by Kat | 6 days ago | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Greetings dearest Unravelers!
I have finished the Airy, Anne of Green Gables, Ranunculus and I am entirely smitten! I was reminded how brilliant the designer, Midori Hirose, wrote this pattern. The directions are clear and there are multiple videos of techniques! Want a narrower neck… no problem, clear directions! Want short sleeves, again… clear directions! Worried about binding off too tight? Yep, you got it… CLEAR DIRECTIONS! With this iteration, I followed her long sleeve with I-cord bind off. However, I knit a lot more than 7″… I knit 70 rounds, did the decrease round, and then the I-cord bind off. It needs a bit of a bath and some ends woven in and then I am putting this baby on and wearing the heck out of it!
The Airy Anne of Green Gables Ranunculus.
And I will be casting on another… Anne of Green Gables with a Rosy Hue Ranunculus as soon as I confirm the larger needle size for gauge.
I want to talk a minute about The Farmer’s Daughter Fiber… they have amazing customer service. I had these skeins of Foxy Lady… merino/silk singles that I really wanted to use… it is gorgeous yarn! But… I did not need another sweater of the same color so I emailed Farmer’s Daughter and their help was really as if I was standing in their shop. They sent me multiple photos of several color combinations that will allow me to utilize the Foxy Lady in another Ranunculus. If you have not discovered the joy that is The Farmer’s Daughter Fiber… you should!
And…if you are following along on my stitching on the AC Varigated Stripe Shawl… I have just one stripe left… which will take me two days! I am kind of sad to bring this all to an end. I have so enjoyed this project. I have loved the deep dive into the variations on stitches from the Geometry of Hand Sewing. Up next… learning all the in’s and out’s of seaming a garment! The journey continues!
My soon-to-be-finished Variegated Stripe Scarf and the Ollie Top waiting in the wings!
The reading… oh my. Summer Reading might be the best thing ever! The NYTimes Summer series made a suggestion in the “sleep edition” about good books to read before bed and one of their suggestions was Kate DiCamillo’s The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. I had never read it, so okay… I gave it a try! It was brilliant. Moving. Heartwarming. And perhaps the most perfect bedtime stories ever. I wish I had read this with my kids but it is now on my list to send to my grandkids!
I finished A Good Animal… and the finish did not disappoint. At all. I highly recommend. Sheep! Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan! And a young man who will stay with me for a very, very, very long time.
I did have one very disappointing finish, Téa Obreht has a new novel coming, Sunrise. And I had such high hopes! I loved her previous novels… so much. So I began Sunrise with very high hopes. Sigh. Those high hopes were crushed flat and quickly in this really awkward book. Nothing in it is even remotely believable. Nothing. And it goes from wait… what? to are you freaking kidding me. And the ending… in a book that needed to have something… anything… to pull all the nonsense together was even more unbelievable. I wondered multiple times in the reading if the author was on mind altering drugs while writing. I do not recommend. This novel will be published August 11, 2026.
My current listen… Land… Maggie O’Farrell’s latest. So far, so good… but I am still in Part One (iykyk) and, I watched Hamnet yesterday on Netflix (thanks for getting me through Sleeve Number Two!!) It was very good… but I still loved the book more.
Are you surviving this blast of hot and humid summer days? How do you take your mind off the heat and humidity?
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below and thank you!
by Kat | Jul 1, 2026 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Greetings dear Unraveler’s and Welcome July!
It seems most of us (at least in the eastern half of the US) are under an oppressive heat dome. It is hot, muggy, and generally miserable to be outdoors. My walks with Frankie are quick… even in the early morning. We are both miserable rather quickly. I hope that you all can find some bits of relief from the weather… it is perfect stitching time and later this morning I will complete my eleventh beaded wheel…I am in the final days of stitching this scarf and my next AC project will be to sew an Ollie top. I have the pieces cut out… but before I begin I am going to do some practice “hand seaming and felled seams” and once I feel confident in the process this stitching will fill my daily stitching time! I hope the top will go quickly because I’d like to wear it sooner than later!
Almost done with the circles… but they have been so much fun!
As you can see above, the Airy Ranunculus is moving along quickly! I have almost reached Sleeve Island! I completed the bind off last night and will be departing later this morning!
I had the intention to work on my second sock… but did not pick it up once.
The reading though! I had to really interesting finishes! When I saw that Richard Russo had a new novel, Under the Falls, I eagerly began reading. It is a bit of a mystery but really it is more a story about people who are running away from their past, other people being stuck in the past, and finding all of them trying to find a way forward. The characters are all fascinating, Russo really does an amazing job of creating characters that you can relate to! As I was reading the story… it really felt to me that this story would be a fascinating movie… and surprise… Russo shares in the post-script that this was first written not as a novel, but rather for a television series. I am kind of sorry that all fell through… because it would be an interesting series! I gave it 3.75 stars… it will be published August 11, 2026.
I also finished Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold. Four interconnected short stories, but not connected in the way you would think. The four stories all revolve around people who visit a back alley coffee shop in Tokyo… a coffee shop where you can order a cup of coffee and a visit to the past… but you must return to the present before the coffee get’s cold! The translation is excellent and the stories are so engaging. There is an entire series of short stories from the same author! I gave the first book in the series 4-stars!
Finally, for those who have been following along to the NYTimes Summer Challenge series… we have arrived at Week Four: Make Land Art. I have been contemplating this since I read it and have been gathering bits and bobs that I find on my ambles with Frankie. I am going to use a patch of sparsely growing grass under the big tree in our front yard to assemble my “findings” I think. I am wondering how long it will take for the neighborhood kids to pick it apart… ha! But I think the best thing of all of this challenge has been the “leaving my phone behind” part. I am enjoying being untethered from it and plan on keeping it that way as the summer progresses! I will share a photo when I have it completed!
What are you doing to stay cool this week?
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below and thank you!
by Kat | Jun 24, 2026 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Greetings dear Unraveler’s!
I am stunned to type this, but it is the last Wednesday in June… it feels like June was just beginning and quite impossible that the month is almost over.
Making this month has been so delightful! I am making my way down the second half of my Alabama Chanin scarf. I have had fun sampling new stitches! This week finds me stitching a new “wheel” in the morning and I yesterday I found my groove. I stitched yesterday’s wheel much quicker than the previous two days attempts. My new bestie in this stitch-a-thon is a Sewline pencil. I think most people use it to transfer Sashiko stitch patterns but it is perfect for transferring the ingenious dots from the Stitch Cards to this black fabric. Curiously, as I stitch circles this ear worm plays in my mind… which is absolutely not a bad thing at all.
I love stitching buttonhole circles with beads!
As you can see in the header photo, I am was racing along on another Ranunculus… sadly, I hit a speed bump and I found myself having to unravel a bit. Pro-tip… no matter how perfectly hand dyed skeins of yarn look in the hank… you need to remember to do a bit of alternating for several rounds to blend them together. I did not give myself enough space and had to unravel a half a dozen or so rounds to allow the skeins some space to settle in. In the plus column: the yarn unravels slowly. In the minus column: the yarn unravels slowly.
The reading this week… oh my! I finished Cecile Pin’s new novel, Celestial Lights. I loved every bit of this book. Every bit. It happens over the course of a couple of time lines concurrently and it is brilliantly done! It is the story of Oliver Ines, who was born at the exact moment the Challenger shuttle disaster. And what happens from that moment in Oliver’s life is nothing short of wondrous. In a story inspired by Odysseus, it is a story about a great journey… and one I will be thinking about for a very, very long time. I highly recommend it!
And to keep me grounded (as it were) I am listening to Patrick Radden Keefe’s latest, London Falling. I was a bit iffy on this one, but I am so glad I ignored inner me trying to quash reading it. He is a masterful storyteller and manages to pull together all the strings of something that happened and lay them out concisely for the reader. If you enjoyed his previous works, you will enjoy London Falling. I have about three hours to go in the audiobook!
And there you have my making and reading this week. What about you? Are you, like me, stunned at the pace which June is racing by?
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below and thank you!
by Kat | Jun 17, 2026 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Greetings gentle Unraveler’s and happy Wednesday to you all!
I am quite enamored of the current weather pattern enveloping Pittsburgh… the heat has abated, the humidity has waned, and the skies have been cloud free and stunningly blue! Yes, that means I have the windows flung wide, the AC is off, and the time of perfect summer sleeping has arrived.
Monday after dinner the Great Swatch-a-thon began… because yes, my yarn for a new Ranunculus has arrived and I feel some urgency to get it done… hopefully before the next AC Deep Freeze installment arrives!
Swatch One, while lovely, was not a gauge winner…
I began swatching with Farmers Daughter Fiber’s Oh, Dang! (a Suri Alpaca and Silk blend… oh my!) held with Foxy Lady a SW Merino/Silk single. The Suri Alpaca/Silk has a bit more grist than a mohair/silk blend and while I was knitting the swatch with them held double I wondered what the Oh, Dang! would do held by itself so I made two swatches (and for the inquiring minds… it was the color way name that got me: Anne of Green Gables…) Tuesday morning I gave the swatches a good soak and gently laid them to dry. No pinning, no stretching… I just laid them on a towel to dry. Once the swatches dried I knew I had my answer… Oh, Dang! all by itself! First, I got gauge… and the fabric is amazing. The swatch with the yarns held double did not even get close to gauge. Sigh. But I cast on and am in the bit of short row shaping and enjoying knitting with the Suri Alpaca tremendously and I am wondering just how quickly this might knit up! (The bit I have knit was completed in a single episode of Grantchester!)
Swatch two… the winner!
I finished Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose and thought it was okay. It did drag a bit for me at times, but other parts were absolutely fascinating. Of course, there is a lot of religion, it takes place in a Benedictine Monastery after all! The year is 1327 and, of course, there are rumors of heresy. Brother William is dispatched to determine the heretical culprit(s) and suddenly the monks are dropping dead in the most bizarre ways! Despite it dragging a bit in parts and one very, very weird dream Brother William had… I enjoyed it!
I began my Summer with Toni Morrison with the Bluest Eye, which I began on Monday (and should finish later today!)
How is your June making going?
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below and thank you!
by Kat | Jun 10, 2026 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Greetings dear Unravelers and Happy Wednesday!
I have a case of cast-on-itis and it seems that everywhere I look I see something that whispers… come on, knit me… you know you want to! I am doing my best to ignore it and have a bit of “knitting rotation” going to stay focused. So several projects got some attention this week:
Marling is never boring… and this sock just needs to get done!
- I am done with the decreases and am moving down the foot on the long ignored socks – yes, this is still Sock #1… sigh.
- I have made some headway on the Kinu Marled Scarf.
- And I finished another section on Wriley… which puts me at the 16% completion point… hilarious, truly!
I like this rotation very much and it is working because I have not cast anything on! However, the abrupt arrival of summer heat and humidity means the AC has been running full tilt. Sigh. During the week when Steve is at work I turn the AC way up… however, when he is home it is like living in a blast freezer. I need a sweater and this issue points out the gap in my summer wardrobe. Years ago I had knit a couple of linen Ranunculus sweaters but the linen (Quince & Co Kestrel) did not wear well at all. Sadly, both sweaters have gone beyond the “repair” stage and are unwearable. But the fabric of the Ranunculus is really the perfect summer layer. One would think with a stash the size of my stash I would be able to find something that would work but I just don’t have enough of anything. I remedied that and ordered some yarn and am waiting for it to arrive. Thankfully, it is a really quick knit!
The other things that have been knocking around my brain is this vest and this vest… and I do have enough yarn to cast this on the striped vest but I am holding off until I can get those socks done! And for Mercedes, I have some yarn in my stash that might work… I just need to do some swatching to see if it actually will work! I have never knit a CocoKnits pattern but I have looked at the instructions and they are quite detailed instructions plus there are videos for several bits. (PLUS there is a row by row worksheet you fill in for the size you are knitting which seems really genius!)
Twenty days in and the first half is almost done. I just have some embellishment to add to the bottom herringbone stitches!
AC Stitching is continuing to delight… I have been reading and contemplating the stitch patterns laid out in The Geometry of Hand Stitching. So many ideas… good thing I have more stripes to experiment on! I am not making each side a mirror image but rather using both sides as a true AC Sampler… trying out a plethora of stitch combinations!
The reading is penultimate summer reading… I have departed for Mystery Land and it is perfection! I am currently reading Ann Cleeves latest in the DI Matthew Venn series, The Dying Light. And I picked up a copy of Anthony Horowitz’ A Deadly Episode when I was in Erie in May. I have been reading a chapter or two with lunch each afternoon. It is the thing that is most reminding me of past summer reading… lost in a book while eating a meal. And, if that was not enough, I am listening to Umberto Uno’s The Name of the Rose… a mystery that takes place in a monastery! All so good! Anyways it is fun to be working to solve mysteries again!
What about you? Are you itching to cast on something new? Is there a pattern that caught your eye recently? And what about your reading… what summer reading are you doing?
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below and thank you!
by Kat | Jun 3, 2026 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Greetings dear Unravelers and Happy Wednesday!
The recent weather here in the South Hills of Pittsburgh has been truly extraordinary! Clear blue skies with occasional wisps of clouds, light breezes, absolutely zero humidity, and temps in the 70’s… really extraordinary days!
All this incredible weather means I have been out of doors a lot! The few garden areas are mostly weeded (there is one area in the front yard that I should tackle, but it feels a bit too much like work so I am presently ignoring it!)
Instead I have been looking at ITO Kinu colors and contemplating projects… and leave it to Ann for pushing me over the edge. It wasn’t really a big push… another Marled Scarf has been rattling around in my brain. I picked 6 colors and they arrived on Monday and after dinner I began Micro-Swatching.
I think there is nothing better in all of the knitting world than the wonder of marling + micro-swatching.
Micro-swatch mapping is such fun!
I spent some time Tuesday contemplating my path and how many stitches to cast on. I think I have an interesting layout… a bit different from my first. I am planning for it to be a bit narrower and the colors could not be more different. The simplicity of the pattern is the perfect summer knit and marling is such a fun thing to do!
It was a stellar week for reading as well! I finished Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s Chain of Ideas. It was so good and I learned so much. And I’d like to confess, I was astonishingly surprised at how fascism just can’t seem to be stamped out! That part was very shocking to me… very shocking. If you have liked Dr. Kendi’s previous books, you will very much enjoy Chain of Ideas and I highly recommend it. I combined listening to Dr Kendi read and read with my eyes… a very good pairing.
I am listening to Homeseeking by Karissa Chen and loving it! Honestly, it is hard to stop listening to this story told by Suchi and Haiwen… one part told from the past forward, the other told from current time to the past. A fascinating way to unfurl a story! I don’t remember how this crossed my radar, but I am so very glad it did!
And there you have what is occupying my time… what about you? What do you hope June holds for you?
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below and thank you!
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