Unraveled, Week 52/2025

Hello, friends, and happy Christmas Eve! I hope you all had a good Festivus yesterday, with all your grievances aired and your feats of strength well executed. It's Wednesday, so I'm joining in with Kat and the Unravelers for the weekly update on making and reading.

I'm happy to report that I actually finished my father-in-law's hat after getting my post ready Sunday night -- yes, I crocheted a hat in a day!

Pattern: Not-So-Chunky Guy Beanie by Elvee Dickinson (Ravelry link), size medium
Yarn: Knit Picks Chroma Twist Worsted (70% wool/30% nylon) in Cousteau, 0.7 skeins
Hook: 4.5 mm
Started/Completed: December 21

I had started this once before but didn't like the fabric; the pattern has you work through the front loop only for the body of the hat, and I felt that made it too floppy and loose. So I ripped it out and restarted, working through both loops on each stitch. I also joined each round with a slip stitch and chained to start the next one rather than working in a true spiral. I worked the the brim through the back loop as instructed, though, to give a bit of texture, and then worked the last few rounds as back post double crochet, one round of single crochet, and then the final round working the back loop of the penultimate round and the front loop of the next together in a single crochet (I'm not experienced enough to know if there's a technical term for that). Is it perfect? Absolutely not. But it has to be better than the ratty, machine-knit acrylic monstrosity I've been seeing my father-in-law wearing.

As that was the last holiday crafting left on my list, I've been using my vacation crafting for mainly selfish purposes. Designing has been something I've largely let go of this year, but that doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about it. Traditionally, I've used this vacation as a chance to work up design samples for the next year, though that hasn't been the case for several years. This year, I thought I'd reinstate it, and first on the list is a cowl version of my Xenolith hat (Ravelry link).

I'm using a set of six mini skeins from Fibernymph Dye Works, each one a semisolid from Lisa's Wild Atlantic Wildflowers colorway, which I used for a pair of socks for my sister-in-law last year. I'm planning to work at least three repeats of the stripes for a fairly tall cowl. There will be a lot of ends to weave in, but I love seeing all the colors so much I don't mind.

Now that I don't have to deal with work, I've had more time for reading and have finished three books since this time last week.

I am a big fan of Alix E. Harrow's books, so I immediately put her newest novel, The Everlasting, on hold as soon as my library had it and dropped everything else (other than work) as soon as I got it. This novel is part historical fiction, part fantasy, part something entirely new. It's a love story, a story about a female knight, and a story about how stories become history. There's a time travel element, and I'll admit that how that worked to change the story confused me a bit, but it turns out it didn't matter too much. What I love about Harrow's writing is how imaginative it is and how her female characters always defy stereotypes and expectations. I find it hard to even describe this book because it was so unlike any other I've read, even though it draws on fairy tales and stories of epic heroes. If you, like me, are an Alix Harrow fan, then I think you'll like this one. I gave it 4.5 stars.

I found a copy of The Idiot in my nearest Little Free Library several months ago and started reading it last month. It was slow going for a while, but I thought it was mainly because I was reading it right before bed, so I never managed very many pages at once. I was about halfway through when we left for vacation; I read a little more than 100 pages on the plane and finished it the next day. The premise is a young woman's experience in her first year at college. Like the author, she's Turkish American and attending Harvard. She also has very little experience in the wider world, both academically and socially. She takes a variety of classes and develops a crush on a classmate in her Russian language course. I kept reading because I kept expecting something interesting to happen, but frankly this book was just ... boring. Nothing much happens. There's a lot of thinking and talking without any real substance. I didn't hate it, but I also didn't really like it. I probably should have DNF'ed it, but I figured there had to be something of substance there if it was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Maybe I'm just not smart to get it? I gave it 2 stars.

My first entirely-on-vacation read was the first in a series that came highly recommended by my friend Margene. The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion is a series following a young woman in 1880s London. In Volume 1, Emma has returned to her family's inherited home of Lapis Lazuli House, which has been inhabited by her cousin Archibald until she reaches the age of 21 and legally can take possession. Emma is an orphan and is relying on the house and a living left to her by a relative, but she soon discovers that Archibald has squandered much of the living, leaving Emma in a precarious situation. The entire book is written as Emma's diary, and she is a delightful and plucky heroine. I found this to be great on audio -- and all eight volumes that are published are available on Hoopla! Highlight recommend -- 4.5 stars.

I hope that those of you who are celebrating have a lovely Christmas full of good food and good company. We'll be having a quiet day here, though we'll have homemade cinnamon rolls and and big dinner because why not take advantage of a holiday to experience a little extra joy?

Dispatches from Vacation

Good morning! I am amazed that I remember what day it is after the weekend we had and how upset my normal schedule was. I was up at 3:30 on Saturday morning and we were out the door an hour later for our 6:45 a.m. flight, which amazingly (or perhaps not; I have a feeling the scheduled departure and arrival times are padded on purpose) got in a few minutes early. My parents were waiting at the airport and took us to brunch before we headed home to unpack. I went for a walk and showered before we went out to dinner, and I finally crashed at 9:30, having not taken a nap. I slept until a little after 7 yesterday morning. The day of travel was exhausting but went as well as it could have, and I feel 100% more relaxed.

Before we left town, I was working almost up to the last minute to get my niece's gift done so I could deliver all of them to my brother. I won't win any prizes for my embroidery, but I think they turned out pretty cute!

Pattern: Cat Stack by Claire Slade (Ravelry link)
Yarn: Fibernymph Dye Works Bona Fide (100% superwash merino) in Light Silver Green and a light brown (colorway name unknown), Fibernymph Dye Works Beguiled (75% superwash merino/20% nylon/5% stellina) in Love Notes, and Knit Picks Palette (100% wool) in black for embroidery
Needles: US 4/3.5 mm
Started/Completed: December 8/December 19
Mods: simplified the ears

These were a fun little knit, if a bit fiddly. They're worked using a series of short row wedges and finished by seaming the bound-off and cast-on edges and cinching the short ends (which become the top and bottom) tight. Though you can't see them here, they have tails at the back. Other than failing pretty miserably with the face embroidery, the only real modification I made was to simplify the ears. The pattern calls for knitting up two sides, seaming them, and putting a bit of stuffing inside. I was running out of time and patience, so these cats' ears are a single layer. They've all got a pouch with some poly pellets inside the stuffing, so they have a bean bag sort of feeling to them, and I hope that means my niece will enjoy playing with them.

I cast on a new project before we left so I'd have something to work on while we were on the plane. Surprise -- it's another hat!

When I found this skein in a bin in my stash, it had a Fibernymph Dye Works ballband on it but no label, so it took me a minute to remember what it was. This is Lisa's Nyan Cat colorway, and though I don't remember exactly when it was that I bought it, I know I did so because she had said she wasn't likely to be dyeing it again for a while. This is on her sparkly Bedazzled base. I'm making my pattern again, and this time I've ensured that both needles I'm using are the same size.

Speaking of hats, there's one I didn't finish before we left town, and in fact I ripped it out and started it over again yesterday. This is for my father-in-law, for whom I've knit several hats in the past that he seems to have misplaced, because every time I've seen him out recently in a hat, it's either been a baseball cap or some ugly synthetic store-bought thing that is fuzzy and has seen much better days. I decided to try my had at crochet, using this pattern (Ravelry link).

I originally followed the pattern, which has you work double crochets through the front loop only. But I thought the fabric was way too loose for my taste, and for a winter hat, you don't really want fabric with a lot of holes, so I ripped it out and started over, working the DCs through both loops as you normally would. What you see here was done in just a couple of hours yesterday, which gives you an idea of how fast crochet is!

We've got very little on the schedule for our trip, and that's just the way I like it. I have plenty of books to read, plenty of yarn with me to knit up, and a perfect forecast for running and walking. I'll admit I am missing Ruthie a lot, and she did have a rough first night with the dog sitter, but I've gotten videos of her running and playing with her new dog friends and I know she's in good hands. I'm resting and relaxing now so that when we're home, I can give her my patience and attention!

Unraveled, Week 48/2025

Good morning and happy Wednesday, friends! Today I'm very happy that all our immediate family members live in the same city we do and that we don't have to travel for Thanksgiving. I know we're very lucky in that respect, and I hope anyone who does have to travel makes it to their destination without too much difficulty.

Kat said on Monday that she intended to post, so I am joining with her and the Unravelers today with my update.

Over the weekend, I hunkered down with my crochet and managed to finish up the silly turkey hat -- and I'm delighted with it!

I'm glad that the wonkiness of my sewing (though some was certainly intentional) added to the personality of the whole thing, so it's okay that nothing is really aligned. The hat base was made with Knit Picks Brava Worsted; Molly had ordered a bunch of skeins of it last year and decided she didn't want to use this color, so we conveniently had two skeins of it in stash. The red, yellow, and orange are all Loops & Threads Soft Classic -- 100% pure acrylic! The white for the eyeballs was some leftover Blue Sky Fibers Organic Cotton from many years ago, and I used a whopping 1 g of the Fibernymph Dye Works Confetti Tweed leftover from my two most recent charity hats for the pupils. I used an I hook (5.5 mm) for the hat and an H hook (5.0 mm) for all the other bits. Originally I was going to add braids or tassels to the earflaps, but the Mister pointed out that I might find those annoying while running, so I left them off. Altogether, I used 164 yards of yarn and had a fun little break from knitting!

This week, as I continue to work on my brother's hat, I'm also knitting on a gift that I will take to dinner this coming Sunday evening that we and my parents have been invited to. These friends decorate their house beautifully for the holidays, so I thought I would make a little something that could be used during the season:

The pattern is Worsted Tree Coasters (Ravelry link), and I'm using two colors of Knit Picks Dishie. The plan is to make four coasters, two that look like this and two with the colors reversed. If I manage to get them done really quickly and have enough yarn left, perhaps I'll make two more. This is a mosaic knitting pattern, so you knit with one color at a time, alternating every two rows. It's potato-chippy in much the same way stranded knitting is but without having to wrangle two strands of yarn at the same time.

I've read a fair amount in the past week, though I can't say all of it was good. I have four finishes to share with you today.

The best of the week was definitely Jane Austen's Bookshelf. Written by Rebecca Romney, a rare book collector and dealer, this work of nonfiction explores female authors writing in roughly the same time as Austen who published works she likely read, based upon mentions in her personal letters and even some of her novels. Each chapter focuses on a different author, providing a bit of a biography as well as a look at her published works and how those books influenced Austen and literature in general. Romney's project to read the works of these writers and give them context in the world of Austen shows how (unsurprisingly) the work of women writers has long been discounted, especially within the canon of so-called "great literature," and reveals that Austen's work wasn't revolutionary or unique but rather informed by the work of other women writers whose books she read. It also raises the question of why Austen's works have been so celebrated over the years and these other writers and their books have faded into obscurity. I gave it 4 stars.

While browsing audiobooks on NetGalley, I came across The Story Keeper, written by an author I'd read before, and the description was intriguing: After trouble in her personal life, Fiona, a middle-aged woman with grown children, returns to the family estate in Australia where she spent her childhood. The house has a long history and reputation for being haunted. It's been years since she was last there following the death of her uncle, and the house is in a state of disuse. As she works on cleaning and getting the place back into order, she comes across a case of books that arrived just around the time of her uncle's death and was left unopened. Figuring that her uncle wanted his family to read them, she dives in -- only to discover that the story in the book feels strangely familiar. The Fiona's story alternates with the narrative of the book she's reading throughout. This novel is billed as a mystery, but I was able to figure out what was going on about a third of the way through, including the mysterious noises and broken household objects in the house that might suggest something supernatural. The book-within-the-book also wasn't as well written as the more present-day narrative, and I even caught one instance where a character name from one story was used (incorrectly) in the other. There are some lingering questions at the end, once everything has been revealed, and that felt unsatisfying to me. I gave it 2 stars. Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Audio for providing me with a free copy of this audiobook in return for an honest review. This book will be published July 21, 2026.

While waiting for my next library hold, I spent an afternoon reading The Serviceberry. This is really a long essay more than a book, though it was still enjoyable. Robin Wall Kimmerer, perhaps best known for Braiding Sweetgrass, uses nature in general and the serviceberry in particular to show how a gift economy and a society based on giving could present an alternative way of living that would benefit us all and combat climate change at the same time. I have a feeling that this is a work I will want to reread from time to time; the message it sends is a hopeful one, and I think that's a message we could all use right now. I know many of you have already read this (I'm late to the party as usual!), but I'd recommend it if you haven't. I gave it 4 stars.

Flesh is this year's Booker Prize winner, and really that is the only reason I read it. The book follows Istvan throughout a good portion of his life, starting when he is 15 and living in Hungary. It then follows him through a stint in the army serving in Afghanistan, working in London as a strip club bouncer and then personal security officer, running his own business in real estate development, and then living back in Hungary. Throughout the book, he seems entirely detached from things that are happening to him and doesn't seem to have particularly strong feelings about anything. He does seem to like having a lot of sex, though, especially with married women. I didn't particularly like this book, but I felt strangely compelled to see where it was going. In the end, I though it was just, to quote Istvan, "okay." I gave it 3 stars (and I think there were better books on the shortlist that should have won).

I am currently reading The Idiot on paper and Kate & Frida on Kindle, the latter because I know it'll be light and happy!

Tomorrow, the three of us will be running in the Turkey Trot and then will be hosting a crowd for Thanksgiving dinner. It's been a hard year for many people for many reasons, so I am glad to have an excuse to slow down and be grateful for so many things. If you are celebrating the holiday tomorrow, I hope your food is delicious and your company enjoyable! Gobble gobble!

I'm a Hooker, Too, Sometimes

You know what's even better than getting to Friday? Getting to Friday before a long holiday break! Molly and I just have to get through today and then we're (mostly) free until early December. That feels darn good.

I hinted in my last post that I was working on a crochet project, and in truth I didn't want to share photos until I was sure it was going to turn out okay -- I mean, I'm pretty good at the basics of crochet, but I don't have a ton of experience following a pattern to get something that fits. Fortunately, with a couple of instances of ripping back (because apparently I can't count), all is well and I have this after a couple of evenings with my hook:

There's a lot of embellishment left to do, but I'm reasonably certain you can all identify that as a hat. It's this hat, specifically, that I'm making to wear in this year's Turkey Trot. People really do dress up for it here, and of course as a crafter I figured I could manage something fun. Molly and I were planning to make them together last year before my broken foot messed up our plans; it still remains to be seen if she'll make one for this year, if I'll make it for her, or if she decides she doesn't want one after all.

This weekend we have absolutely nothing on the schedule, other than some errands I need to run tomorrow morning, and that's just the way I like it. One of those errands is to Costco, so I may pick up a rotisserie chicken or two and make chicken broth for the freezer. Molly will likely be working a shift or two, and we'll have to plan for next week's cooking. I'm hoping the weekend includes plenty of reading and knitting time.

Finally, I just wanted to mention that the Indie Designer Giftalong kicked off on Ravelry yesterday evening, and the 25% off pattern sale runs for the first week of it. If you're interested in any of my eligible patterns, you can find my bundle here. The coupon code is the same for all participating designers: giftalong2025.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Let's Get the Weekending Started

It's finally Friday -- and I'm officially on vacation! It's a quick one, but it's a much-needed break from work-related stress. Life is going to get 100% busier next week with the start of the school year, so I'm grateful I could take this brief pause. Of course, as usual, my alarm went off at the normal time this morning. I inadvertently hit "snooze" rather than "off" on my Fitbit but figured I could allow myself a few more minutes of sleep. And then the Mister's alarm went off, so there went that plan. Oh well!

Today is officially Girls' Day. Later this morning Mo and I will meet up with my mother and head to the mall to do a little shopping. Fortunately Mo still has her uniform for school, though now that she's in the high school, she's allowed to wear red and navy polo shirts in addition to white and green, so we've already bought her a few more and we don't need to do any major back-to-school shopping. She's hoping to find a few more tops that follow non-uniform guidelines (she's not allowed to show her midriff or bra straps), but generally this is just a "let's walk around and see if anything appeals" shopping trip.

The shopping trip is really the only thing planned for the weekend, excluding the usual chores that I typically do. The Mister is leaving Sunday for the conference that he goes to almost every year that always seems to coincide with the first week of school. After last weekend was so productive in terms of crafting and reading, I'm hoping for a repeat. High on the list is finishing A Suitable Boy -- I have about 130 pages left!

I'm still working on my knitting WIPs, and I've started the first of the sleeve skeins of my sweater spin, but I got a little distracted the past two evenings playing around with some Tunisian crochet.

I've had a general understanding of Tunisian crochet for a while but had never actually followed a pattern, so I decided to give it a try with a free pattern I had in my Ravelry library. I did mine all in one color for the sake of simplicity and clearly have room for improvement, but I did it! This cloth measures about 8 inches across and used 30 g of yarn (boring-old Sugar 'n Cream). Though I used a smaller hook than called for in the pattern, my fabric looks a lot looser than the designer's sample, so next time I may use a smaller hook. The pattern also called for a provisional cast-on and using grafting to close the seam at the end, but I might try a regular start and just whip-stitch the seam closed. Now that I've gotten the hang of this technique, I might also look into some other patterns to see what I can do with it.

Before I go, a little update on the work meeting that happened yesterday: There are still some things to be figured out related to when the change will happen (which has to do with annual pay increases that happen in September), but the good news is that it's a go as far as the change in my job classification is concerned. My new classification is "editorial specialist," which is a salaried (exempt) position at a higher pay grade than my current classification. It's going to be processed as a promotion, even though I'm technically still doing the same job, but it also reflects the fact that I do a lot more and have more responsibilities than I did when I was hired for this job nearly 19 years ago. I have to look at some numbers related to how the annual pay increase is implemented to determine whether I want the change to be made as soon as possible or after the raises are processed, but the good news is that within about a month or so, all of this will be resolved and a significant source of stress from this year will be removed. Thank goodness! Now I just have to keep my fingers crossed for a positive outcome on the union vote.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

2023: A Brief Wrap-up

It's not the last day of the year, but this is likely my last blog post for the year, so I thought I'd be predictable and do a bit of a year-end wrap up. This won't be exhaustive or terribly detailed, frankly because I don't have the time for it, but I figured I'd at least look back on crafting and reading, the two things that figure most heavily on this blog.

More than anything else, 2023 was about spinning for me. I started out the year hoping to spin up at least 12 back shipments from the Southern Cross Fibre club. I ended up doubling that goal and spinning even more than that. If I'd thought to do it before we left for vacation, I would have taken a photo of the pile of skeins I've spun, but for now, this screenshot from my Ravelry handspun page will have to do:

I know it's really hard to see anything, but you can click on the photo to make it bigger or (if Ravelry is safe for you to use) visit my handspun page to see bigger photos and more details. Here are a handful of stats on my spinning:

• I spun 33 bags of fiber from SCF (mostly club shipments, but there were a handful of prize bags spun, too).
• Including all fiber spun, I completed 32 full-size skeins and 24 mini skeins.
• My rough estimate of weight spun (because I don't usually weigh my SCF shipments, though they're a minimum of 110 g per bag) is about 3,944 g/139 oz.
• My total yardage for the year is nearly 13,000, and when you consider that all those yarns were plied and that the majority had three plies, you can just imagine what the yardage would be if calculated by singles spun.

Because of my focus on spinning, I didn't knit quite as much as I did in years past, but it was still a fairly productive year:

• Nine pairs of socks
• Five sweaters (three adult, two baby)
• Ten hats (more than half for charity)
• Four cowls
• One shawl
• One pair of mittens
• One pair of cuffs

There was a crocheted blanket as well, which helped to use up most of a sweater kit.

It was another great year of reading. I was fairly conservative in setting my reading challenge goal for the year (at least relatively to recent years' numbers) at 100, and I did surpass it. While I'm hoping to finish one more book before the end of the year, here's where things stand:

To see what all these books are, click here.

Some highlights:

• I didn't rate any book lower than two stars.
• I rated 21 books five stars.
• I completed the Maisie Dobbs series.
• I became an Ann Patchett completist.
• Nearly half of the books I read were on audio (reading while running for the win!).
• I reread a dozen books.
• I read the majority of the Women's Prize for Fiction longlist and the entirety of the Booker Prize longlist.

In the order I read them, here are my favorites from among the five-star-rated books I read this year (which just happened to end up an even ten):

• The Tsar of Love and Techno
• Signal Fires
• I Have Some Questions for You
• The Garden of Evening Mists
• Tom Lake
• A Ghost in the Throat
• Wellness
• Between Two Kingdoms
• North Woods*
• Land of Milk and Honey

* Probably my favorite book of the year!

So that's it from me for now. I have some plans for 2024, but I will wait to share those in a few days. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this past year. Did you have any big accomplishments -- or big regrets? How did your reading match up with mine?

I hope these last days of 2023 are good for you, and I wish you a new year of good health and good times!

Unraveled, Week 44/2023

Yes, I'm posting again -- third day in a row! But you know that I would never willingly miss posting on an Unraveled Wednesday! Today, as per usual, I'm linking up with Kat and the Unravelers while I give you and update on my crafting and my reading.

First, I finished a charity hat over the weekend. I used my top-down any-gauge hat pattern and knit the biggest size I could and used up just about all of my yarn. It's big on me, but it looks better on a head than flat.

The skein was the odd man out from a six-skein set from Fibernymph Dye Works; the other five were a gradient and were used in my COVID blanket. This skein technically had the same colors but looked a little too much like camouflage for me. I'm sure someone will like it, though, and that's all that really matters.

I've started a new crochet project, and the yarn might look familiar:

Originally I had four skeins of this Hedgehog Fibres Skinny Singles that I got from Bonny, and I used most of two of them in my Love Note. These colors are so gorgeous and saturated that I had to find another use for the skeins that remained. Rather than another pair of socks, I decided to make my mother-in-law a scarf for a holiday gift this year, and because I've enjoyed crochet so much recently, I decided to do it as a corner-to-corner. This is very simple and easy and should come together quickly. It's about eight inches wide, and I'll make it as long as I can with my two skeins.

I've also started another spinning project (I know you're all shocked!). I'm doing my usual three-ply fingering weight, or at least I hope so, using Comeback wool from the Southern Cross Fibre. This Australian breed was created from mating British longwool sheep crossed with Merinos back with Merinos. The wool is fairly soft but has some body and toothiness to it, and it's a favorite of mine. I'm also loving these saturated colors:

I'm on the second bobbin of singles at the moment and hope to finish that one up today, so it's entirely possible I'll be plying by this weekend.

Reading has been good this past week, even though I have only finished one book since this time last week.

The Barbara Kingsolver book group hosted by Mary will be meeting this weekend to discuss The Lacuna. I have a hard copy of the book but decided to listen to the audio, primarily because it's read by the author. I'd missed this book entirely when it it came out, I think because it was published the year Mo was born and I was a little preoccupied, so I'm really happy to have had an excuse to read it now. It follows the story of a fictional writer, Harrison Shepherd, who lives an usual childhood thanks to his American father and Mexican mother. He encounters real-life figures in Diego Rivera, Frieda Kahlo, and Leon Trotsky and even comes under the scrutiny of HUAC. It's a really wide-ranging novel with a lot of history, but at its heart, this is the story of a man struggling to find a sense of home. The writing is, as you'd expect, quite beautiful, and I really enjoyed it. I gave it 4 stars.

Currently I'm trying to finish up An Immense World, and I'm pretty much exactly halfway through In Ascension, which has really been tempting me to stay up late reading. I hope to have both of these done by this time next week.

What are you making and reading this week?

Welcome to My Pity Party

I am happy to report that I am feeling about ten times better this morning than I was at the end of last week. That said, I still haven't tested negative yet, so I'm still isolating from the Mister -- and it meant that I missed family dinners and services for Rosh Hashanah. I did, however, manage to make challah, and as promised, here's a photo:

The braid/weave looked a lot clearer before it was baked, but I'm still pretty happy with how this turned out, given it was the first time I'd ever tried a round loaf. I sent it to dinner with Mo and the Mister on Friday night and then had my sad little dinner alone with no challah. I didn't want to replicate that particular pity party on Saturday, so I baked some more and tried a different method of shaping:

One of these loaves went into the freezer, but I just had a couple of slices of the other for breakfast. Yum!

I spent a lot of the weekend crocheting and watching TV, but yesterday I was feeling well enough to tackle some cleaning (bathrooms), laundry, and a walk. Today it's back to work, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a negative test later today.

It wasn't all doom and gloom over the weekend, though. Thanks to all the extra crocheting time, I finished the blanket -- which I'd only just started last Thursday!

I did not use a pattern for this blanket, but I can try to explain how I did it. First, I'd learned this method of crochet using a free tutorial that I found on Ravelry (there are a ton of tutorials out there, on blogs and YouTube). Then, I did a little swatch. I crocheted a small square using the variegated skein that came with this set and weighed and measured it to determine how much yarn I used per square inch. Then I used that information to figure out how large a blanket I could make with the yarn I had and what dimensions it could be (I knew I wanted a rectangle, so that made the math a little more challenging). Once I had my numbers, the rest was straightforward. 

I based my calculations on having 500 grams of yarn (five 100 g skeins), but all of mine were a bit more than that, and so I ended up with a bit left of the last skein -- I used a total of 479 grams. I didn't want to cut it too close and risk running out, so I'm happy with that. The finished blanket is about 25 inches wide and 40 inches long, but the yarn is superwash, so I may try to stretch it out a bit larger when I block it. As is, though, it's the perfect size to cover my legs. Perhaps more importantly, it used up a bit more than 1,100 yards of yarn from my stash! It was really the perfect thing to work on while I was sick because it's pretty darn mindless, and now I'm a bit sad that it's done because I won't have it to work on. I suppose I will just need to start another one!

It Finally Got Me

Well friends, after three and a half years of avoiding it, I've finally been hit with the 'vid. Those of you who follow me on Instagram likely saw the positive test I posted yesterday. I honestly did think I just had a sinus infection, but when I woke up yesterday with my whole body hurting again, I thought I should test. I read somewhere a while back that the side effects you feel from getting a dose of the vaccine are likely an indication of how the virus itself would make you feel, and that whole-body ache has been primarily the effect I've had each time I've gotten a vaccine or booster. On the plus side, I started getting these aches Monday afternoon, so clearly I've had it for a while, and I'm actually feeling a lot better this morning. Even better, Mo tested negative yesterday afternoon and is back to school today. While I would have preferred not to have gotten it, I am relieved that my bout with COVID has been relatively mild. My symptoms have been the aforementioned body aches, sinus pain, and some congestion (and some associated lightheadedness, which you'd expect). I've been coughing a little, but mainly just because of the postnasal drip from the sinus congestion. I've not had a fever or lost my sense of taste or smell. I have been taking extra-strength Tylenol every six hours, and I knew I was turning a corner last night when I didn't start feeling terrible before my next dose was due. I also slept through the night last night, unlike the two prior, so I'm fairly confident that I will be back to normal in a few more days. It's a bummer that I will miss out on Rosh Hashanah dinner with the family tonight and services this weekend, but my mother will no doubt be dropping off food for me and I can watch services online. I'm happy to be feeling better and able to stay home to keep others from getting sick. I did want to share my experience with all of you because it seems like the new variant that is going around is not causing the typical COVID symptoms and so people may not be testing when they should. So consider this your PSA!

While I never like being sick, I will say that it's been a relief to take time off from work and to not be so sick that I'm not feeling up to crafting. In fact, I've gotten quite a lot done in the past couple of days, primarily on my crochet blanket:

Last night I joined the fourth skein of yarn and started decreasing along the other edge, so I am in the home stretch now. If I keep up the pace, I would not be surprised if I finish this blanket by the end of the weekend! It looks like it's going to be the perfect size for covering my legs; I'm working to 25" wide by 40" long, though I'm sure that I'll be able to coax a bit more out of it when I blog it, given that it's superwash. This has really been the perfect project because it's require so little thinking. While I haven't really experienced the so-called COVID brain fog, it is still hard to concentrate when you're feeling lousy.

Later today, provided my head is feeling clear enough, I may pull out my long-dormant Birch Pullover, which hasn't been touched since the day we left Florida after our spring break trip. It's been sitting in a bag since then for a very silly reason: I need to do some basic math to determine how much of each skein of yarn to set aside for the sleeves so I can blend my skeins sufficiently. It'll probably take me less than five minutes to do so, but my ridiculous unwillingness to do that has meant that I've ignored the sweater for nearly half a year. Now that fall weather is finally here, I want to get back to that sweater so it's done and ready to be worn when we have legitimate sweater weather!

I hope the weekend ahead is as beautiful for you as it's predicted to be for us. Keep your fingers crossed that by the next time I post, I'm COVID negative!

Unraveled, Week 37/2023

Good morning from the sick house, friends. Mo is feeling a lot better, but I've come done with my annual sinus infection and am feeling pretty miserable. I'm glad I'm already working from home and don't have to go anywhere!

Time to check in with Kat and the Unravelers about making and reading. If there's one good thing to say about being at home with a sick kid, it's that there's plenty of time for both! 

I'm still working on my C2C blanket, and though I haven't added much more since you saw it on Monday, I plan to work on it during two work meetings today, one of which is supposed to be two hours long (it's on off-site meeting, but luckily I'd already planned to Zoom in because school pickup time is right in the middle of it).

I'm in the middle of a wrong-side row at the moment, and based on the measurement I took just after snapping this photo, I should reach my target width after one more right-side row. At that point, I will start decreasing on the left-hand side of the blanket and it'll start looking like a rectangle.

I also have added a few stripes to my current pair of socks, and I'm really enjoying this Targhee base.

The main reason I haven't made a ton of progress on either of these projects the past couple of days is because I've been almost completely focused on spinning -- and I finished another skein!

It's still a tad bit damp and the skein got a bit mussed up so I'll have to rewind it to tidy it up, but this is about 187 yards of three-ply worsted. This was Southern Cross Fibre Polwarth from May 2022 in the colorway Maelstrom. I did a very quick-and-dirty spin on this for a change, and while I don't have a ton of yardage, I'm very happy with this one.

I just love a round, bouncy three-ply yarn! Normally I don't have a specific plan for yarn I spin, but as these colors are right up Mo's alley, I'm thinking this might become a hat for her. I'll likely knit it top down so I can use up as much yarn as possible.

Reading has been good this past week, even if it's not been especially plentiful. With all the illness in the house, I've been a bit distracted. But I did finish two good books.

When I was in need of an audiobook late last week, I decided to reread Rebecca, in part because it's on the Novel Pairings calendar for this month but also because it's been a very long time since I read it (I'm pretty sure when I was in eighth grade!). I watched the Hitchcock film a ton when I was a kid and saw the not-so-great more recent Netflix version, so I knew the basic story, but I'd forgotten just how amazing the writing is! The audio version was well done, too. I think I could appreciate it all a lot more now that I'm older and more well read, and it wasn't until yesterday, while I was listening to Novel Pairings, that I learned that it was inspired by Jane Eyre, but it makes total sense! If you've never read this book, I highly recommend it. I gave my reread 5 stars.

My other finish came from the Booker Prize longlist. How to Build a Boat tells the story of Jamie, a young man who we're led to believe is on the autism spectrum and who believes that if he finds a way to build a perpetual motion machine, it will somehow connect him to his month, who died shortly after giving birth to him. He's helped in this mission by two of his teachers at his Catholic boys' high school, a place where all three of them are outsiders in their own way, and the book is really a lovely story of how they find and help one another through their respective life difficulties. This is one of those books that has no quotation marks for the dialogue, making it a little challenging in parts to know when someone is speaking and when they're just thinking, but it's a beautiful story. I gave it 4 stars.

I'm still reading An Immense World, though I haven't picked it up in the past several days, and I've been reading my next Booker selection, A Spell of Good Things, at bedtime.

What are you making and reading this week?

So Much for Those Plans

I am happy to report that it was a very restful weekend. Unfortunately, that was unplanned and was due to Mo coming down with COVID over the weekend. She woke up Saturday with a slight fever, and so we tested her because we were supposed to go to a bat mitzvah (read: lots of people). She luckily isn't feeling too ill (low-grade fever and congestion), but it's a bummer. She was mostly upset that she exposed everyone in the family at Friday night dinner, but so far everyone seems to be okay. She'll be home with me for most if not all of the week (I think she'll be able to go back to school, masked, on Friday, provided she tests negative before then), and as a result of all this, we all ended up with a very quiet weekend.

One nice thing was that there were Zooms happening for much of the day on Saturday for the Pigskin Party, so both of us were able to join while we crafted for several hours. I made quite a lot of progress on my crocheted blanket, and yesterday I actually finished up the first skein and joined in the second. This project is very addictive, so I would not be surprised if it's finished very quickly!

The color change isn't quite as stark as it looks here; I think that's just because the sun isn't really out yet, so the lighting wasn't great when I took this photo. I've almost reached my target width, so pretty soon I'll start decreasing on one side so that it will start looking like a rectangle.

After I posted on Friday, I was able to ply the singles I shared in that post, and I have another lovely skein finished:

I chain-plied this one, and I ended up with approximately 456 yards of fingering. I love the autumnal shades in this colorway -- and I'm also celebrating the fact that this was my 24th bag of Southern Cross Fibre spun this year! That was my doubled goal, and I'm not stopping now. I've been keeping up such a pace of spinning these club shipments that I might as well continue the momentum, and if I do, I should be able to get caught up by early next year. My ultimate goal is that I have no SCF stash but rather spin up each club shipment in the month that it arrives.

For accountability purposes, here was the SCF stash (minus one bag that was hiding) at the beginning of the year, with the bags I've spun checked off:

And here is what is currently in the stash, though my next shipment is out for delivery today and there will be one more bag added:

I should have another skein finished this week as well because I started spinning up that blue/purple fiber in the bag at the top left on Saturday and am nearly finished with the second bobbin (I thought a thicker yarn was in order; this'll probably be DK or worsted when it's plied).

I am hoping that this week is slightly less exciting, not least because Rosh Hashanah starts Friday night and we really want everyone to be healthy for it! I will be baking challah for our family dinner and trying my hand at a round loaf (a round challah is traditional for the new year). Please send us all your good thoughts for health!

Finishes and Starts

Why is it that sometimes the shorter weeks feel longer than the regular ones? I can only think it's been the heat here this week -- we officially had a heat wave, with three days hitting 90º F or higher. (I even ran on one of those days, and it was very much Not Fun.) But it's Friday, and we had some rain move through yesterday (including when I thought I was in the clear and went out for a walk, only have to run home in a downpour), so things are looking up.

I know this will likely come as a surprise to none of you, but I did finish the socks for my sister-in-law on Wednesday evening, thanks in part to a rabbi search Zoom meeting. I blocked them yesterday, so today they're all ready to be wrapped up and presented to her at dinner.

After I was so successful in focusing on that project on Wednesday, I decided to do the same with my current spinning project yesterday and finished all my singles, so today I am ready to ply.

While I'm wrapping up my WIPs, I'm also starting some new projects. Yesterday was kickoff day for the Down Cellar Studio Pigskin Party (and the NFL season), and that meant casting on some new projects because WIPs aren't allowed for this make-along. Obviously I had to cast on some new socks, so I dove into my SSK stash and pulled out the skein I brought home from Woolens and Nosh and cast on.

The other project I started is a crocheted corner-to-corner blanket using five of the six skeins from the Fibernymph Dye Works sweater kit that I wound up last week. I made a swatch a couple of days ago, weighed and measured it, and did some math to figure out how big a blanket I could make with the yarn I have and the measurements for it. I'll admit I had to do a bit of Googling to help with the last step, but I'm pretty sure I got it right, and I have a bit of extra yarn should I need it (I did my calculations based on 100 g skeins, but all of mine are a few grams more than that).

Today should be a quiet day at work -- my boss's mother-in-law passed away earlier this week, so she is off for the funeral today -- so I am hoping I can take care of plying that bobbin of singles and make some progress on one or both of the new projects. We have a bat mitzvah to attend tomorrow and thankfully nothing planned on Sunday, so I'm hoping the weekend will be a good reset. Here's hoping it's a good one for you, too!

Like All Good Things

Yes, today is our last full day of vacation (or kind-of vacation, in my case). We're due to fly home tomorrow afternoon, though they're predicting strong winds tomorrow in Western PA, and I hope that doesn't interfere with our travel plans -- I most definitely do not want a repeat of last year! It's showing up on time for the moment, so please keep your fingers crossed for us! It's been a lovely trip, but I am ready to be back in my own bed and to see the Mister.

When I posted on Wednesday morning, I was preparing for a long morning in front of the computer, though I had my knitting ready. We made it through about half of the session before it was abruptly canceled, and the reason why is a sad truth of our times: Our campus was put on lockdown because of reports of an active shooter at a high school a couple of blocks away from my office. It turned out to be a hoax, one of several false reports made that day, but it was a scary time for those who were in the office, and even after it turned out to be a false alarm, it was entirely understandable that people were having a hard time concentrating. I was concerned for my colleagues, and to be perfectly honest, I wasn't quite sure why I was in this workshop to begin with, so I was just fine with its early end. I imagine it'll be rescheduled at some point, so I guess at some date in the future I'll have a block of knitting time. Despite the schedule change, I have made a lot of progress on my Birch Pullover since Wednesday morning (that progress keeper was placed at the beginning of the session):

I am now about seven rounds from completing the yoke and dividing the sleeve and body stitches, and I am fairly confident I can get through those rounds today. I've got 300+ stitches on my needle at this point, so the rounds aren't exactly fast, but I pretty much have the pattern memorized at this point. Once I get past the split, it'll be even easier because it will just be a two-round repeat (purl one round, alternated k1b/p1 the next round). 

If you look closely, you will notice that I now have two strands of yarn attached; I started working in the second skein of yarn yesterday. Rebecca (the dyer behind Dusty Tree Dyeworks -- as well as the soap maker behind Dusty Tree Soap) works in really small batches, so she doesn't have colorways or dye lots for her yarns. When I picked out my skeins, I selected the five that looked most similar to each other, but there's definitely variation among them -- as shown in this photo:

When I wound all the skeins before we left, I also also labeled them 1-5, from lightest overall to darkest, and I'm using them in that order. I'm alternating skeins every round when I join a new one, with the hope that will be sufficient to blend them. It's easy at this point, but I'll have to do a little math once I split the body and sleeve stitches so that I can set aside some yarn as I work the body to make sure the sleeves look like they more or less match (I figure I'll take the stitch counts for the body and sleeves to figure out what percentage of the skein I should set aside for the sleeves and wind that off -- so it's a good thing we're headed home to my ball winder!).

In addition to leaving for home with a sweater yoke, I'm also leaving with a longtime crocheter to whom I've taught some new tricks. My mother used to make blankets and buntings (the sac-like garments, not the strands of flags) as baby gifts for others, but she hasn't picked up a hook in a while. So while we were here, we made a trip to Michaels to pick up a hook and some yarn so I could teach her the corner-to-corner method. One evening earlier this week, I showed her how to get started and helped her as she got the hang of it, but now she's off to the races:

She is just about finished with the first yarn cake and is determined to get to the point where she is ready to join the second so that I can show her how to decrease. She's also taken after me and has crocheted during several Zoom meetings she's had while we've been here.

Today is a regular work day for me, but I'll be taking time for a long walk before we leave so I can enjoy the good weather as much as possible. I hope our travel plans proceed without a hitch and by my next post, I'll be back home, reunited with my stash (and my spinning wheel, which I've missed). I hope all of you have a good start to your weekend today!

P.S. I almost forgot -- remember the secret design knitting I was doing that I couldn't show you? Guess who got an acceptance yesterday?!

Unraveled, Week 13/2023

I could easily forget what day of the week it is here (apparently my Fitbit did on Monday, because it neglected to wake me up with my normal alarm), but work has given me an extra reminder that it's Wednesday in the form of a four-hour diversity, equity, and inclusion workshop this morning. I'm sure the content will be worthwhile, but four hours straight? At least I will be able to knit my way through it (I'm attending via Zoom), and that big block on my schedule is helping me to get my priorities straight this morning. The first priority -- well, at least the first one after coffee! -- is my weekly link-up with Kat and the Unravelers.

I brought along a crochet hook and a ball of kitchen cotton just in case, but as it turns out, I was in the mood for a little crochet and I'm headed home with two completed dishcloths:

I believe that the one on the left is the second one I did, though I can't be certain; I think this particular stitch pattern leads to some inherent wonkiness, especially in combination with my relative inexperience with crochet, but I did notice that the work was a little easier the second time around. I think my tension was a little more relaxed, as I had a much easier time getting my hook into stitches. I used all but about a yard of the skein of yarn, yet somehow the two finished cloths weighed only 96 g, so I guess I had a light skein to start with. The yarn is Knit Picks Dishie in a light gray colorway called Clarity, and despite the fact that the skein was light, I would absolutely recommend this yarn (and oh hey, it's on sale right now!). I find it to be much easier to work with than the cotton you can find in big box stores, and there's more yardage in a skein to boot. I used a 4 mm/G hook.

Now I'm really trying to focus on my Birch Pullover, and I'm halfway through the yoke increases. I have increased enough that the stitches now comfortably fill the full length of my 40-inch circular needle.

I do know what I'm doing now with the stitch pattern and when to increase, but it's not quite something I can do without looking, so I can only work on it while reading if I read with my ears. I'll be interested to see how much I can get done during that four-hour workshop.

Speaking of reading, I have been doing a lot! My mother almost always has books waiting for me when I come down, and I've gotten through two of them this week, both excellent reads

I have read all but one of Geraldine Brooks' books, and I was very much looking forward to her latest, Horse. If you haven't heard of this book and don't think it sounds that great from the description, let me tell you that it's about a heck of a lot more than horses. There are several story lines followed in this book that all converge on a horse, and those stories deal with topics as serious and diverse as race and racism, politics, art, friendship, and love. There's even a very good dog (and no, the dog doesn't die). Once I got into this book, I could not put it down, and I have to tell you that I cried a bit at the end. I highly recommend it and gave it 5 stars.

I'd been on a (very long) wait list for Spare on audio from the library, but my mother had bought a hard copy and finished it herself just a few days ago, so she passed it on to me. This was a quick read and, I think, worth it. There is much more that Prince Harry talks about than the more recent issues within the royal family, and I'm not sure I ever realized just how traumatizing it must be to lose your mother at a young age and be under constant scrutiny for your entire life. I fully understand why the Sussexes wanted to step away from royal life, and I think the book even makes a good case for abolishing the monarchy. I gave it 4 stars.

Finally, I listened to another Maisie Dobbs book early this week. I discovered that the audiobooks after the first in the series are no longer available to me on Hoopla, but luckily there was no wait for the one I wanted on Libby. To Die but Once sees Maisie investigating the death of a young painter working in the war effort, though the case often takes a back seat to other concerns in her life. I believe I have only three books left in this series, and as much as I've enjoyed them, I'm actually feeling a bit glad they won't go on forever. I feel like I know where Maisie's story is going in general, and I think I'll be satisfied when I finish the series up. I gave this installment 3 stars.


I'm still reading the big Outlander book (and will be for some time, I expect), but last night I started No Two Persons, which I requested from NetGalley after Kat raved about it. I've only just started it (I think I'm 3% in), but I think it's possible I'll finish it before we leave to head home.