by Kat | May 27, 2020 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Greetings Unravelers!
No Finished Objects this week, despite my planning that there would be! Enter a weekend of yard work and I was left with not much knitting time (and said yard work left me ready for bed! LOL)
So this week you get another progress shot of my Ranunculus.
Thank goodness audiobooks pair well with gardening! This week’s reads were fantastic, especially Drive Your Plow! IMO, this should have won the Man Booker award. I found it hard to stop listening – good thing I had all that yard work, lol.
Bingo One: Columbarium, Late Migrations, The Unquiet Dead, Smilla’s Sense of Snow, and The Hobbit. Bingo Two: The Hobbit, Eye of the Red Tsar, Drive Your Bones…, American Dirt, and Hot Milk
AND!! This week I have not one, but TWO bingo’s this week! I should have 2 more next week and I have mapped out the remaining books for this card! Summertime and the reading is so good! If you are looking for a square for multiple narrators, try the BBC production of The Hobbit! The cast is excellent! AND, looking for a “heard it on a podcast” book? NPR talked about Drive Your Plow in glowing terms (as did Kym!) I loved this quirky little book.
I have read 8 books this month and still have a couple of days to go, so maybe I can get to 9 books completed in May!
The Hobbit (Dramatised) by the BBC by J.R.R. Tolkien
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
What splendid fun it was listening to the BBC cast! I picked this version to fill in a Summer Book Bingo square “more than one narrator” and this was really quite fun! I enjoyed it thoroughly!
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I’ve fallen in love with Mrs. Duszejko! She is incredible! Is this story a mystery? Is this story about animal rights? Is this story about astrology? Is this story about life and death? Is this story about grief?
Yes. Absolutely, yes!
I loved every bit of this wonderfully translated story. It is brilliantly written and the audio version was perfectly narrated. It made me stop, think, and think some more!
“You know what, sometimes it seems to me we’re living in a world that we fabricate for ourselves.
We decide what’s good and what isn’t, we draw maps of meanings for ourselves…
And then we spend our whole lives struggling with what we have invented for ourselves.
The problem is that each of us has our own version of it, so people find it hard to understand each other.”
I highly recommend this brilliant little story!
There you have my week…what about you? What things occupied you this week?
If you wrote a post to share, please leave your link below and thank you!
by Kat | May 20, 2020 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
I am still working through the last clue of the Larissa Brown’s mystery shawl. I have some blocking of the pieces to get done (and a pattern update on dimensions just dropped yesterday) so in the mean time I am being entirely distracted with a Linen Ranunculus. The photo above is an hour or so of knitting, so I think this sweater will knit up quickly! AND it will be the perfect summer sweater! (and yes, I am totally copying these sweater mods)
This yarn is just incredibly yummy!
I have really hit my reading stride this week! No bingo’s yet, but I should have my first one in the next day or two!
Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I started this book and almost stopped reading it because I wasn’t sure I needed a rambling stream of conscious book right now. And then it clicked. Perfectly. Or rather, imperfectly.
Three things no one has ever said about me: You make it look so easy.
If you have spent any amount of time looking at your life wondering why everyone else’s life is perfect and yours is just, well, not. This is the book that will validate you and have you feeling good about it by the time you are finished. I wish I had read this book when I had three small children and contemplating divorce. I too was living in the Little Theater of Hurt Feelings as well, but I wish that I knew the name of if while I was there!
This could have been my Christmas Letter, had I ever made the effort to send one:
Dear Family and Friends, It is the year of the bugs. It is the year of the pig. It is the year of losing money. It is the year of getting sick. It is the year of no book. It is the year of no music. It is the year of turning 5 and 39 and 37. It is the year of Wrong Living. That is how we will remember it if it ever passes. With love and holiday wishes.
Now I am looking at all those Christmas Letters I got and wondering…
I highly recommend this brilliant little book.
The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Early Quarantine Days Me just could not settle into this book at all. I would pick it up and read a page or two and zone out.
So I put it down and waited. And about the 10th of May, I picked it up and started again and it all just clicked this time… and I suddenly found myself needing to pace my reading to make it last!
This is a brilliantly written book about Churchill and the Blitz of London. I thought when I started the book the first time that I would end up disliking Churchill, but I can tell you that is absolutely not true, in fact – I might love him even more!
If you like history you will enjoy this book. If you love history, you will love settling into the days with Winston, and you will appreciate the insight, the conversations, and all the things that are not in history books.
The preface gives a hint at the splendor to come:
Although at times it may appear to be otherwise, this book is a work of nonfiction. Anything between quotation marks comes from some form of historical document, be it a diary, letter, memoir, or other artifact; any reference to a gesture, gaze, or smile, or any other facial reaction, comes from an account by one who witnessed it. If some of what follows challenges what you have come to believe about Churchill and this era, may I just say that history is a lively abode, full of surprises.
AMEN! If you read nothing else this year, but this book on your list! I highly recommend!
And that is all I have for this week! If you wrote a post to share, please leave your link below and thank you for joining us!
by Kat | May 13, 2020 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
I finished Romi’s Mystery Shawl and I love it!! It is exactly what I wanted – it is lightweight and perfect for “indoor AC deep freezes” Haha. It is one color, and knit from some centuries old Knit Picks Shadow Lace yarn from my stash. I could not be happier and I loved every step of this shawl from the brilliant center start to the superbly stretchy (but not sloppy) bind off. Now I am wondering what might be my next Romi knit!! I have been eyeing Miss Bab’s new yarn and contemplating…
I think I finally found solace in my reading because my reads this week were so good! I filled 3 more bingo squares, but still no bingo’s… My squares this week: Comfort Read = Tartine Bread (because homemade bread is the ultimate comfort food, amirite?), Originally published in the 19th Century = Leaves of Grass, and Borrowed = Shadow Pass. I am on the wait list for the third book in the Inspector Pekkala series and eager to get it! (and next week, I get even more creative with my square and book pairing, haha)
Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
What does one do when you are stuck in the Great Stay at Home Pandemic of 2020… why you try to grow a Sourdough Starter! (Key word…**try**).
This book came highly recommended by a friend, and so I got it and began reading. This is truly user friendly. It explains clearly what to do to get your starter going, how to maintain your starter, and then how to bake bread (and dozens of other things) using your starter. I have several Peter Reinhart baking books, but they seem complicated where as this book is truly streamlined and tested! (With test bakers that were not all bakers!!) If your goal is to bake sourdough bread, look no further! Get this book and get going!
I highly recommend!
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I had “read” this in high school and wrote a paper on When Lilac’s Last in the Dooryard Bloomed. Or should I say, I wrote a paper with the help of my maternal grandfather. The Lincoln poem was one he had memorized. When I read this a lifetime ago, I did not get it at all. But, now…
Wordy, geographical, questioning, wondering, amazing.
Whitman takes your hand and eases you into his world. I wonder what he would think of what this world has become. Through his eyes, I see new possibilities and with balanced longing for what was, and hope for what might be – I carry his words with me:
“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far. It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.
Perhaps it is everywhere – on water and land.”
I highly recommend you take the journey.
Shadow Pass by Sam Eastland
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Book Two of the Inspector Pekkala series did not disappoint. More character development happened in a very good way. More of Pekkala’s past was revealed and the start of seeing that Pekkala is not entirely enamored of Stalin’s Russia.
The writing is very good and I will continue with this series!
That is all I have for today (and this week!) What is making you happy in your making or reading this week? Please share!!
And if you wrote a post to share, please leave your link below and I will see you back here next Wednesday!
by Kat | May 6, 2020 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Some of my making this week included making some modifications to my Traveler’s Journal. Normally, I have 3 inserts, and my set up works very well! I like having multiple journals in one convenient package. However, with the addition of a couple of new journals and I need a modification to my existing system. So, this week I gathered the tools necessary to make some simple changes. One new elastic later and I now have a modified cover to contain my journals.
I am cruising on my Lunar Fade Mystery shawl, this week’s clue included starting a new piece and I am really excited to see where this goes!
For as quickly as the Lunar Fade is moving, I am in the slow lane on Romi’s shawl – the final clue is out, but I am still working on the previous clue – taking my time and hopefully avoiding errors. And, slowing down has paid off, no ripping back happened this week!
And…I made the leap to join Kirsten Kapur’s Mystery Shawl! Yarn contemplation has begun!
April reading was incredibly good! I ended the month with 12 books finished (AND I could fit them all onto my Bingo Card!) And even though I don’t have any bingos yet, it is looking very good! This week’s finishes include:
New Poets of Native Nations by Heid E. Erdrich
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A collection of twenty-one incredible voices.
A gathering of some incredible poems.
Poems that made me gasp at their beauty, cry with their poignant words…
These words from Natalie Diaz American Arithmetic will stay with me for a very long time:
Native Americans make up less than one percent of the population in America. 0.8 percent of 100 percent. O, mine efficient country…I am begging: Let me be lonely but not invisible.
I highly recommend every single word!
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“It is not those who inflict the most but those who suffer the most who will conquer.”
I foolishly thought I knew something about the conflict in Northern Ireland, this story quickly disavowed me of those thoughts!
This story takes you though the time known as The Troubles and the disappearing of Jean McConville. It was, at times, a very uncomfortable listen. Yet, at the same time, I could not stop. At the end of this book, I still have questions – but I think that is the reality for many – especially those living in Northern Ireland.
“We beat them with stones at first, and they had guns. Our people had to go and get guns. Wouldn’t they have been right stupid people to stand there? Our people got shotguns at first and then got better weapons. And then the British, who were supposed to protect us, came in and raided our homes. What way could you fight? So you went down and you blew them up.”
These words jumped out at me and I could not stop thinking about the truth in them… truth for so many conflicts in so many places… and the importance stopping the violence and listening to each other. I highly recommend this powerful book!
That’s all I have this week, what about you? What are you making this week?
If you wrote a post to share, please leave your link below and thank you!
by Kat | Apr 29, 2020 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Greetings Unravelers! There was NO unraveling for me this week – and I am almost done with Clue Three of Romi’s Mystery shawl – although it still looks like the green blob in the photo! Trust me that I am very happy with it and I am even happier to be back on track! I don’t think I will get Clue Four done before the next clue drops Friday but that is okay!
Larissa Brown’s Lunar Mystery Shawl is less taxing to knit, but I love the start! I have sort of bound off the first few clues and am eagerly waiting to see what the next step will be!
I am still slowly working on my crochet circles – not every evening, but most evenings. I always thought crochet was faster than knitting, but apparently that is all relative to your skill level! No photo update this week, but I do have something I have been oogling on Instagram. I am enthralled with all the lovely circles! This especially makes my heart sing!
The reading this week was unexpected and so.good! No bingo yet, but I have filled in two more squares!
Eye of the Red Tsar by Sam Eastland
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I can’t believe I almost didn’t borrow this book from my library! I loved it! The writing is good, the characters are intriguing and I loved how Eastland worked in Pekkala’s background to the story. If you are looking for a new mystery series, this one delivers! I have already borrowed the second book of this series! I highly recommend!
Victim 2117 by Jussi Adler-Olsen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I loved this Department Q installment because of Assad. Adler-Olsen spends a good bit of time sharing Assad with us, and there is so much to love! I won’t give anything away, but this novel is brilliantly crafted with two separate but somehow connected crimes. They are tied together brilliantly. This is the first book in this series that I listened to, and it while it was not my favorite way to consume Carl and his team it was not horrible. The narrator was good, but I prefer to read these stories, I think I can read them faster than it too me to listen to it! Sadly, the wait list for the Kindle version was months long, so audio it was! I highly recommend this entire series!
That is all I have for this week! If you wrote a post to share, please leave your link below! Thank you for joining us!
