelope Woman (on audio) and Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum, which has been selected for a local community read.

Tomorrow, of course, is Thanksgiving here in the United States, so I want to end this post by saying how thankful I am for all of you, dear readers. Those of you who read and comment regularly have become dear friends to me over the past several years, even though I've only actually met a few of you in person. I am so grateful to have found this community of like-minded crafters and readers who have been there to celebrate my successes, cheer me up when I've faced obstacles, and give me sage advice. I hope that those of you who will be celebrating tomorrow have delicious food and wonderful company to be thankful for.