No big making this week…BUT!!! That project bag? Well, it has 1/2 of my Gift Knitting done, and the second half has begun. If I persevere, I think I can have this done in 4 or 5 days (especially since I know exactly what to do now!)
AND!! This yarn!!
Oh.my.gosh! Chain ply just never looked so good, really. And it is so evenly plied!! And why this time? Well…I followed Sarah’s suggestions. First I set the take up on my wheel to the “pull the yarn rapidly from your hands” setting. And I just concentrated on making nice long chains…not worrying about how much, if any twist was in the plies. Then… when I had all the yarn chained, I rewound it onto a bobbin and then reset the take up to something less than pull the yarn from my hands, but still some good take up, and then I put the yarn through again, this time paying attention to the twist. And I love it! It is not perfect, but boy… it is so much better than any previous chain ply attempts. Thank you, Sarah for that tip!
What will I make with it? I think I am going to try it with Sarah’s latest cowl. While my skein is not exactly consistent, once it has had a wee soak, I think it will be mostly a worsted weight yarn. I think it might look lovely with a dark solid color yarn… at least that is what I was thinking as I plied it up! Just wish me luck on Brioche and Tuck stitching…
The reading this week was so awesome, really. I could just stop right now for the year and be insanely happy with my reading for the year. But!! I am currently listening President Obama read me A Promised Land and I have the latest Vera book to begin, so I must just keep reading!
I started this book based on a recommendation of a friend…and wow, I am so glad I picked it up! What seems like it will be mundane, is not. At all. The story telling is astounding and the story has depth and layers and so much more. I liked Magda, but I loved Emerence. But the relationship that is formed between these two woman is the best. I had originally given this book a 4-star review, but the fact that it is still making me think almost week after finishing it made me move that review up to 5-stars. I highly recommend!
If reading this book does not make you want to relocate to the House in the Cerulean Sea…it should! What a lovely little story with some incredibly deep analogies for life. I saw the ending coming, but there was so much beauty and joy before the ending that I did not mind at all that I knew exactly how it would end. I very much recommend this book!
A book full of inspiration and so much joy! Page after page, I found myself nodding, taking note, and by the time I finished it… I knew that I needed it permanently in my collection of books.
This advice though… simply perfect:
Let go of the narratives you’ve dragged around for years: you are not who you were as a child, or in year X, or on day Y – at least, not only. You do not have to fit yourself into those old, cramped stories. Be yourself here and now. KEEP MOVING.
And that is all I have for this week. I will be back here Monday and I hope that your week is full of good books and even better making!
As always, if you wrote a post to share today, please leave your link below and thank you!
I am writing this on Tuesday afternoon from a wintery white South Hills of Pittsburgh! Yes, December 1st brought winter and I truly love the first snowfall of the season! The few inches we were supposed to get were exceeded before noon and still it continued to snow.
Good thing I have plenty to occupy my time with, lol! But it’s the time of year when I can’t really share what I have “in process” so I am sharing some things that are helping me learn.
I so admire the yarn that Sarah makes, and I have had this bit of fiber for some time now (sorry, no tag and I have no clue where I got it from) but it is the most vibrant colors so I am going to spin it end to end… trying my best to not muddy the colors. I am about half way through the braid and so far, so good on not muddying the colors! Then comes the hardest part… chain plying, which has never been something that I am proficient at, but Sarah gave me a pointer and I am going to try her suggestion!
The other thing I am working on proficiency with is crochet… oh boy, the struggle is real with this craft! How it can seem harder with just one hook versus two needles, I do not know but it is not easy nor does it feel at all natural. However, I can now manage to make 3 circles (up from ONE!) each evening.
Two things to become more proficient at and it is only the second of December!
The reading was just wonderful this week. I don’t remember who first read Cher Ami and Mr. Whittlesey, but I am so glad I added this book to my reading queue!
I love history, but I know little about WWI and I knew even less about pigeons and WWI. Nor have I ever listened to a book told from a pigeon’s perspective, but now I am asking myself why not? This is an incredibly engaging story that was easy to get lost in and hard to put down! I did ration my listening to prolong the joy of this story.
If you like history, this might just be the book for you! I highly recommend this story!
Frosty The Snowman in the header photo is inching his way to being vintage! He is 31 years young, and he is one of my favorite Christmas things! My kids ask every year, “is Frosty out yet?” He also was thrilled with the snow today!
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below and thank you!
Today my feet are tucked inside the below socks… cozy and warm and just in time for the return of the chilly weather! These socks are from Kate Atherley’s Twitter KAL and they were so fun to knit. There were different techniques for the heels and toes, and I truly love the fit. I have another skein of the sock yarn (in a lovely Christmas-y red…) so I think I will make another pair to gift!
AND!!
There was a bit of sewing completed! It took me the better part of two days, but I do indeed have a finished bag and I love it! I used a remnant of heavy weight linen I had purchased years ago, and as you can see, I did not have enough for all the parts, but I like the front pocket being different. I also did not have any twill tape, but I did have a piece of bias tape left from another project. I added an extra interior pocket from the heavy weight linen to put a scissors, and just like that it is done and I have filled it with a project! The instructions were clear, well written, and all in all it was easy to make! Which has given me confidence to attempt the patchwork bag from the latest issue of Making.
The other making I will be doing today is to make a pie for our humble little Thanksgiving at home.
The reading has really slowed down, which is not a bad thing… it means I am sleeping well! However, I did finish a lovely little book of poetry. Yes it was small (only 80 pages long) but it was full of such beautiful poems!
The room was as I left it. There was the bed in the corner. There was the table under the window. There was the light battering itself against the window until I raised the blinds at which point it was redistributed as flickering among the shade trees
This little book was full of such incredible poems. Poems to linger over. Poems to ponder. Poems to hold on to.
I highly recommend!
And that, dear friends, is all I have for this week! I will be back next week Tuesday to join Honoré with my little word update! If you are celebrating Thanksgiving… I wish you one that fills you in unexpected ways.
As always, if you wrote a post to share leave your link below and thank you!
The best laid plans of knitters and stitchers often go awry…said makers everywhere at one time or another
Greetings Unravelers,
I hope you’ll excuse my play on Robert Burns writing, but it truly sums up my week thus far! (BUT, the water is flowing OUT again! No more clogged drain! Some days it’s the small things to be thankful for!)
I haven’t much knitting to show (but in the brilliant words of Bridget… I have a HO*) and not a lick of sewing. I learned the hard way this week that putting things off can have “finishing” consequences…as in, no finished bag this week as I’d planned. Yes… in my plan, Steve would have watched the Steelers Sunday afternoon while I sewed. The Plumbing Gods had different ideas for my weekend. I have about 3ish inches of knitting on sock two before the toe decreases…it is getting there!
However this is not a blog of excuses (okay, so maybe it is, lol) so I do have that sock to share. AND!!
And as you can see there has been some spinning because I have another skein of yarn finished. One more to go and my hope is that I will have enough to knit a simple top down sweater. I don’t think you can see the difference between the “set” skein and the just off the wheel skein… but to my eye the difference is notable. This fiber (Falkland) bloomed nicely in the bath! Skein two will be getting a spa treatment later today. I have not measured the finished yarn yet, but pre-finishing I have roughly 400 yds of fingering weight yarn.
And!! Yesterday, we even had a brief sunny interlude (thankfully, so I could get some photos!!) in our otherwise blustery, snowy day!
The reading continues to be slow. I have one finish, and it is such a curious book!
This book fills the “captivating read” category and then some! Even if the premise is utterly unbelievable! But, if you look beyond the unbelievable, you begin to see Wilson frame for you some questions: What is success? What is failure? What makes up a family? AND What do you do when the hand you’ve been dealt just plain sucks?
The book moves between the past and the present…giving the reader everything you need to know to start to ask yourself the questions. I began to hope early on that Madison would get what she so richly deserved, although I won’t tell you if she did in the end.
The real winners in the book are Lilian, Bessie, and Roland. While the end was very predictable, it just felt so good. They take the cards they were dealt and turn them into winners!
Want a quick, enjoyable read? This is it!
*HO: Half an object, as apposed to FO, which is a finished object!
That is all for today, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below and thank you!
Armistice Day…”on this day, at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ends.”
Somehow this is not something that is celebrated here in the United States. We call it Veterans Day…but there is something meaningful about those words. 11… 11… 11… The Great War Ends.
My making is at a stand still… as is my reading. Nothing new started. Nothing in process finished.
My heart is heavy this morning…yesterday at my local poll in my neighborhood was an eye-opening experience. I have a different view of my neighbors this morning and it makes me so sad. You know that phrase “kill them with kindness”? I am here today to tell you that is highly over-rated. Kindness did not work. Matter-of-fact-ness (i.e. slide your ballot here please) did not work. I have never heard so much hate-filled language. Ever. Nor have I ever been accused of changing votes. I guess there is a first for everything. It was painful.
And this morning, I don’t think any of us can say “this is not who we are” because that is simply not true.
Yesterday, I brought my Pheasant Pullover to the polls, foolishly thinking there might be a minute or two to knit. But today it will be my companion as I hunker down, avoid these insane predictions, and tune out by binging on The Queen’s Gambit.
Ali Smith knocks it out of the park with the final book in her Seasonal series. This book will make you stop and think about so many things. It is timely and I was stunned that quarantine life was included. This book poses so many questions that have lingered over the days since I finished it. These lingering thoughts caused me to raise my rating from 4 to 5-stars. I highly recommend the entire series!
For me, John Boyne is one of the greatest story tellers of our time, and A Traveler at the Gates of Wisdom is a masterfully crafted tale! I did not want to put this book down, and practically devoured it in one sitting. I listened to it, and the narrator was excellent. So… how many lives must we live until we get it right? We listen to an unnamed narrator bring us along with him over 2000 years of his lives. From the beginning to the end it is brilliant! And that ending! I loved it. I highly recommend this book!
This letter! Boy, do I wish I had someone say these things to me about a hundred years ago! It is loving, challenging, questioning, thought-provoking, and all women should write them in our hearts! We should affirm them to our daughters, to our friends, to our neighbors, to our significant others.
I highly recommend this brilliant little book!
That’s all I have for today. As always, if you wrote a post to share, please leave you link below and thank you!
The Door by Magda Szabó
The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune
Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change by Maggie Smith
