by Kat | 6 days ago | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Greetings dear Unraveler’s and Happy Wednesday!
I am settled well into April and appreciating the battle between seasons as the temperatures fluctuate between warm spring days and ones where I need my winter coat and a hat as I journey outside! But… those daffodil bulbs I planted last fall all have buds on them! A bit of sunshine and they might open! Although, the deer “clear cut” the hyacinth’s that had first popped up, they have not been back to nibble them down again and it appears that they, too, have the start of some blooms peeking up!
I received the extra yarn for the Spiral Vest… I am reminded that row gauge is the determining factor for the length of garments. My row gauge was, sadly, off… so of course I would not have enough yarn to knit the vest. I had some momentary anger at this development, but it is what it is. I now can do an extra repeat of those fun spirals and make the vest a better length for me.
I am keeping up with Gnome Clues and I think this might be why I like knitting a mystery gnome so much! A small bit of knitting that can be accomplished in a small bit of time. This works well in my days… I like the 15-30 minute bit of a break in the rhythm of the day. So to fill the days when I did not have a Gnome Clue… I cast on a pair of plain vanilla socks with my last skein of Must Stash Yarn from my stash… color way: You Had Me At Hello, from the Star Wars inspired color ways. This one is a tribute to Princess Leia.
The reading this week has been so delightful. I got a copy of Small Rain from the library and stayed up too late a couple of nights reading it! At first I thought, oh boy… another “pandemic” novel… but it was absolutely not that at all. Rather it is a compelling story of a man who has a health crisis and how he tries to make sense of it. I confess, I felt a bit of a kinship with him as I struggle with my own health issues (which are by no means a crisis… just very inconvenient in my daily life.) What I think I loved most about him was how vital poetry became as he navigated life in the ICU Bubble during the pandemic. Anyways, the story very much feels like a memoir (which it was not) and the writing is just so incredibly beautiful. And despite this life threatening crisis… it is so full of hope. It is a story that I will be thinking about for a very long time and I highly recommend it!
I also finished Big Chief by Jon Hickey. It was, perhaps, the perfect book to read right now. You can read my review here.
Now, I have plunged myself into a murder mystery with the delightfully flawed DS Logan McRae. A chewy mystery that, of course, involves a grisly death. I am just a few chapters in and I am having a hard time putting it down. And I am tucked into Ben Shattuck’s The History of Sound… I really like the way this books is set up – twelve interconnected stories… short stories woven together is the perfect thing to sit down and stitch or knit with!
That is it for me today… what about you? What are you happy with this week?
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below and thank you!
by Kat | Apr 9, 2025 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Greetings dear Unraveler’s and Happy Wednesday to you all!
I have reached the part of my vest knitting where the realization that I don’t have enough yarn has set in…big time. I have begun the last “swirl” repeat to go before dividing for the arms and my ball of yarn is very small…and I’d really like to do another repeat before dividing. Ordering more yarn was not on my list this week! Grrrrr!
Thankfully, there is no chance of running out of yarn for the latest mystery gnome: Professor Fungi. I managed to keep up with the first and second clues and a new clue arrives today! The first clue was fun… it was all the little bits of Gnome Making… sadly, they don’t photograph well so you will have to wait to see them!
The best news is that I have caught myself up with my daily stitching and the 100 Day Stitch book! First… all my March Stitching! I am really, really happy with last month’s stitching! And when April is finished, I will have the “top row” of my whole cloth finished!
March stitches…
And here are my pages… all caught up. These last pages are a bit of an homage to the last quilt I made with the quilting group I was in eons ago. We all did an appliquéd flower block which eventually became a quilt, which won a ribbon eons ago at the Tulip Time Quilt Show! I have been stitching “flowers” and thinking about those ladies as I stitch. I am working on a “tulip” in my current page and I have plotted out two more flowers as the days wind down to the finish on April 27th. I even have a plan for the “back page” that I am quite excited about!
My 100 Day Stitch Book is drawing to a close… just 3 pages to go!
My reading has, appropriately, dipped into some poetry reading … I reread Jericho Brown’s The Tradition and listened to Danez Smith read his Don’t Call Us Dead (both books/poets were on a recent Atlantic Journal list!) I have also been working through a collection of Adrienne Rich’s poems.
I also have been listening to Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People by Tiya Miles. Who knew this would be so important right now. And so I am appreciating even more Miles’ book.
I hope your making this week has not run short on yarn and that your gauge was spot on!
If you wrote a post to share today, please leave your link below! I will be back tomorrow with a poem for your pocket!
by Kat | Apr 2, 2025 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Greetings dear Unravelers and Happy April to you all!
I hope that you are not sick of hearing from me because I will be back tomorrow with another post this week! I know… we live in crazy times if I am blogging for four days in a row! But April brings National Poetry Month and I am so happy to have a month where the focus is all about poetry! It is the constant in my days that is as necessary as breathing for me!
My new favorite knit!
I promised you last week that I would share my finished vest… and so I am, albeit not in the manner in which I had hoped. What I can tell you is that this vest fits magnificently (even though the armholes are a bit big.) There is a reason behind those bigger armholes… it is because my row gauge was not the same as the designer. I knew this would be an issue, but I needed to knit the garment to know where to make changes to get a more tidy armhole. However, this looser armhole works beautifully with a fuller sleeved shirt underneath! I have been wearing the heck out of this vest and I absolutely love it! And yes, I have swatched for another one but won’t be casting on until I finish my current under construction vest.
I love everything about this vest…the relaxed shoulders, the tidy neckline, and the absolute perfect length!
As you can see, I have made the tiniest bit of headway on the color work vest! I am on to my third repeat with just one more row of swirls to go before the “great divide” and the challenge of “flat fair isle” begins. I am not looking forward to that portion, just saying.
By next week, I hope to have all my stitching caught up and will be able to share March and the latest pages for my 100 day project.
The reading this week though has been spectacular!! I finished Daryl Gregory’s When We Were Real and I really liked it! It takes place some time in the future… after we have been told that we are living in a simulation and we are all just a series of 1’s and 0’s… but this book is really just one wild ride! There is mystery. There is action! And there were surprises I did NOT see coming! The story is compelling and the last half I really had trouble putting it down! It ended a bit curiously… which makes me wonder if there is another book coming? (Dare I hope?) This was a very solid 4-star book! (My only issue with it was the beginning and the onslaught of characters to remember!)
I also finished listening to the third installment in the Marlow Murder Club series by Robert Thorogood: The Queen of Poison’s. It was fantastic! This series has gotten better with each book but the character development really took off in The Queen of Poison’s. I laughed out loud more than once (I absolutely LOVE Judith!!) And the twists at the end were awesome! A solid 5-star read and I can hardly wait for the next book!
I also finished Ilya Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic. Oh my heavens. The poems are brilliant… they are interconnected… they tell a story… and they are so timely for right now! I read through the book not once, not twice, but three times and, honestly, I could sit down right now and read it again! I have put Deaf Republic on my “if you need to get me a gift this year” list!
Now, thanks to a bit of a shipping error by those lovely folks at MDK, I have an extra copy of the latest Field Guide (No. 29: Mosaic) The patterns are just stunning and timeless! If you would like the extra copy, I would be happy to send it on to you! Just let me know! (and if more than one of you want it, I will put your names in a “hat” and pick a winner!)
That’s it for me… I need to get stitching! What has percolated to the top of your making list?
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below and thank you!
by Kat | Mar 26, 2025 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Greetings dear Unravelers,
This post finds us at the last Wednesday of March… and I am wondering where did the month go? It does not seem possible that the month is almost over but the calendar tells me that next week is April!
I do indeed have a finished vest that I have worn A Lot! However, I don’t have any pictures to share… yet. Maybe next week… but I can share that it fits beautifully and I will absolutely knitting this pattern again. It is well written and beautifully constructed! I have plans for a “summer” vest out of Holst Coast, and I hope to get swatching soon-ish.
In the mean time, I did cast on for this vest. It has been too long since I have done any color work so I am having a bit of fun knitting these swirls!
My main excitement this week was the return of Mark Rylance and Wolf Hall on PBS! I am ignoring the fact that all the episodes are available via Passport on the PBS app and will ration them one a week to prolong my delight!
The reading has been so interesting as well, I am listening to Elizabeth DeLozier’s Eleanor of Avignon. I am immersed in the 1300’s and enjoying it… well, if one could say they are enjoying the plague! On my Kindle app, I am reading an advanced read copy of Daryl Gregory’s When We Were Real. I am about halfway through and I am not sure that I like the book, but it is certainly original! Oh, and there is a bit of a mystery… which is the thing keeping me reading! Ha! And, I am slowly savoring Robert Macfarlane’s The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot. It is the best escape book… meandering along with Robert as he walks about England… not a bad way to spend one’s time!
That is all I have for this week… what are you having fun making this week?
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below and thank you!
by Kat | Mar 19, 2025 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Greetings gentle Unravelers!
It is my favorite day of the week!!
I have more progress on my vest! I almost have the body almost completed…I just have half a dozen rounds of ribbing to go and then I will begin the arm hole ribbing! I am not thinking about the neck yet but all too soon, this vest will be done!
My take on Crazy Quilting… I really had fun with this!
I have also completed the double page spread of my nod to crazy quilting. I loved using up odd shaped scraps this way! And I began a new page yesterday… a riff on an Amish Fan pattern. I had some scraps that were “basically” already the right shape, so I made some templates to stitch them with the EPP method and I am off and stitching!
Hand-dyed non-superwash incredibly yummy yarn!
Now for a peek at the Madelinetosh x MDK Atlas… it is positively yummy! I loved the colors (Deep and Wash House) they used in this vest and I hope to do a bit of a gauge swatch to see how it knits up. I will be casting on the minute I finish the CVM vest! Two new vests in my wardrobe make me happy!
I finished reading The Secret History on Monday… and I have been mulling over the story a good bit since finishing it. This was a second read through for me and either I forgot many things or I picked up many things on this second read… (the first time I listened to the author read it.) I am eager to discuss this one with the Read With Us crew later this month!
I also finished Colum McCann’s Twist, which I deeply loved! Oh my gosh… I learned so much about things I did not even know existed! And the characters are just so fascinating (but, McCann also shrouds them in a bit of mystery as well… mystery that he does not clear up before the story ends!) This book will absolutely be on my top reads of 2025 for sure… it will be published this month and I highly recommend it!
And I finished Eowyn Ivey’s latest, Black Woods, Blue Sky… another fantastic book! A curious Beauty and the Beast tale that I really enjoyed! The characters are likable but very flawed and the little girl, Emaleen, at times seemed the most adult character of all! If you enjoy retelling stories with brilliant twists, you will love Black Woods, Blue Sky! (and yes, I cried!)
That is all I have to share today, what about you? How are you doing as we work towards the end of March?
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below!
by Kat | Mar 12, 2025 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Greetings gentle Unraveler’s and Happy Wednesday!
March weather certainly has been very March-like this year and I am most pleased! We have had sunshine, some rain, some snow, lots of wind, and even temps that neared 70 in the first 12 days of this month! I am not the only one pleased with this weather… my bulbs are poking some green shoots up and that makes me the happiest of all!
The other thing that is making me happy is the vest that I am knitting! It is the most ingenius construction and the pattern is masterfully written! I have arrived at the “straightway” where I will be knitting somewhere between the “full length” and the “cropped” versions. I would like to thank Sarah for finding this vest and sharing about it because if she had not, I don’t think I would have stumbled upon it on Ravelry. If you are looking for a lightweight layer to add to your wardrobe for the spring, I highly recommend this vest! I already have plans for a version in Coast as well to take me into the summer months!
Last Saturday was International Woman’s Day and Karen Turner shared some inspiration for all of us daily stitchers! I sat down and tried my hand at a row of ladies holding hands… it was fun and what a great reminder this “square” will be! I love her use of stitches… combining them to make shapes!
Jubilant, hand-holding ladies I stitched for International Women’s Day
The reading this week has been good… not great, but good. I finished Anthony Marra’s The Tsar of Love and Techno which is a collection of short stories. Some of the stories were really fantastic… others, just so-so. I liked Marra’s The Constellation of Vital Phenomena so much more but I am glad I read it.
I felt I was in need of a bit of a palate cleanser read so I picked up Anne Lamott’s Almost Everything: Notes on Hope. It was nothing I had hoped it would be… sigh. I think Bonny’s review summed up my feelings perfectly with her thoughts on the book and, I too, thought that the hope was well hidden inside her stream-of-conciousness style of writing. I listened to Anne read it, and at times it felt a bit “preachy” … not the palate cleanser I was hoping for.
At night, I am well into Colum McCann’s Twist... and I am loving this book so much! I am in that spot between wanting to know how he pulls this all together and not wanting the story to end… and I love it! McCann is a brilliant writer and I can’t imagine how he researched this book. It will be published later this month!
And there you have my weekly “what I am making and reading” catch up post… what about you? What are you contemplating as the seasons change?
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below and thank you!
Page 1 of 6812345...102030...»Last »
