Polwarth in Polwarth

As promised, it's done -- and I love it!

Pattern: Polwarth by Ysolda Teague, size 37.5" bust
Yarn: handspun Polwarth from Southern Cross Fibre, colorway Plot Twist; approximately 1,036 yards used
Needles: US 2 (2.75 mm) and US 3 (3.25 mm)
Started/Completed: December 22, 2024/January 31, 2025

I could not be more delighted with how this sweater turned out. I'd been planning to knit it for several years, probably since I finished spinning the yarn back in 2019 (I couldn't resist the idea of knitting a pattern called Polwarth in Polwarth yarn), and I finally decided that our recent winter vacation was time. It was a good thing that I started it while on vacation because the yoke of this sweater ended up being a lot more involved than I realized. In addition to variable rates of increases (which result in that lovely curve), the brioche detail at the top front is different every round, so I needed my full attention and focus.

When I swatched for this sweater, I could not quite get gauge, likely because handspun doesn't always neatly fall into commercial yarn weight categories. I did a little math, though, and found that at the gauge I was getting with US 3 needles, I could get my desired fit by following the second size in the pattern. For lighter-weight sweaters knit with fingering/sport, I like a little positive ease in the body and a more fitted sleeve, and that's precisely what I got. In these photos, I am wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt underneath (which is how I wear my sweaters in general), and you can see that I've still got a little room. Even though the math was telling me that's how it would work out, I'm still relieved that it did; gauge is such a fickle thing, and we all know how often swatches lie.

The colors are off here, but you can see that lovely increase line.

Knitting with handspun requires ceding some control because inevitably your sleeves are not going to match the body or each other -- that's just the nature of the beast. But I'm pretty happy with how the colors played out here. When I spun the yarn, a traditional three-ply, I planned for the variegation by splitting up the fiber into lots of small bundles (you can see them here) and spinning them at random. Then, when knitting the sweater, I alternated skein every round for most of it, using one skein only when it would be awkward to alternate, such as working the short rows at the neckline. I've found over the years that all yarn spun from dyed fiber, even if it's dyed just one color, tends to stripe, and you can see that happened here. I found it fascinating that certain colors seemed to concentrate despite the complete randomness of the spinning.

I wore the sweater yesterday and was so comfortable and cozy, and I know I'm going to be wearing it a ton on those days when it's chilly but not so frigid that I need something heavier. I really could not be happier with it!

Be the Tortoise

Raise your hand if you're glad it's finally Friday! It's felt like a very long week for some reason, even though it hasn't been particularly busy or stressful. I think it's something to do with going into the office -- it's such a hassle and continues to feel completely pointless to me. In any case, it's the end of the week and the end of the month, and I'm looking forward to sleeping past 6 the next couple of days.

I'd really hoped to have a finished sweater to share with you today, but as usual I have drastically underestimated the amount of time it takes to do a tubular bind-off. I did finish the knitting yesterday, even adding a couple extra rounds to make the bottom "ribbing" (it's brioche) a little longer than specified, but I only got about halfway through the bind-off. I will finish that today, giving it the time it needs, and then will weave in the ends and block it so that I can take some proper modeled shots this weekend.

Apologies for the terrible photo; it's supposed to rain all day, so we've got no good natural lighting.

As eager as I am to have this sweater finished, I know that any project of this magnitude is a marathon, not a sprint, and taking the time it needs will be worth it in the end.

We've got a fairly calm weekend ahead. Tomorrow we're going to a bat mitzvah (the daughter of family friends), and Sunday we'll have a family dinner, so I'll get to hang out with my niblings. I plan to focus on good things as much as possible, which I suppose is my general MO these days. I hope you can do the same.

Unraveled, Week 5/2025

Good morning from a noticeably less frigid Pittsburgh! After last week's arctic chill, we are in the middle of a stretch of more temperate weather and are forecast to have highs above freezing all week. We've even had some sunshine! There's been a lot of melting going on (and a lot of associated moments of panic when we've heard loud thumps outside, only to realize a moment later that they're just slush and ice falling from the roof), and yesterday I even got outside for about an hour for my first real walking workout since losing the boot for good. My foot has been feeling good, but I'm feeling it in my shins and my hips, so clearly I am a little out of shape. As long as the weather stays relatively agreeable, I'll be going out more often.

I'm getting this Unraveled Wednesday update ready to go early because Molly's got a dentist appointment before school this morning that I need to take her to (seriously, don't moms always do all the doctor and dentist and orthodontist appointments?), so I'll be slurping down my coffee and running out of the house and then getting right to work when I get home. Here is where things stand as far as WIPs:

I've been pretty monogamous with my sweater for the past week or so, and you can see how much of the body I've gotten done as a result. I'm through all the waist shaping on it, and all that remains is maybe a dozen or so rounds of straight knitting, a round of decreases, and then the section of brioche at the bottom. It's looking more and more like it will be finished by the end of the week, barring any major work issues that keep me from knitting during the day. I hadn't touched the hat in a while, but it go a little attention yesterday when I was back in the office for the morning (yet again needlessly).

I've finished only one book this past week, but it was a pretty big one (almost 500 pages) and on paper, which means I'm usually only reading at night before bed and thus goes more slowly than a digital book often does.

My hardback copy of Same as It Ever Was came from a Little Free Library in the neighborhood -- the same magical one that's given me a lot of great books over the past couple of years. I didn't really know anything about the book other than that I'd heard the title and seen the cover around online. I don't know if it's because it took me so long to read it or because of the book/writing itself, but it felt like a bit of a slog to me. I didn't really like the main character and found myself wondering why, over the decades covered in the book, she didn't get herself some therapy. I thought the writing was good (though I think perhaps the author relies too much on em dashes, and that's saying something for someone who uses them frequently) and the characters were really well written, but I didn't love it. It was just an okay read for me. I gave it 3 stars.

Currently I am reading Small Rain from the library (digital) and The Penelopiad, which Molly just finished reading for English class, on paper. I've also finally caught up on my long backlog of podcasts -- which I typically listen to while running/walking outside -- and am ready for a new audiobook, which I'll probably start today.

Be sure to visit Kat's blog to see what she and the other Unravelers are up to!

LESS in 2025: January

I am both excited and a little dismayed that today is the final Monday in January; on the one hand, it's my least favorite month of the year and I'm eager to wish it farewell, but I'm also a little concerned that the year is already going by so quickly. But the final Monday of the month also means it's time to check in with my One Little Word.

There are lots of ways that Less has made itself known in my life this month (and I certainly hope that continues to be the case all year), but I'm choosing to focus on just one. First, a little background.

Many of you are probably aware that since the early days of the pandemic, getting daily exercise has been key to my mental health. I will fully admit that I've gotten a little obsessed with exercising -- and all things considered, if I'm going to have an obsession, at least exercise is a healthy one. I'm not one of those people who works out all day, but I do try to get at least an hour of physical activity in every day. Back when this first started, I was wearing a Fitbit and thus was very focused on my step count, aiming to hit 10,000 steps every day to keep a streak alive. When something prevented me from hitting that goal, be that illness or injury or demands on my schedule, I'd feel really guilty about it. 

Late last year, I finally made the switch over to an Apple Watch, which does track steps but instead focuses on three rings: exercise, movement, and standing. The watch encourages you to close all three rings every day by hitting a certain number on your activity ring, a certain amount of time in your exercise ring, and a certain number of hours in which you've stood up for at least a minute. You can manually adjust all of these, but I chose to keep the factory settings: 720 for activity, 60 for exercise, and 12 for standing. Most days I have no trouble closing my rings, but there have been a few days (like the days we traveled to Florida and home and were sitting in a car or plane for most of the day) when I did not close my rings.

Past Sarah would have chastised herself for not hitting her daily goals and thought of herself as lazy. She would have felt guilty about not only not meeting those daily goals but also breaking streaks. But 2025 Sarah is trying to engage in Less negative self-talk and guilt. I've been working on reminding myself that one day, in the grand scheme of things, doesn't have a whole lot of impact. My focus is on health and physical fitness and not because I have a goal of being an elite athlete but because I want to be able to be healthy and able to keep moving long into the future. I have a feeling that breaking my foot has a lot to do with this because it forced me to realize that there are always limitations on what I can do and I have to make the best of my circumstances at any given time. The focus should be on moving my body as much as I'm able to on any given day. Some days that will mean a vigorous workout. Some days it might mean just moving around the house. It all averages out in the end, and every day is another opportunity, so focusing on any one day isn't really helpful. In other words, don't miss the forest for the trees!

Thank you to Kat for hosting our OLW link-ups this year!

It's Friday, Finally

It has been a very weird week. We all had Monday off, but usually when that happens, Monday ends up feeling like Sunday and I'm confused about what day it is for the rest of the week. Then we had that stretch of extreme cold, because of which Molly's school decided to move to remote instruction on Tuesday and Wednesday (at her age, that meant her teachers posted assignments each morning that she was able to work on over the course of the day, so she was on FaceTime with a group of friends for much of the day while they studied and did assignments together). Yesterday was my first day back at the office since breaking my foot, but when I got there, there was an issue with the building's water and we couldn't use the bathrooms on our floor, so after my team meeting, I went home. Today I've got to go in again for a meeting. And the Mister had to make another quick work trip this week. All of this, plus all the news (which I'm trying not to look at too often) has made for really long and wonky week. I'm looking forward to a break this weekend.

Over the course of the day on Wednesday, I was able to ply all the singles I shared in that morning's post. It was a bit of a mess at the end; when one bobbin of singles ran out, I wound off what was left on one of the remaining bobbins to make a plying bracelet so I could continue with the three ply. I ended up with a bit of a tangled mess and had to pull some knots out and splice in torn ends several times, but in the end I did use nearly all of the singles with minimal waste. And I fit them all on the bobbin!

What's a bit hard to see in this photo is that the yarn right at the edge of the bobbin end is threatening to spill over it -- I really pushed the capacity of this bobbin! Yesterday afternoon I skeined the yarn and gave it a bath, and I left it to dry on the radiator overnight. I'm really quite delighted with how it turned out!

I'd say the finished yarn ranges from fingering to sport (some bits of fiber were easier to spin finely than others), and my length measurement is approximately 492 yards. I was hoping for a bit more than that given that I've got nearly 7.5 oz. in this skein, but no doubt the range in fibers played a role in that, too. Mainly I'm just relieved to have it done!

Now that I've finished that yarn, my full attention is turning toward my sweater, which has grown a bit since you last saw it, though it's probably hard to tell.

I did end up doing the short-row bust shaping, though it added very little extra fabric (if you click on the photo, you might be able to see a concentrated area of green just above the needle). The knitting that's ahead is very straightforward: I work a bit more straight, then do some waist shaping, then work straight some more, and finally do the bottom hem in brioche. That makes it sound like I should be done in no time, but in fact it is quite a bit of knitting. Fortunately I'm at the stage where I don't have to look at my knitting quite so closely, so I'm able to read or watch TV while I work, and I plan on taking advantage of that.

This evening we are taking my parents out for dinner, and on Sunday we have plans to get together with the Mister's side of the family to celebrate my father-in-law's birthday, which was this past Tuesday. We're also supposed to have weather at or above freezing, so perhaps I'll manage a walk or two! Whatever your weekend holds, I hope it gives you some time for rest and rejuvenation. I know the news has been unrelentingly terrible lately, so please remember to be kind to others -- and don't forget to extend that same kindness to yourself.

Unraveled, Week 4/2025

It's Wednesday, even if it feels like Tuesday, so that means it's time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers!

I'm happy to report that my handspun sweater now has two complete sleeves and the very tiny start of a body:

There is some shaping on the body (including bust shaping, which I'll likely do even though it seems a bit unnecessary for my barely there bust), but overall the knitting from here on out is much less involved. I'd love to get this done before the end of the Pigskin Party, which gives me about two and a half weeks, but I'm not going to stress about it if I don't. It'll get done when it gets done, and there are a number of demands on my time in any case, so I'm not going to hurt myself by trying to knit on it every free moment.

For one thing, I've been enjoying my spinning time -- yesterday I finished up my third bobbin of singles from the kiddie pool fiber, and I'm really excited to see how this all plies up!

There also has been quite a lot of reading after a slow start to the month! I've finished three books since this time last week, including one I read in its entirety yesterday.

Like many people (but perhaps not you hard-core poetry readers), the poet Maggie Smith first came on my radar thanks to her poem "Good Bones." I had heard really good things about her memoir, so I picked it up on Kindle when it was a daily deal. You Could Make This Place Beautiful takes its title from that poem and is primarily about the dissolution of her marriage. Even if you didn't know she was a poet before reading this, you'd probably be able to tell from the unusual structure of the book. It doesn't progress in a linear fashion but rather circles around and around, jumping back and forth in time and returning again and again to certain themes and frameworks. It feels a little weird to say that I loved someone's story about how painful her divorce was, but the way Smith talks about that pain and about her healing is truly beautiful. I also love it when I read someone's first-person writing and feel like they're a friend telling me their story. I gave it 5 stars.

The next book I read came to me courtesy of Kat, who raved about it when she first read it and then mentioned it again at the most recent Read With Us Zoom (I put it on hold while we were still chatting). Hard by a Great Forest follows Saba who, along with his older brother and their father, left the republic of Georgia shortly after it gained its independence and a civil war broke out but had to leave their mother behind and were never able to afford to bring her to join them in the UK. Nearly two decades later, their father has returned to Georgia and promptly disappeared. Then the older brother goes looking for him and disappears himself. Soon Saba finds himself back in their old neighborhood, trying to figure out where his father and brother went, why the police are after them, and how to silence the voices of those who they left behind and deal with his guilt in doing so. The echoes the USSR and the war are still loud, and there's still armed conflict going on in the disputed region of Ossetia. When Saba arrives, recent flooding has enabled a slew of wild animals to escape from the zoo, adding to the surrealism. His search for his family is physically and emotionally demanding, occasionally funny, and often aided by complete strangers ready to offer the hospitality for which Georgians are known. Though the story is completely different, the tone and post-Soviet setting reminded me a lot of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena and The Tsar of Love and Techno. I gave this most recent read 4 stars.

And now for something completely different: AEdnan is an epic in verse telling the story of the Sàmi people through the experiences of two families. The Sàmi are the Indigenous people of what is today Norway, Sweden, and Finland, and like many other Indigenous peoples, their culture was suppressed by modern governments but has seen more recent efforts at revival. This work spans a century, starting with Ristin and her family, who are reindeer herders, and ending with Sandra, whose mother was in a Nomad School (the equivalent of North America's Residential Schools) and who is an activist fighting for her people's rights. Although this work is a relatively quick read due to its spare language, it packs a punch. There is so much pain in so few words and so much left unsaid. I think this a work that would benefit from reading some history in parallel; I found myself looking things up quite a lot because I knew so little about the history of the Sàmi people. I gave it 4 stars.

I'm still reading Same as It Ever Was and have only gotten about another 100 pages in; I'm sure this is partly due to the fact that I've been reading it before bed, when I only get 15-20 minutes of reading time, but it also feels like a bit of a slog. I think I'll prioritize it for the next several days and see if I can get through the rest of it faster.

Let's Focus on the Good

It is a cold Monday morning here. As I type this, the air temperature here is 9ºF, and that is warm relative to how cold it will be the next couple of days (the predicted low for tomorrow is -2ºF and for Wednesday -9ºF -- and that is just the air temperature and doesn't take wind chill into account). I am off from work today in observance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day -- and that is what I am choosing to observe today. Like many of you, I'm sure, I'm choosing not to watch the inauguration, and I'm also trying not to think about the celebration we'd hoped to have today. Today, and the next four years, will be hard, but I'm not letting anyone take away my hope or my joy -- and focusing on those things is how I will be spending today.

For starters, I'm going to be enjoying this bonus day with my family. We are all off today, and the weather means we're not going to be going out, so we'll be able to enjoy each other's company. I'm planning to spend the day doing things that bring me joy: exercising, reading, crafting, and cooking. On the top of my list is finishing up the second sleeve of my handspun sweater and getting started on the body:

The last time you saw the sweater, I was not quite this far along on the first sleeve. I got a lot done this past weekend. On Saturday afternoon, while Molly and I were watching the first of the playoff football games, I finished the cuff of the first sleeve and got started on the second. By the time I put it down last night, I think I had two decreases left to complete on the second. I'm feeling pretty confident that I can finish the rest before the end of the day.

Another thing that brings me joy? Spinning. Over the weekend I finished the second bobbin of singles and started on the third:

I'm so excited to see what this yarn will look like when it's plied that it's spurring me to spin it faster. I've been spinning while reading a library book the past couple of days, and treadling has been feeling more like it used to, which is reassuring.

There is a lot of bad in the world right now, but I'm trying to focus on the good and what I can do to make things better, even in just a small way. To that end, I want to leave you with a quote that came to me via Clara Parkes's Daily Respite (to which I know many of you may also subscribe, so apologies if this is something you've already seen today):

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final

word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger

than evil triumphant."

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

TGIF (with a Long Weekend Ahead)

Happy Friday, friends. It took me a minute to remember what day it was when my alarm went off this morning because it's been a long week. The Mister was traveling for work for much of it, which meant I had to do school drop-off and pickup, meal cleanup as well as prep, and all the snow shoveling. Yes, there was more snow! Molly actually had an unexpected snow day yesterday. I think we only got 2-3 inches total, but it was coming down pretty steadily throughout the day and it was cold enough that salt wasn't too effective, so I think when the Pittsburgh Public Schools and many other districts closed, her school followed suit (many students rely on the public districts' buses). She was delighted with the closure despite the fact that she'd already gotten out of bed, and I was happy to not have to drive in the mess.

But before I talk about yesterday, let's get to Wednesday. I survived the work retreat and got a lot of knitting done. Those are really the only good things I can say about the day. While it was good to see some of my coworkers in person after several months, I don't think the programming was really anything useful for me. On top of that, after I'd walked more than a mile in the freezing cold to get to the event, the room was cold, so I didn't get warm until I'd gotten home, had some soup for dinner, and taken a hot shower. But I was not the only one crafting this year! A spotted a coworker with crochet shortly after a got there, and while she didn't have it out as much as I had my knitting, it was good to know that I was not the only one. And I got a lot of knitting done, despite taking lots of breaks.

You can click the photo to enlarge if you want, but that's about six inches of hat knit in one day. In fingering weight yarn. I haven't weighed the skein of yarn, but I would think I'm at least halfway though. And I'm glad that the long day was productive for me in at least one way.

Molly's snow day yesterday meant I didn't have to drive, but I did leave the house because as soon as the orthopedist released me last week, I scheduled a blood donation. There just happened to be a drive on campus yesterday, so I bundled up and walked in.

I took advantage of the walk to finally take one of those look up/look down photo, and it did not surprise me that the sky and the ground looked almost the same. This was my third walk outside this week, too, and I'm happy to report that my foot did just fine. I'm walking more slowly to be sure that I don't slip, of course, but it feels so good to be outside again.

I've got to wrap this up by bragging a little bit about my kid, who's really taken to crochet and taught herself much more than I could ever teach her. For the past six months or so, she's been making blanket squares (and half-square triangles) using up partial skeins and leftovers from my stash. Yesterday she finished up this masterpiece:

It'd be close to impossible to know exactly how much yarn she used without weighing and measuring every little bit (and also knowing exactly yarn what each little partial ball was), but we weighed the whole blanket and made an estimate based on an average yardage for weight, so we think she used approximately 3,500 yards of yarn for this blanket. That's almost two miles! She is, justifiably, quite proud of herself, as am I, and I'm also glad she got all that yarn out of my stash!

We all have a long weekend coming up, but there's more snow and cold on the way, so I expect it will be a low-key weekend. I hope it's one for you as well!

Unraveled, Week 3/2025

Happy Wednesday, friends! I am going to need to keep this post relatively brief because today I have the pleasure (ugh) of  attending an all-day work retreat, which I will have to walk to after dropping Molly off at school. It's a tech-free event, too, which means I can't even entertain myself online. But I will be taking knitting with me to stay engaged, and I'll have to catch up on your posts from today later on.

Let's join Kat and the Unravelers for the week, shall we? I've got a bit of an update on my handspun sweater to start us off.

You should feel free to laugh at this photo because it is rather funny and also a bit ridiculous. Because I am knitting with handspun yarn and want the colors to be as mixed up as possible, I am alternating skeins every round. I have three skeins of yarn total, so I started with the first for the collar and joined the second once I had completed the short rows. When it came time to start the first sleeve, I wanted to introduce the third skein so that I'll have enough yarn to continue alternating in the body, but I need to pick up where I left off, so I wasn't about to cut the second skein. At first I just had it off to the side, but pretty quickly all three strands of yarn started to get horribly tangled, so that lump you see in the upper left is the second skein, shoved inside the upper right arm and tied up with some scrap yarn. It's an inelegant solution, but it's working.

I should add that the colors are fairly accurate in this photo, for once! I also love that you can see the subtle single-round stripes. Even though I split up the fiber and spun the little bits of it at random, I'm quite intrigued by the fact that it looks like I'm getting wider stripes of green and purple.

Speaking of random spinning, I finished up the first bobbin of my combo spin yesterday and split up the remaining fiber for the next two bobbins. Here's a shot of all that fiber laid out so you can see the range of colors:

Although it would have been impossible to document each little bit of fiber that was in the pool, it would have been nice to have a master list of all the fibers and dyers that were represented. I might suggest that if I'm ever involved in this kind of thing again.

Last week was so busy at work that I had very little reading time, so I have only managed to finish one book since last Wednesday.

Even though I've been meaning to read Morgan Talty's short story collection for a while now (and even own it on Kindle), I decided to skip ahead to his debut novel, Fire Exit, because Katie had such good things to say about it. She described it as a quiet novel, and I'd agree with that assessment. Much of the book is spend inside the thoughts of the narrator and main character, Charles, who grew up on a reservation in Maine because his stepfather was a member of the tribe, though Charles and his mother are not. Now a middle-aged man, he is reflecting on his childhood and his stepfather's death as he cares for his mother, who long struggled with depression and is now dealing with dementia, and as he worries about his daughter, who doesn't know he's her father. Charles reflects on keeping secrets and the value of knowing your family history. Not all that much happens until something very dramatic and emotional does. This book is full of flawed characters who you can't help but root for. I gave it 4 stars.

I am currently reading Same as It Ever Was, which I picked up at a Free Little Library in the neighborhood in the fall, and am about 100 pages in (I'm reading it before bed, so it's slow going).

I've also put together that big list of books I have on hand that I've been talking about for a while -- if I've figured out how to share it correctly, you can see it here. I won't say this is a complete list of all the books I have, but they're the ones I own that I have not yet read and am interested in reading that I could find. I know it looks like a lot, so before you worry about my bank account, I'll note that a large portion of them were picked up at Free Little Libraries, passed along to me by others, or purchased from a used bookstore/Thriftbooks or on Kindle deals. Some of them have also been on my shelves for many years. As you can see, I've got quite a lot of books to choose from! I'm hoping to make a dent in this list over the course of the year, and I'll report back from time to time.

It Comes Around Every Week

Monday, that is. At least this one is a little easier to take than last week, but it's still cold and snowy here and frankly I'd much rather stay in bed. But seeing as I don't have that luxury, I might as well get the day started -- the sooner it starts, the sooner it'll be over!

The weekend was pretty calm. We got more snow overnight on Friday, so we convinced the Mister to drop us off and pick us up at the theater on Saturday afternoon so that we didn't have to park several blocks away and trudge through the snow. It actually worked out quite well because he's got a big all-company meeting for work this week, so he went to his office (right across the river) and did some prep for that while we were at the musical. And we enjoyed the show quite a bit.

This is a terrible photo because it was taken Saturday evening at home, with our overhead light on in the bedroom, but you can at least see that I got a few inches of my hat knit during the show. A woman sitting right behind us also tapped me on the shoulder when I got it out before it started, apologized for being nebby (that's Pittsburghese for "nosy"), and asked what it was I was making. I think that's the first time anyone has commented on my knitting at one of these shows!

We stayed in Saturday night and watched the first half of the Steelers/Ravens game (we turned it off at that point because it was just too depressing) and all went to bed at about the normal time -- we really know how to live it up, let me tell you! Yesterday morning, Molly and I did a big stock-up trip at Costco, and when we got home, she did some homework and I did some spinning!

I had not spun on my Lendrum since some time in October, so it took a little adjusting at first, but now everything is as it should be. I am spinning up the "kiddie pool" fiber from SSK back in 2023. This is now a tradition that was started some years back by Jillian Moreno. She brings an inflatable kids' pool, and anyone who wants to contribute brings some fiber that is split up into little bundles that are thrown into the pool and mixed up. Whatever amount you put in you get to take out, so if you put in 8 oz., you can take 8 oz. of mixed bits. Of course it's impossible to label all those little bundles, so you have no idea what you end up with other than most of it is probably wool of some sort. But there's likely to be various breeds, superwash and not, and different blends. I had started spinning a little of it right after I got back from SSK that year, but I didn't make it through even one little bit of fiber and ended up pulling the singles off my miniSpinner back in November so I could use it for my FDW holiday set. I weighed what was left and am going to spin three bobbins of singles to ply together. I'm spinning at random, so I could end up with something really fabulous or I could end up with mud. Either way, it should be fun!

What a Week

I won't bury the lede: I am officially free from the boot and released from orthopedic care! I can tell that I still have some healing to do, but my orthopedist told me I could resume normal activity (being mindful of outside conditions, of course) and that I could start jogging again once I can walk about three miles without any pain or discomfort. As much as I miss running (and as shocked as I am to have written those words), I am not in any hurry to start running again until it's a bit safer to do so. We've had frigid temperatures and off-and-on snow all week, so I will be waiting until we have a good thaw. Sidewalks in our neighborhood can be treacherous even when they're completely dry, and I don't want to risk another injury.

I celebrated this good news, which was really the highlight of my week, by putting away the folding chair I've been using to exercise and doing a regular standing aerobic workout -- and I can feel it today! The seated workouts worked well for keeping up my fitness level but not so well for keeping the muscles in my legs in shape. So I'll be working on that in the next couple of weeks and getting back outside to walk as soon as it's a bit warmer and less precarious. I also scheduled an appointment to donate blood next week because they would not allow me to the last time I tried.

Crafting time has been limited this week due to how busy I've been at work. All week I've been chipping away at a very large magazine, and fortunately I'm nearly finished. I did make a point to cast on a new project that I could knit without looking because Molly and I are going to see Funny Girl tomorrow. I'm making another double-ended hat using my pattern and yarn that I bought at SSK in 2023 (it's from Urban Girl Yarns):

I played around with my increase method a bit, mainly because this end will likely be the one that's on the inside, so that's why it looks a little wonky. This skein is very generous, at 480 yards, so I have a feeling I won't be using all of it, but I should get a nice hat out of it to add to my charity pile.

I've also been working more on my sweater, and I'm now just four rounds away from dividing my sleeve and body stitches!

I know I'll have to keep track of decreases and rounds worked on both the sleeves and body, but it won't be nearly as complicated as the yoke has been, and I'm hoping that translates to faster progress.

My parents have an event to go to tonight, so our usual family dinner has been moved to Sunday and instead we're taking my in-laws out to dinner. Other than the show tomorrow, the only other plan for the weekend is a big stock-up trip to Costco on Sunday -- yes, this is what passes for excitement in my life right now! I am looking forward to seeing my niblings on Sunday evening because we haven't seen them since the night before we left on our trip, and I'm sure my niece has changed a lot since then. Mostly I'm just hoping to relax and recover from a busy week. I hope it's a good weekend for you, one that's full of things that bring you joy!

Unraveled, Week 2/2025

It's been a busy week, as I expected (I left a big pile of work when I went on vacation), but I couldn't miss a chance to join Kat and the Unravelers!

Because it's been busy, there hasn't been much time or attention for knitting, so all I've really accomplished this week is a couple of yarn cake cozies:

I originally only intended to knit one, for a Pigskin Party challenge, but to count it had to be a minimum of 50 yards and the first attempt was only 40. So I used another small ball of scraps and started another, adding about another inch in length, and my second cozy came in at 56 yards. Phew! I used this free pattern (Ravelry link) and leftover Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce for both (I get bonus points for using FDW yarn because Lisa is sponsoring this challenge!). I don't know how much I'll actually use these cozies because I usually pull from the outside of yarn cakes, but they're cute and were a fun little diversion.

I've also finished up a small-ish hat that I did as a test knit. The designer is also a Pigskin Party sponsor and posted a photo in the chat thread, so I thought I'd give it a try. It was a quick, easy knit that's now likely going in the charity pile. I used approximately 76 yards of Knit Picks Chroma Twist worsted in the colorway Cousteau.

Most of my reading this past week was done in the airport and on the plane home. I'd planned for another book to be my first read of 2025, but my library hold list had other ideas.

I had put Long Bright River on hold a while back because I'd heard it recommended a lot and really enjoyed The God of the Woods last year. This 2020 release is categorized as a thriller, and it does keep up a good pace. It follows two sisters, Mickey and Kacey, who in present day are a Philadelphia cop and a drug addict, respectively. We learn in flashbacks how they lost their parents to drug addiction in their childhood and how Kacey ended up following in their footsteps. In the present of the story, Kacey has gone missing, while Mickey and her fellow police officers are on the trail of what appears to be a serial killer targeting young women who use drugs. The book paints a very grim picture of opioid addiction and its destructive nature. I didn't find this novel to be as compelling as the author's more recent one, though, and I felt that it all wrapped up a little too perfectly or unrealistically. I gave it 3 stars.

What I'd intended to be my first read of the year was Love & Saffron, which I believe I heard about on Anne Bogel's podcast and then purchased when it was a Kindle daily deal. This is described as similar to 84, Charing Cross Road, though fictional and focused on food rather than books. It's set in the early 1960s and starts when Joan sends a fan letter, along with a packet of saffron, to columnist Imogen. The two women begin sending letters back and forth and become dear friends as they exchange recipes and life stories. This is a book you could read in one sitting, if you wanted (it took me three sessions of before-bed reading), and it's a lovely, feel-good depiction of friendship. I was surprised that I cried a bit at the end! I gave it 4 stars.

I still haven't done my unread books inventory (just too busy at work!), but that's on my to-do list for this week, and I also need to figure out what book to start next.

I've got my next appointment at the orthopedist early tomorrow morning, so we'll see how my foot is healing. Keep your fingers crossed that I can ditch the boot once and for all!

Bring on the Wool

Brrrr! Winter was waiting for us when we got home on Saturday. It was a long day of travel, made longer by delays before we took off (we were sitting in line to take off when the pilot informed us that there was a 45-60 minute delay up north) and when we landed (we had to wait for an open gate once we arrived). But we picked up some Chinese food on the way home and walked in the door at about 7:40 Saturday night after leaving my parents' place in Florida at 11:15 a.m. It was a full flight and fairly bumpy, but we did get a pretty spectacular view of the sunset out the window:

I also took advantage of a wheelchair at the airport again, so I was able to board first and thus we got to sit in the second row of the plane. Not bad! I was grateful that we learned our lesson from several years back and took our winter coats with us so that we were warm enough when we landed and the feels-like temperature was something like 8ºF. And a snowstorm is blowing through today, so we definitely timed our return well! My parents were actually supposed to come back today but changed their flight to yesterday so they could get in before the storm.

As much as I always enjoy our end-of-year vacation, I am happy to be back home. We may have everything we need at my parents' place -- laundry, plenty of food, entertainment, comfortable beds -- but home it's not. I didn't bring any extra yarn this vacation, for starters, which meant I wrapped up the vacation with only one WIP -- one that was a bit too big to bring on the plane (yes, I somehow survived that long day of travel with no knitting!). So I wasted no time in digging out yarn for new projects when we got back.

Here you see the start of a kid-sized hat I'm test knitting using a skein of Knit Picks Chroma Twist that I bought in a sale last year, a skein of Urban Girl Yarns fingering that I bought at SSK in 2023 that I'll be making into another charity hat, and some leftover Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce that I'm using for a yarn cake cozy. All of these are because I need some less mentally demanding knitting to do to complement my main WIP, my Polwarth sweater:

I am having a heck of a time getting the colors to photograph accurately; in real life, they're darker and not quite as green. I didn't finish the entirety of the yoke while we were away, but I did get through all of the detail at the front, which is actually done in brioche. So now I'm in the least taxing part of the yoke, and I hope that by later this week I'll have moved on to the first sleeve.

While vacation was low key, for the most part, there was a little bit of excitement: Look who started knitting again!

She's working on a Tin Can Knits Flax DK pullover (sans garter stitch sleeve details). She started it last year when we went away and hadn't touched it since, so I ripped it back to the start of the raglan increases so she could (mostly) start over. Even though it'd been a year, she picked it up again easily and has only needed my help a couple of times, mostly just to verify that she's doing what she's supposed to. I just hope she keeps it up!

I hope that those of you who are in the path of this big winter storm stay safe and warm! We're getting snow, enough that Molly has a snow day, and the Mister has decided to work from home, so we'll all be staying inside today.

Bits and Pieces

It is our last full day on vacation in Florida, and it's going to be hard to say goodbye to the warmer temperatures (particularly as the Mister just brought up video of our Ring doorbell showing the snow falling at home). But I am looking forward to being back in my own bed, reconnecting with my stash and my home library, and getting back into my normal routine -- even if I'm not really looking forward to going back to work on Monday.

I was successful in not overpacking on the knitting and have just one WIP remaining, my sweater, which is now just a few rounds away from completion of the yoke:

This is a project that has required my full attention because every round has slightly different instructions, so I have ended up not working on it as much as I thought. Once the yoke is complete, however, it should move faster. Interestingly, the pattern has you work the sleeves before the body, which I know many people do on their own so they don't have the weight of the body to deal with as they work the sleeves; I typically like to get the body done first because the sleeves go faster for me and because the way I work the sleeves doesn't involve moving the whole garment around. But I'm willing to try anything!

Today will involve some laundry and some packing, though thankfully packing to go home is a lot easier than packing to go on a trip -- everything we brought just has to be put back in the suitcase. My parents are also staying a couple of days after we leave, so if somehow we forget something, they'll bring it back for us. The weather here has been cooler than average, so we're unlikely to be outside much. I guess the universe is preparing us to be back in the cold!

Yesterday I spent some time writing in my journal for the first time in a long time; it's a practice I want to get back into this year. I needed to take a break from it for a while because I had started writing every day during the pandemic and I didn't want what used to be a pleasurable practice to be associated with the anxiety of that time. I doubt I'll ever be a daily journal writer again, or at least not while I'm still working, but I'd like to at least create a habit of writing every now and then. And I specifically wanted to put down some thoughts on paper to start the year because I wanted to use it to launch my One Little Word for 2025. I haven't been selecting a word for as many years as some of you, but it's become a way to regularly focus and reflect on my life and the work I'm doing on me. Here's a recap:

2020: Savor
2021: Balance
2022: Growth
2023: Embrace
2024: Better

So what's my word for 2025?

I'm excited to see where this word takes me this year and why it was shouting so loudly for me to pick it!

I hope you all have a good first weekend of the new year. Please send any good travel mojo you have our way tomorrow so that we can get home without incident!

Unraveled, Week 1/2025

Happy New Year! Somehow the start of the year falling smack dab in the middle of the week feels right -- we all know by now that time is just a human construct, and certainly I didn't feel any measurable difference upon waking up this morning compared to any other morning (my first thought, after going to the bathroom, was "I need coffee").

That said, it is nice to start the counter over again on my Unraveled Wednesday posts, and it's also nice to join Kat and the Unravelers for another year. I did not stay up until midnight last night, but I did stay up long enough to finish one last project for the year:

This is my Same as It Ever Was pattern (Ravelry link), worked at a looser gauge than given in the pattern (adding the guidance for how to do that to the pattern is high on this year's to-do list), using Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce in the This Day We Fight colorway. My skein was a bit overweight, as Lisa's usually are, and I used all but 1 g of the yarn, or 420 yards. It's not blocked yet, obviously, but I'll take care of that when we get home and then put it in a pile for charity. These are not colors I really wear, not to mention that I already have plenty of hand-knit hats to wear, but I know it will make someone smile and keep them warm, plus the yarn purchase supports a good cause.

Now I'm down to just the one project here, so we'll see how much sweater I get knit in the next several days.

As is typical for this time of year, when I'm on vacation and don't have any work reading to do, I've gotten a lot of reading for pleasure done and finished four books in the last week!

My mother was finishing up The Wedding People when we came down, so when she finished it, she handed it to me. Phoebe is 40, her husband has just left her for a friend after a series of failed IVF attempts, and her career is going nowhere. Despondent, she decides to book a luxury room at a hotel in Newport, Rhode Island, to commit suicide. But when she gets there, she discovers she's the only person staying at the hotel who is not there for a lavish wedding week, and she soon gets sucked into the festivities. As a result of her involvement with the bride, the groom, and their friends and families, she realizes that maybe her life isn't as bad as it seems and maybe what she's thought she wanted wasn't really what she wanted all along. It's funny, sad, touching, and a bit ridiculous, but a thoroughly enjoyable read (despite a very obvious typo I found). I gave it 4 stars.

I had a pretty long library wait for the most recent Inspector Gamache book, but my hold came up just as I was ready to start a new book (don't you love it when that happens?). The Grey Wolf finds Gamache, Beauvoir, and Lacoste racing against time and unsure who can be trusted when they uncover a plot to contaminate Montreal's water with a neurotoxin that will kill thousands and send the country into political turmoil. There are the usual moments of levity, but this is a tight, tense thriller, and most of the tension comes not from the potential impact of the plot but from Gamache's constant doubts. Who can be trusted? Who is telling the truth? Are his suspicions valid, or is he being paranoid? I very much enjoyed it, with the possible exception of the big cliffhanger at the end and the fact that we have to wait almost 10 months until we get the next book. I gave it 4 stars.

I can't remember where, exactly, I first heard about I Who Have Never Known Men, but I was so intrigued by the description and kept thinking about it so much that I ended up buying a Kindle copy because I didn't want to wait for it from the library. This is a tight, tense little novel in which not much happens but so many questions are raised. Our unnamed narrator is a young teenager when the book opens, and she is the youngest of 40 women being held in a cage in an underground bunker that is guarded by men who never talk but who wield whips for punishment. None of the women remembers much about how they got there or why the narrator was kept with them. One day, an alarm sounds and the guards disappear at the precise moment the cage door was being opened to wheel in a meal, and the women are able to escape. But once they are out of the bunker, they have even more questions. Where did the guards go, and how? Are they the only ones alive on Earth? Are they even on the earth, or is this another planet? Over the years that follow, they are able to answer some but not all of the questions as they explore their surroundings, build homes, and age. Eventually our narrator is the last woman left alive, and we learn that the story we are reading is an account of her life that she has written as she nears death. This book was originally published in 1995. The author and her family fled Belgium when the Nazis invaded in WWII, and it's not difficult to see this book as an allegory for someone trying to establish their humanity when an enemy power was seeking to dehumanize them. I wouldn't recommend this book if you're someone who doesn't like ambiguity or an untidy ending, but it's one of those books that I know I'll be thinking about for a long time. I gave it 5 stars.

My last finish for the year was Colored Television. Jane is a 40-something biracial English professor on sabbatical from her teaching job as she tries to finish sophomore novel, now a decade in the works, while she and her painter husband and two kids move from one temporary home to another. When her novel is rejected by her agent and publisher, she is left reeling and wondering who she is if she's not a novelist. In an desperate moment, she calls the agent of the friend whose house she's staying in and steals his idea for a TV show based on biracial characters. Everything seems to be going well -- until it's not. I found myself getting a little frustrated with Jane and the increasingly desperate decisions she made, but I also wonder if I was maybe not the target audience for this book. I also wonder how much of this book is auto-fiction; Danzy Senna is a biracial novelist who is married to Percival Everett. While the real-life authors clearly aren't struggling to make a living like her characters are, the internal struggle over identity felt genuine, and I certainly identified with that even if I couldn't identify with the racial questions. I gave the book 3 stars.

I got another library hold last night after returning this one last book, but I decided to wait to start fresh today. Here's to another year of good reading and good crafting!