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!
First, a bit of housekeeping for next week! There will be an Unraveled post, but it won’t be up super early. I will be working the polls next Tuesday and I am planning that it will be a LONG day. However, I do hope to have the post up by 9 AM EST. (and have you made your plan to vote?? lol)
This week’s making revolved around spinning and a wee bit of sewing preparation! The spinning though! Every week, Sarah posts the most gorgeous photos of fiber, spinning, and finished yarn… she is nothing but inspiring! So when HipStrings posted this on IG there was no way at all to not buy some! I have one braid spun up! (I am stressing a little about the plying… but I have lots of spinning to finish before I get to that!)
As for my sewing… I have taken some lovely black linen and a bit of left over blue linen and have all the parts cut out to begin sewing a bag from my Lotta Acquisition!
It was another slow week for my reading, but the book I finished was enjoyable.
Everybody carries a world. But certain people change the air about them.
This book. Oh boy, where to begin. I have never been to Ireland, but this book took me on a journey! The writing is simply beautiful, I highlighted so many bits. This book was so full of yin and yang… happiness, tempered by sadness… new life, tempered by death… of life so lived it is epic!
The truth turns into a story when it grows old. We all become stories in the end. So, though the narrative was flawed, the sense was of a life so lived it was epic.
I highly recommend this book!
As always, if you wrote a post to share – leave your link below and thank you! I will be back next week! Have a lovely remainder of your week everyone!
Do you ever feel like you are in a “making” rut? I am in a huge making rut and it really sucks! I have things to knit that I want to finish, but boy… there is just no joy in the making right now. (FYI, the following links are to projects on Ravelry) I should be knitting sleeves… but they are languishing in a basket next to the living room sofa. Or perhaps I should be knitting the body of this, but that is languishing in a knitting bag next to my bed.
Instead, I am knitting a heel (on a pair of socks that are screaming AUTUMN to me!) and pondering why I am so disinterested in things that should be bringing me joy. In an attempt to really break things up, I am going to pull out the sewing machine this week to see if that gets me back on the path of happy making! Thanks to Carolyn, a new-to-me Lotta Jansdotter book arrived at my house this week and I think a bag test run is the perfect thing before attempting this beauty from the latest Making! (Because, I am just enamored with this bag!)
Armand and friends in Paris, what’s not to love? An interesting city, a curious mystery, and familiar characters make for a can’t-put-it-down novel. I love how Penny keeps revealing more and more depth to her characters, and in doing so – makes them more lovable! I highly recommend!
At first I struggled to find a rhythm with this book, and perhaps reading just a page or two at night made that even more difficult. And once I found myself immersed in the stories of the women of Brewster Place, the ending left me struggling to find closure and I went back and re-read it several times to see if I was missing something. I don’t think I missed anything, and this book just did not seem to work for me.
And that is all I have for today. If you wrote a post to share (and I sincerely hope you did!!) please leave your link below!
Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson
