I did a lot of reading and cleaning last weekend, which meant that I did not do a lot of knitting. However, I have been thinking about knitting, which meant I went hunting for the yarn I pulled out LAST February intending to make a Valentine’s Day-themed colorwork hat. I even bought a fancy pom pom for it, so I really do have to make it this year.

I finished John Green’s Turtles All the Way Down in print and Tricia Levenseller’s Pirate King’s Daughter on audio this past week, which means I’m on to some new things, including Stephanie Burgis’ The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart, which is a Cybils finalist in the middle grade fantasy novels category. I also need to get back to Saints and Misfits, which is due back to the library early next week. Next up on audio: I desperately need to finish listening to Lincoln in the Bardo (I think I’ve got about 3 hours left, which I can hopefully get done before it’s due back) & starting Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus & Tom Hanks’ short story collection, Uncommon Type.

What are you working your way through these days? Head over to Kat’s to see what others have going on right now.

After ripping back the heel over the weekend, I haven’t touched my socks in a couple days. Instead, I’ve gone back to the Boomerang Cowl. I finished up one ball of yarn and need to wind up the second skein to finish the project up. It doesn’t look like much on the needles, so I’m hopeful blocking makes it pretty.

Since I didn’t finish the overdue Turtles All the Way Down last weekend, I really need to wrap it up this week. I’m still listening to Pirate King’s Daughter, but that expires in less than a week and I have three other books out on audio to follow it, so obviously I need to get a move on. I like the reader for it, though; she gives the main character, Alosa, a lot of spunk.

That’s it for me. Head over to Kat for links to more posts on books and knitting.

I’ll round up some photos of my finished knitting projects of 2017 over the weekend and do a look back, but in the meantime, I’ve been contemplating what I’d like to do this coming year.

Whatever I write here will inevitably fall apart as I decide that I don’t like being told what to do, not even by myself, and so screw all those well-intentioned goals set at the beginning of the year. I recognize this in myself, so these are merely things that would be nice if they happened, rather than militant must-do’s.

That said, I still have some thoughts:

First: It would be awesome to have a sweater at the end of the year. I have sweater-quantities of yarn, I have UFOs. Whatever. I also have cold wrists.

I would like to learn brioche knitting. I keep favoring patterns on Ravelry that are brioche and clearly lots of people learn how to do it, so I just need to sit myself down and follow some directions. Even if I discover I hate knitting that style, I will at least be able to discount those patterns because of dislike, rather than ignorance.

I’d like to make a few projects for other people. I have yarn I’ve bought with specific folks in mind and it would be nice both for me to present them with gifts made for them and for some of that the yarn to exit the premises (as said gifts).

I have both a lot of unfinished projects lying around and a lot of finished knitwear out of rotation in need of mending. I’d like to decrease the number of both by either finishing or fixing ones that still work or by unraveling or tossing those that don’t.

I’d like to participate in Sock Madness, the Tour de France Knitalong, and the Ravelympics and come away from all three with finished projects of one kind or another.

I’d set a specific goal for number of finished projects, but that seems pointless. But let’s say 12 projects either completed or mended anyway, just for pointlessness’ sake.

Generally, I’ve felt weighed down the last couple years both by the vast number of skeins of yarn and by the number of occupied project bags abandoned around my apartment. I don’t want to take away the joy of knitting, because then I won’t do it, but I’d just like there to be a focus on achieving more by there being less, if that makes any sense.

For my first Unraveling post of 2018, I have new things to share:

I cast this new pair of socks on the evening of Jan. 1. The yarn is Lollipop Yarn Quintessential in Purrfection, the yarn I bought in memory of Posey. I broke open some new needles I’d had lying around, too. They’re Knitters Pride Nova cubics Platina, a set of square dpns, and so far I’m enjoying knitting with them. I’ll need to go down a needle size for the foot, but for the leg, the 2.5mm needles are working.

I had mentioned a few weeks ago that Maia Chance’s Teetotaled was on my list of books I wanted to read this winter. Yesterday, Bridget mentioned she’d read the first book in the Discreet Retrieval Agency, which put the series (about a widowed society woman from 1920s Long Island who, when she finds her scoundrel of a husband has left her penniless after his death, turns, with her Swedish-born former cook, to detecting) in the front of my mind when I headed to the library after work. Lo! There was the second book in the series on the shelf, and I’ve already plowed through a third of it tonight while knitting. Such a delightful, addictive read.

I am also reading Turtles All the Way Down and The Unbreakable Code and have started listening to The Pirate King’s Daughter. Lincoln in the Bardo‘s audiobook has come back up for borrowing, so I’ll give that one more shot in the next few days.

You can visit Kat for more posts on yarn and books.

What we have here are likely the final projects of the year. With only four days left in 2017, it’s likely I can finish this cowl and hopefully these two print books — Robin Benway’s Far from the Tree and John Green’s Turtles All the Way Down. (The former is already overdue and the latter is due Saturday.) Since most of Friday will be taken up with driving back home alone, there’s a good chance I’ll also get in an audiobook, but I don’t know which one just yet.

I also haven’t yet decided which book and knitting projects will start off 2018, but I should have time on Saturday to look things over and decide. Got any favorites you recommend?

Head over to Kat’s for her bookish and yarny Unraveled Wednesday linkup.

I’m done knitting my Little Pumpkin socks and have a talk to attend later this morning, where having a project to work on will be helpful, so I’ve grabbed some Marathon sock yarn in green and white sparkly yarn to cast on a pair of socks with. (I really wish I could figure out where that missing stripey yarn is…)

All the Birds in the Sky and I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter are both overdue with holds on them at the library, so I’m hoping to quickly get through them both and hand them back in for the next person. Obviously, if I feel like that’s going to take more than a couple days, I’ll just return them, but I’d really rather get to finish them.

Head over to As Kat Knits for more posts on knitting and reading.