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Reviews tagging 'Body shaming'
Unraveling: What I Learned about Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool, and Making the World's Ugliest Sweater by Peggy Orenstein
2 reviews
bookwyrmknits's review
informative
lighthearted
reflective
3.75
I enjoyed this book: it was a good look at both how a sweater is made from start to finish, and one of the ways we as a society handled the COVID pandemic. I already knew a lot of the parts that go into making a sweater, so there wasn't a lot of new information for me, but there was certainly more depth to some of the info. For instance, while I know the theory of sheep shearing—I was already familiar with how we've bred sheep so that they NEED to be shorn, I know about wool felting, I know that a lot of work goes into preparing a fleece for spinning—Orenstein went into a lot more depth than what I knew since I have never shorn a sheep myself. (I also do not want to process a fleece or dye my own yarn, though I do both spin and knit and have already learned the "YES, do body shaping on your sweater!" lesson.)
There were parts that I didn't like as much, and they mostly revolved around the way the author disparages herself frequently when talking about her efforts to shear, spin, dye, etc. It bugged me that she seemed to linger on how bad a job she'd done at some things that she learned specifically for this book. As an example: for the sweater that this book revolves around she uses the fleece she sheared off a sheep on her FIRST DAY OF DOING IT EVER. Of course it's not going to be a perfect (or maybe even particularly "good") job! You can't expect to learn skills that fast. And that kind of attitude comes up in this book a lot, starting with the title: "... Making the World's Ugliest Sweater."
Also, I will admit to being disappointed that there were no photos in this book, not even of the completed—and supposedly "ugliest"—sweater.
There were parts that I didn't like as much, and they mostly revolved around the way the author disparages herself frequently when talking about her efforts to shear, spin, dye, etc. It bugged me that she seemed to linger on how bad a job she'd done at some things that she learned specifically for this book. As an example: for the sweater that this book revolves around she uses the fleece she sheared off a sheep on her FIRST DAY OF DOING IT EVER. Of course it's not going to be a perfect (or maybe even particularly "good") job! You can't expect to learn skills that fast. And that kind of attitude comes up in this book a lot, starting with the title: "... Making the World's Ugliest Sweater."
Also, I will admit to being disappointed that there were no photos in this book, not even of the completed—and supposedly "ugliest"—sweater.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Dementia and Pandemic/Epidemic
Minor: Body shaming
knitwitte8's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
2.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body shaming
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