by Kat | Oct 31, 2018 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Into every knitter’s life some unraveling eventually happens. This week is my turn and yes, by the end of day – my Tegna will be all unraveled. Sigh.
I love this yarn… very much. And, I love the idea of Tegna, but the more I knit, the more uncertainty crept in about how this will fit. For the past 2 weeks, Tegna has been in a bit of a time out while I wrapped my brain around fit and eventually about ripping out so many weeks of knitting.
Yes, there is no avoiding the pain, but the pain would be far worse if I finished the sweater and never wear it. So, back to the drawing board with this lovely yarn, and truly – that is okay.
Not to be entirely sidelined on knitting – I am diligently working on seaming squares together on blanket number two. Plus, I am going to have some fun by participating in NaKniSweMo – I have swatched, conferred with Mary, and will be casting Blaer tomorrow morning. And, after participating in the Knit-a-Sweater-in-4-days – 30 days seems like a cakewalk! This is coming at the perfect time as well – I have wished for a grey cardigan about a dozen times in the last two weeks!
The reading this month has picked up ever so slightly! Which is a very good thing, I have been feeling in a bit of a reading slump! I finished The Overstory – and wow, just wow. I re-read the last 50 pages again yesterday morning – this was a book I did not want to end. Really. I cannot stop thinking about how brilliantly this was written and how beautifully Richard Powers weaves all the stories together into one cohesive and powerful novel. I will never, ever look at trees the same way again. If you have not read this, stop everything and go put your name on the waitlist at your local library. Yes, it is that good. I gave it 5-stars and it will absolutely be in my top-5 favorite books of the year.
I also finished American Gospel, which I listened to. This might have been the perfect time to listen to this fascinating history (and much of it unknown to me). Midway through, I was struggling with it a bit, but it ended incredibly and gets 4-stars from me. I highly recommend it!
I should be done with There, There later today – I am enjoying this book, but it is not riveting like The Overstory, or The Master Butcher’s Singing Club.
I will end up only having read nine books in October… but I fully expect to turn that around in November!
But, what about you? What are you making? Ripping out? Reading?
Please, do tell! And, as always, if you wrote a post to share today, please leave your link below!
[inlinkz_linkup id=804373 mode=1]
by Kat | Oct 24, 2018 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Greetings, Unravelers! Happy Wednesday to you!
This week the knitting has been focused…and the result is a finished blanket!
Things I learned:
- Applied i-cord must be knit with a larger needle than you think…I should have done a practice square. The blanket is currently soaking and ready for its final “blocking” but, imo… the i-cord is a tiny bit tight. BUT… I am not taking it out and redoing it. I believe it will be okay in the finished product, but for blanket number two, I am going up in needle size to accommodate for my tension.
- Joining squares and then rows means LOTS of ends to weave in. I was wise and left some of the edges to weave into the i-cord… three cheers to that me from this me! Well done!
- Things take WAY longer than you think they will to complete. Blanket Two Assembly is underway…at.long.last.
Reading….
This is where I generally post books I have finished…. Except this week, I have NO FINISHES! I know…so sad. So, instead lets do this weeks current reads…
I am listening to Jon Meacham’s American Gospel: God, The Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation. I am just over half way though and I will hold my commentary until I have finished, but Meacham’s writing is wonderful!
I am reading The Overstory, which is fascinating. It seems to be a collection of stories about different people with the common thread of trees in the story… and as a hater of short stories, I must say I am loving this. Really. A lot! I have less than half to go to finish and I find that I am angry at myself for being tired and needing to put the iPad down. A true sign of a very good book!
That is what I have in progress this week… what about you? What’s on your making and reading list this week? If you wrote a post to share, please leave your link below!
[inlinkz_linkup id=803495 mode=1]
by Kat | Oct 17, 2018 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
There has been no unraveling at all (thank goodness!!) Which is doubly good since Julia Farwell-Clay posted this most timely Instagram post… YES, I am picking up the stitches correctly! However, I am MUCH slower than she is! I need to learn that yarn management thing she has going on!
While there has been no unraveling… sadly, there has been minimal knitting going on. Although, the sock saw some knit-time this week at Election Worker Training on Monday. Outside of that, I am still on the final seam of blanket number one and might be having some heart palpitations about the applied i-cord edging, but I think it will be a good thing to sit down and listen to my current listen, The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith. It took me a bit to get into this, but I think I have all l the people down which has helped tremendously! It’s a long book so it should be the perfect companion to all that i-cord edging!
There has been LOTS of cooking going on! I have been really jonesing for some autumnal meals – so I made chicken pot pie on Monday and stuffed butternut squash yesterday. But, the showstopper was David Liebovitz’s Dorrie Greenspan’s French Apple Cake! I made it yesterday and the smell in the house was amazing! My only substitution to swap out the dark rum for some whiskey. It is a super easy recipe and it tastes like a lot more work than it was!
I did have some finished reads to share this week… so it was not a total bust!
I finished The Immortalists with mixed feelings. However, my thoughts have lingered on several things in the book… but that will not change my rating of 3-stars. I did not like the ending at all. I am not sure what to say about it without giving anything about the plot away but suffice it to say this dysfunctional family beat mine, hands down!
I also finished The Thing About December… this was a tough read for me. So much pain and sadness (these books probably were not the best combination to read concurrently). But the writing is brilliant. This does not beat The Spinning Heart or From a Low and Quiet Sea for me, but I am glad I read it and I gave it 4-stars.
But, what about you? What are you making and reading this week? If you wrote a post to share, please leave your link below!
[inlinkz_linkup id=802699 mode=1]
by Kat | Oct 10, 2018 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Greetings Unravelers and Happy Wednesday!
Today is all about catching up with my knitting, which will be especially welcome after doing grocery shopping, laundry, and cooking yesterday! That is after a long walk and some Pilates – vacations are great for lots of things, but diets? Not so much! Haha!
Very little knitting has happened since last week – although the sock has grown the tiniest bit. One would think in an 8 hour+ car ride I would have MUCH more done. However, the lack of knitting has something to do with a huge traffic jam on the turn pike and a comment about how I could be knitting while someone was so miserable (as if I was not equally miserable in said traffic jam) but there you have it – no knitting on the sock!
However, today I am back to turning this stack of squares into a blanket and with some focused attention, I hope to have both blankets done by this time next week! Although, I have a “training” next Monday because I am going to be an Election Worker in November in my precinct – so maybe a Friday finish is a better guess!
My reading has been so slow, but I should be done listening to Reservoir 13 today. And, the night-time reading has me almost done with The Thing About December as I have less than a third of the book to go.
Hopefully, reading kicks into high gear because I have a bunch of things that just came off hold!
Inspire me, Unravelers… what are you making this week?! And, if you have a post to share, please leave your link below.
[inlinkz_linkup id=801886 mode=1]
by Kat | Sep 26, 2018 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
And, with that – September is practically over – and at warp speed, too!
My knitting this week has been focused on blanket layout and assembly. Holy pick up a million stitches, Knitters! Yeah…and then there will be the ends to weave in. I decided not to fuss around with the “no-ends” version and just bite the bullet and weave in the ends at each seaming point. But, so far so good, once I got the pick-up points down, that is! Today will be my first LONG seam! Keep your fingers crossed for me! Ha! Blanket one is likely to be at least all put together before I leave, but I am not certain about the i-cord edge being done.
Tegna is patiently awaiting our departure when I will begin knitting her again (maybe sooner if I can get this hat done!) Mary asked me what travel knitting I will take – and Tegna might just be the one and only knit project. I always over take and under knit! There are just too many other things to do in Michigan that my knitting kind of takes a back seat!
The reading however, was curious this week:
I finished The Song of Achilles, which I listened to and that might not have been the best idea – I had to go back multiple times to remember characters connections. I did enjoy the story though, it was a good Greek history refresher from a much more interesting perspective than I had in school! Ha! For me this was a 3-star book and I recommend reading it versus listening.
I also finished The Steps of Pittsburgh, which I found utterly fascinating. If you ever lived in Pittsburgh, this is a must read! Fun facts I learned: Pittsburgh has a total of 44,645 steps in the city housed in various neighborhoods. If you add up the rise of all these steps you have a total rise of 24,108 ft (or 4.5 miles). Most of the steps have “street names” and many have intersection points with other steps. The steps are a public right of way and are maintained by the city – including ice and snow removal.
I am almost finished with my second Donal Ryan book – The Spinning Heart. I have 2 chapters to go and will easily get this done today. My love for Donal’s writing has only grown with this book. He crafts beautiful characters and just when you say to yourself, how does any of this fit – a little light goes on and suddenly it all is so brilliant! There is a plethora of characters, so it took me a bit to keep them all straight, but the writing is simply GENIUS! (This will be getting 5 stars, easily!)
What are you making and reading this week? And, if you wrote a post to share, please leave your link below!
[inlinkz_linkup id=799633 mode=1]
