Unraveling

What I Learned About Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool, and Making the World's Ugliest Sweater Peggy Orenstein Paperback BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY/Memoirs In this lively, funny memoir—a yarn that will appeal to everyone—Peggy Orenstein sets out to make a sweater from scratch, including shearing, spinning, and dyeing wool, and in the process discovers how we find our deepest selves through craft.“Unraveling is a delight. A meditation on life, and how, if we miss a step (or a stitch), our lives (our sweaters) can unravel at record speed. Funny, moving, and brilliantly written and researched. I will never look at sheep again without a sense of wonder and awe.”—Julianna Margulies The Covid pandemic propelled many people to change their lives in ways large and small. To keep herself engaged and cope with a series of seismic shifts in her family life, Peggy Ornstein set out to make a garment from the ground up: learning to shear sheep, spin and dye yarn, and using it to knit herself a sweater.Orenstein hoped the project would help her process not just wool but her grief over the recent death of her mother and the decline of her dad, the impending departure of her college-bound daughter, and other thorny issues of aging as a woman in a culture that by turns ignores and disdains them. What she didn’t expect was a journey into some of the major issues of our time: climate anxiety, racial justice, women’s rights, the impact of technology, sustainability, and, ultimately, the meaning of home.With her wry voice, sharp intelligence, and exuberant honesty, Orenstein shares her yearlong journey as daughter, wife, mother, writer, and maker—and teaches us all something about creativity and connection.