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

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. Agent: Suzanne Gluck, WME. (Jan.)