Greetings, Unravelers!
We have finally arrived at the last Wednesday of the longest year ever. No updates with this post, but rather reviews… The best of 2020 in making and reading.
This was the Year of Making (although not all of it has been captured on Ravelry, thanks to them being tone deaf about people having issues with their site) However, I checked and on Ravelry, I had completed 12 things (no Rav Links) this year, starting with a sweater that is a true favorite… Amy Christoffer’s Felix Cardigan. I wear it often… and have the yarn to make another one. Perhaps it can be a “start out 2021” sweater!
However, it was a year of socks for me… I knit more socks than I ever have in my knitting life with a whopping 6 pairs of adult size socks (and one Winston size pair, but those barely count, lol) And in fact, the final project I completed in 2020 were a pair of Socks for Steve. As you can see above, I don’t think I will get sock 2 completed before the midnight tomorrow so that brings my grand total for things knit this year was a whopping 22 projects! I guess Pandemic Knitting should be a thing!
On the sewing front, I was a lot less productive… only 4 projects completed this year. Sigh. My goal is to do a bit more sewing in 2021.
Now, on to the reading, which was so good this year. Although, I read less books than last year… by a significant amount. However, I think the reading I did this year has included so many books that have stayed with me. Books that I am still thinking about! Those, my friends, are signs of good books!
Of the 107 books I read this year, I classified 39 of them as 5-star reads! There were 45 4-star reads, just 14 3-star reads, 6 2-star, and 1 book got a 1-star rating. There were 3 books this year that were just not for me. I have looked at the 7 books that rated below 3-stars, and in hind sight I should have moved into the “did not finish” category. In essence, how I rate books… 3-stars means I finished it and it was okay. 4-stars, I liked it…lots, but I did not love it. And 5-stars is a book that I love, can’t stop thinking about, and want everyone to read it so I can talk to them about it!
I listened to 50 audiobooks this year. It is a format I love and it makes me happy that listening to a book is an option at my library because 99% of my reading for the year was made possible by my library! 2020 was a year that I wanted to read one book of “new to me” poetry every month. I did slightly better than that with 14 books of poetry!
The poetry was truly moving for me this year and 4 of those 14 books have really stayed with me. I think about them often, they introduced me to a new voice and each introduced a new way to look at things:
- Night Sky With Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong
- The Living Fire by Edward Hirsch
- Counting Descent by Clint Smith
- The Tradition by Jericho Brown
My best books of 2020:
- A Promised Land by Barack Obama
- Apeirogon by Colum McCann
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
- The Murmur of Bees by Sofía Segovia
- Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
- A Traveler at the Gate’s of Wisdom by John Boyne
- A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende
- The Innocent by Ian McEwan
- Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
I highly recommend any of these books to you, if you have not read them already!
Finally, though I have been debating on the continuance of Unraveled Wednesday, I am happy to share that Unraveled Wednesday’s will continue in 2021 – at least for a while! I am truly thankful for all of you each week… your posts inspire me, increase my reading list, as well as my make list!
As always, if you wrote a post to share, please leave your link below and Happy New Year!
You’ve made this a well-knit and well-read year, Kat! It’s not really about the numbers; I think it’s much more about the enjoyment that the books gave you and the warmth and love you provided with knitting. I’m especially glad for those four poetry books. Each of those authors is new to me and they are all on my list now. I’m looking forward to more poetry and new ways to see things in 2021. Thank you!
I also want to thank you for hosting Unraveled Wednesday and for continuing it. It is always your choice about whether it’s worth your time, but I certainly appreciate it each and every week. It’s the one blog post that I count on writing. It anchors my blog week and keeps me knitting and reading so I can see some kind of forward progress from week to week. Thank you so much!
I love that 107 books finished was less than last year for you — that’s still an amazingly impressive number! I definitely increased my reading, a lot, this year, and I’m so thankful for your weekly link-ups to encourage me to share what I’ve read and learn about new books from hearing what others have read. I’ll be sharing my wrap-up of my reading later on, but it was definitely a good year of reading. I know a huge proportion of the books I read this year were borrowed from the library, and I’m going to add a “library” shelf to Goodreads in 2021 so I can get an accurate record of just how much of my reading is library reading. I did send a larger contribution to the Carnegie Library this year as a way of saying thanks!
You’ve had a productive year, Kat! Although I don’t do an unraveled post every week, I very much appreciate your hosting and pulling it all together every Wednesday. It is a lovely gathering spot for knit bloggers.
That’s a lot of knitting and reading! I’m glad so many of those books were ones you loved, it makes my librarian heart happy. And so does knowing that the library made a difference for you. In a time when libraries sometimes struggle to maintain relevance for so many people (who needs a library when we have google? grrr) I appreciate that you recognize how important libraries are.
Yay: Unraveled 2021!!
I love those striped socks!!
Goodreads tells me that I can meet my goal… one more day to meet my goal (that would be 8 books!) hahaha
Thank you for continuing Unraveled into 2021!
I’ve surpassed my reading goal and have added a lot of your recommendations to my TBR.
Happy New Year!
considering all the crazies of 2021 anything accomplished is an accomplishment! Happy New year!
Congratulations on such a productive making and reading year. I agree with Bonny that it isn’t the number of books but the enjoyment and thinking about them that matters. Thank you for hosting Unraveled Wednesday. It is your choice whether or not to continue but thank you. I enjoy linking up as well as reading the other posts. On to 2021 with hope in our hearts.
You had a great year of making and reading! Thank you for the link up parties they are fun and look forward to connecting with others. Hope you enjoyed the Holidays and have a Happy New Year!
Lisa
Thanks to you, I’ve read several books I had never heard of and knitted more than usual. Good job.