Unraveled Wednesday – Week 25 of 2020

Welcomed to Unraveled Wednesday! Each Wednesday Kat at As Kat Knits hosts this linkup for bloggers to share what they’re reading and stitching lately. When you click over to her blog, you’ll find an inspiring and kind group of people. Today I’m sharing the book series I’ve binged on, a book I’ve abandoned, and all of my knitting progress (including a spoiler for the Through the Loops Mystery Knit Along, so proceed with caution!). Please duck into my cozy burrow with me!

Reading

Finished This Week:

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Okay, don’t laugh at me, but I can’t stop listening to the Shetland series! And it’s at the cost of everything else that I want to read right now (which is a lot!).

I remembered Red Bones from the TV series and, as the book went on, began to remember who the killer was. But that certainly didn’t take away from my enjoyment of this mystery. I love the idea of an archeological dig on the Shetland Islands and uncovering ancient Viking artifacts. How cool is that?! I can totally see myself walking along the cliffs of the Islands with Jimmy Perez and knocking on the doors of the locals. This is such a fun series!

Blue Lightening was intense. This one centers around a Nature Center on Fair Isle that focuses on bird watching. There’s quite the eccentric cast of birders under the microscope for multiple murders in the Center (or did Cleeves use the spelling, Centre? I listened to it on audio and have no idea!). The ending was a total shock to me. I wasn’t sure if I’d heard the narrator correctly or if I’d missed something, but… no. I almost cried!

Dead Water was another enjoyable mystery for me. It was fun to see Jimmy as a dad of a young girl and interesting to see the gender bias switch – now it’s a guy who has to juggle childcare issues and a female boss making snide comments about it. I like how Cleeves turned this classic issue on its head! Again – I was surprised by the killer. And I loved the nod to Jamieson and Smith in this one!

Currently Reading:

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There’s a wait for the next book in the Shetland series, so I’m looking forward to this chance to focus my attention elsewhere!

I’m so embarrassed to admit this, but I’ve still made no progress on The Library of Legends. I don’t want to abandon this one and want to give it a fair shot, especially since I learned that this is a part of a loosely connected series. So I’m going to try to circle back to it, but worry that I might not make it there!

My hold on The Vanishing Half came up much more quickly than I expected and I’ve started the book, but have only read a few pages. I think I’m going to love it, I just have to get going on it.

Abandoned This Week:

At page 128, I decided to abandon Anne of Ingleside. This is a heartbreaking decision, but I do plan to pick up the seventh book in the series in July despite abandoning this one. I was so excited to see Anne as the mother of a herd of children, but found Anne to be especially annoying and her children even more so. (I’m sorry!)

Knitting

I’ve made a bit of progress on my second Birkin sleeve. I’m getting there, folks!

My Mystery Knit Along is coming along nicely! I finished Clue 3 during Birdie’s naptime yesterday. I love, love, this stripey, liney pattern from chart 3B (for those of you also knitting it). Ahhh! I’m thrilled with this project! Half of the clues have been released and, somehow, I’ve stayed up to date. I know it’s going to get harder to stay caught up as the shawl grows and each row gets even longer, but I’m hoping that I’ll be able to knit each clue as they’re released. I’ve never been able to do that with a mystery knit along before, and will be able to feel especially accomplished given all of the other things going on right now!

Sewing

I made a few more masks last Friday and managed to snap a picture of these. I used the Crafty Quilter Versatile Face Mask pattern this time and they came out great. This has definitely been the best fitting of all of the patterns I’ve tried and it was easy to resize the pattern pieces for everyone in the family. I found that I needed to put a lot of reinforcing stitches along the channel for the elastic bands, but otherwise – they’ve been excellent! I don’t find myself tugging on them or readjusting like I have with others. My husband has a physical job and he’s required to wear a mask while at work and these have worked out well for him, too. Score!

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I plan to be back on Friday with pictures from this enchanting week! I hope to see you then!