The knitting this week looks much the same. I have turned the heel and picked up the gusset stitches on the sock, so that’s ready to turn back into purse knitting. The hat, on the other hand, has reached the point where I’ll need to add that second ball of yarn (which it took me two hours to find over the weekend!) and beads (which I need to buy — I’ve resigned myself that cherry blossoms really are not red and that the red beads I have will not do), so now I’ll need to be home and able to follow a chart to move forward with that.

Luckily, I’ve just started Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology on audiobook, so that’s 6 1/2 hours of swoon-worthy listening during which I should be able to get a chunk of knitting done.

In paper, as I mentioned over the weekend, I’ve been reading #NotYourPrincess, a collection of poetry and short prose pieces by Indigenous North American women, and just have a couple pages left, having dozed off trying to finish it the other night. I’m down to my final 100 pages of Strange the Dreamer, and as all the characters are currently in relative safety, I have to leave it until such a point as I can tear through them all in a single go. So I’ve picked up Obsidio, the final book in the Illuminae Files trilogy, which I asked the library to buy (and which they obligingly did quite quickly). It’s written in an epistolary style with the short chunks of text comprised of video logs, email conversations, and philosophical musings from a sentient and formerly murderous AI currently housed in a tablet, all of which are evidence in a court trial (in space). Finally, in my bag, I’m only a few pages into Sing, Unburied, Sing, but nothing really sets the tone of your day like reading about the killing of livestock while on your way to work. I’m hoping it gets less graphic as it goes along, or we’re in for a bit of a slog through a book that’s already overdue back to the library.

What are you reading or crafting? If you’d like to see what others are up to, stop by As Kat Knits.

My trip to Connecticut didn’t have a lot of downtime, which means a lot of what you see here is not new. I didn’t end up taking the hat with me, because I need to figure out where the brown skein of yarn is still, so it’s only a couple rows further along than last week. Also, I stopped at the bead shop and they didn’t have exactly what was called for, although they had some other pink beads (and I have some reddish ones here at home) that might work. I suppose the only way to figure that out is to try them. The sock is my meeting and event knitting, which is up to the heel turn, so it needs to stop being my public knitting until I’ve got the gusset stitches picked up.

I did finish (and enjoy) A Gentleman in Moscow and am looking forward to pulling out Sing, Unburied, Sing and picking up Obsidio at the library this week. But in the meantime, I’ve started the 19th-century-set mystery The Secrets of Wishtide and am carrying on with Strange the Dreamer. Crocodile on the Nile was renewable, so I’ve put that aside and have started listening to The Bookshop on the Corner. I also have Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology out on audiobook.

How about you? What are you currently reading?

Visit As Kat Knits to see what others are knitting and reading.

It is starting to feel like I may never finish A Gentleman in Moscow, which is too bad because I actually am enjoying it (and because it’s overdue to the library). It just refuses to be rushed, a characteristic it shares with very few other novels I’ve encountered. I really would like to get to some other novels, like Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing, which I also have out from the library right now (and which will be due back imminently). My current audiobooks are Crocodile on the Sandbank and Jenny Colgan’s The Bookshop on the Corner (although so far I’ve only listened to her preface in which she talks about the ideal places to read a book). Oh, and I did start Meet Cute, a collection of YA romantic short stories.

My Cherry Blossom hat is in the round now and onto its main color. I still need to figure out where the skein of brown yarn is that I’m thinking of for the branches and procure some beads. (I have some, but I think they’re more red than pink, which is what I’d prefer.)

Head over to As Kat Knits to hear what other folks are knitting and reading.

Despite having had a snow day today, I can’t really tell you how I spent it. I mean some of it I can account for. But the rest was just frittered away, not knitting, not reading, not doing much of anything.

Which accounts for this photo of a book you’ve already seen and of a new knitting project that’s not further along. I’m into the third part of A Gentleman in Moscow and I suspect the action will pick up soon. I can see the author laying the pieces in place for what is to come. I’m still listening to We Were Eight Years in Power and the print copy is also in my hands for referring back to. I’ve also started listening to the first Amelia Peabody novel, Crocodile on the Sandbank.

The yarn is the start to Yoshino Cherry Blossom Hat. I opted for cherry pink for the brim instead of brown the way the pattern calls for. And I might opt for regular rib instead of twisted rib, because I think that’s stretchier and the pattern repeat is 36 stitches long, making it hard to just add a couple to the cast-on the way I’d meant to.

I managed one Fée Dragée sock within the Sock Madness timeframe, which ends tomorrow at noon. Once I kitchener the toe and submit photos in the morning, I should officially qualify as a cheerleader, which means I’ll still get the rest of the patterns and will be able to knit along at my own turtley pace. I look forward to a completed pair in a couple more weeks.

I haven’t read any more of A Gentleman in Moscow since last week, but it’s soon due back to the library, so I need to get moving on it. Pashmina, which was a Cybils finalist, has been my travel book this week. It’s a slim graphic novel about an Indian-American girl and her immigrant single mom. We’ve just reached the Oz part of the story, that takes place in India in full color and I’m very excited to learn what happens next. On my phone I’m still listening to Ta-Nehisi Coates’ We Were Eight Years in Power, which has been very compelling thus far.

I’m joining Kat for her weekly Unraveled Wednesday:

As I showed yesterday, my current knitting is Fée Dragée, which I think of as my “Go, go, Gryffindor!” socks, even though my gold is technically a peachy orange when not rammed up against red yarn.

My reading is a little all over the place right now, but in a good way, I think. My fantasy chunkster is Laini Taylor’s Strange the Dreamer, which is significantly overdue at the library and which will start accruing late fees if I don’t return it this weekend. My historical fiction, which I just started tonight, is Amor Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow. It’s probably not something I would have picked up on my own (although I probably added it to TBR mountain when it came out), but it is routinely cited by my book group as a favorite, so I figured I’d give it a shot. The first couple chapters were funny, in a wry sort of way, so I’m hopeful even though adult novels wherein a protagonist must stand up against an oppressive regime usually end poorly. The slight book next to my sock is Beastgirl and Other Origin Myths, by local poet Elizabeth Acevedo, which I treated myself to on my birthday and which I have tucked into my knitting bag. She has a new YA novel out this week, but I want to finish her poetry collection before moving on. Finally, in my ears I have Ta-Nahesi Coates’ latest essay collection, We Were Eight Years in Power. I’m up to year four and have not yet canceled my hold request for the print copy, because I think I might want to read certain sections (such as tonight’s on the Civil War) with my eyes, where I can better process and retain information I want to refer to later.

How about you? Are you reading or crafting anything interesting?