Joining Kat and friends for Unraveled Wednesday.

Mountail Trail hat in Malabrigo Rios ‘Yerba’.

This hat is what I have been working on for the past week or so. Rios makes such lovely squishy cables! The hat is for a silent auction in February.

Why have I been working on a hat instead of the three sweaters I have OTN? Because there are two silent auctions in the first part of 2020, and I need to get ‘er done! I packed away the Fairfield and the Boxy sweaters so I wouldn’t be distracted by them. The Chaika sweater UFO has been frogged — that’s the yarn I used for the hat — because reality dawned; that was not a sweater I could visualize ever being flattering or easy to wear. Frogging it means I now have five skeins of Rios in a deep purpley-gray to play with (someday).

I finished GF’s heavy rainbow-toe socks. Now I need to package and mail them. She is visiting her daughters in Boston for three weeks over the holidays, so there is no rush. (No rush = permission to procrastinate) She saw the first sock and the beginnings of the second when we visited for Thanksgiving; her reaction was priceless — she knew immediately why I had designed the socks that way.

Now I am working on a project for a friend. She asked me to change the names on two Christmas stockings so she could give them to her grandsons. I nearly finished the first when I saw my huge mistake.

Can you see what I did wrong?

Yep. I duplicate stitched the name on the wrong, undecorated side of the sock.

There was much sweating and gnashing of teeth.

The new deadline to give her the socks is Thursday — will I make it? Hard to say…

Reading.

Bloody Genius by John Sandford, This is #12 in the Virgil Flowers series. As with nearly all Sandford’s previous books, I enjoyed it immensely. Flowers is a Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agent who wears band t-shirts and tows his fishing board along when he goes on a case. Sandford writes intelligent mysteries, and I love them. 4★.

Carrying Albert Home by Homer Hickam. This was my book group’s pick for this month. The author may be best known for his book Rocket Boys, which was made into the movie October Sky.  Carrying Albert Home is his retelling of his parents’ stories about the time back in the 1930s when they took his mother’s pet alligator, received as a wedding present, back to Florida. There were varied reactions from different members of my group, varying from mine, It’s a lighthearted, funny book, to another’s, This was the saddest book I have read in a long time; it made my heart hurt. We could all understand each other’s reactions, as it was a funny book and it was sad. 4★.

The Topeka School by Ben Lerner. A story about parents and teenagers at a psychiatric facility in Kansas, presumably inspired by  the Menninger Clinic. The author has also published several books of poetry and about poetry; this shows in his wonderful use of language. It was somewhat hard for me to read, and I got distracted by other shinier books on my TBR pile. However, I think this will be my pick for book club next May. The obligation to read and be able to discuss it may be what I need, plus I suspect it will spark a good discussion. (Kym, I read your Goodreads review; that is what gave me the idea to choose it for book group. Thanks!) ?★.