Unraveling: What I Learned About Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool, and Making the World’s Ugliest Sweater

“What did you do when life came to a terrifying, screeching halt?” In the opening pages, journalist Orenstein answers her own question: in the early days of COVID-19 she resolved to make a sweater, start-to-finish. Facing not only a pandemic but middle age, a looming empty nest, and her father’s dementia, she perceived her life to be “unraveling.” Deciding to control what she can while learning practical skills, she embarks on a whirlwind education on shearing sheep, dyeing wool, and spinning. Her pragmatic project also prompts meditations on the history of women and crafting, the meaning of place and home, and care for our natural world. An earthy, eye-opening, and entertaining memoir. For fans of Mary Pipher’s Women Rowing North and Sutton Foster’s Hooked.