Unraveling
What I Learned About Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool, and Making the World’s Ugliest Sweater
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
“Orenstein is such a breezy, funny writer, it’s easy to forget she’s an important thinker too.”—People
In this lively, funny memoir, Peggy Orenstein sets out to make a sweater from scratch—shearing, spinning, dyeing wool—and in the process discovers how we find our deepest selves through craft. Orenstein spins a yarn that will appeal to everyone.
The COVID pandemic propelled many people to change their lives in ways large and small. Some adopted puppies. Others stress-baked. Peggy Orenstein, a lifelong knitter, went just a little further. To keep herself engaged and cope with a series of seismic shifts in family life, she set out to make a garment from the ground up: learning to shear sheep, spin and dye yarn, then knitting 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 year-long journey as daughter, wife, mother, writer, and maker—and teaches us all something about creativity and connection.
What happens when a lifelong knitter decides to start from the very beginning—with the sheep?
From Sheep to Sweater: Follow Peggy Orenstein’s hilarious and heartfelt quest to shear a sheep, spin the wool, and dye the yarn for her own handmade garment.Craft as Connection: Discover how the rhythm of making can be a powerful tool for processing grief, navigating an empty nest, and reconnecting with what truly matters.Sustainable Fashion Up Close: A wry and thoughtful exploration of what “slow fashion” really means, from climate anxiety and the history of women’s work to the meaning of home.A Witty and Poignant Memoir: Perfect for fans of thoughtful, funny nonfiction, this story reminds us that sometimes you have to unravel everything to find yourself.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Orenstein (Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity) recounts her yearlong endeavor to make a sweater from scratch in this insightful memoir. Inspired by her Eastern European ancestors and the "enforced pause" of the pandemic, Orenstein dove into the lengthy process: she sheared a sheep for the wool, cleaned the fleece, untangled the wool by hand, spun the fibers to form yarn, dyed it, sketched the sweater's design, and knitted her creation. Along the way she learned about the environmental impact of fast fashion (5,787 pounds of textiles are either dumped or burned every second) and bonded with her 94-year-old father, with whom she could only see in video chats because his independent living facility was locked down in quarantine. Orenstein poignantly reveals what she's learned from the craft ("Decades of knitting have taught me that fixing mistakes is part of the process") and humorously describes her hands-on experiences (on attempting to use an electric clipper on a ewe: "She is wriggling like a greased-up toddler"). This snapshot of creative self-discovery will enlighten readers.
