littlelambsyDivy

the slacker returns

2011-04-15T00:19:00.003-04:00

you know, sometimes i forget i even have a blog. huh.

i got a comment (omg, i never get comments!) on my post-nano entry and i thought, hey, it's been a while.

like 3 months. geesh.

i think it pretty much took me all of february and march to get back into the swing of everyday life. in feb. i committed to doing 750words.com every day, and i did it, and i haven't been back since. oops, i think i killed my initiative on that.

on the plus side, regular writing is happening occasionally. i still get the odd good idea for my 2009 nano*, which goes into a file and sits for months until i get another good idea. it's slow going. i've totally accepted that it will be a major re-write. i'm actually excited about that. i just have no attention span.

The 20k word summer project (i say these things like anyone is reading, never mind actually keeping track of the shit i do) has re-emerged. a few months ago i started re-writing it and then for no good reason i stopped. i think i lost conviction in my plot. this happens to me all the time- i start to worry that it doesn't make sense, or it's just not good enough, and rather than keep writing to see what happens, i give up. i need to remember not to keep doing that. because when i go back (like i did with this project) i usually realize that it's not actually that bad. i'm still stalling out on it, but the intention to work on it is there. that counts, right**

i still have no illusions that i'll ever be a published writer. ok, well, that's not entirely fair. i mean, i have a short published in an anthology, and another (most likely) this year (and i'm co-editing that anthology, which is pretty cool, and a topic for another day). but a book with my name (and only my name) on the cover? yeah, it's not looking likely. and i'm still okay with that. because for me, writing is more about proving that i have ideas in my head that are worth writing, and that i can get them from brain to page with my meaning and intentions intact. once i master that, i can worry about what everyone else thinks.

*the 2010 nano is in the junkyard, waiting to be scrapped for parts. it was never meant to be, i guess.

**it totally doesn't. that's just an excuse. i'm lazy and unmotivated, that's the honest truth of it.

i'm still a writer

2011-01-27T00:11:00.003-05:00

so i didn't write a damn word for over a month. between holidays and family and traveling and getting the kids back into school, it fell right to the bottom of my priority list and stuck there. the funny thing is i didn't even feel bad about it. i used to always beat myself up when i let any of my regular activities drop. i replaced my writing with knitting, and spinning (oh i bought a lot of fibre on vacation. oh it's lovely, but that's besides the point). and one day i said 'gee, maybe i should start writing again.'

and i did.

and it sucks mostly. and i don't think that's actually a change from the usual. i know i'm capable of writing well, but my best stuff has either been heavily, heavily edited, or a product of some bizarre divine intervention or something. i have two pieces featured in an anthology put together by the Hong Kong writer's circle, (http://www.hkwriterscircle.com/ there's a little bit of info on the publication there. i think it will be available to order internationally sometime soon.) and they are perfect examples of both. my longer piece was edited, peer reviewed, re-edited, and scrutinized to within an inch of its life, and i'm still not totally happy with it.

my second piece is all of 218 words, what they call postcard fiction. not because it at all resembles something you'd write on a postcard, but because you could fit the whole thing on one without any trouble. this piece i wrote at a workshop, longhand even, and i think i changed two whole words between the initial version and the final, published one. and it's still my favourite thing i've ever written. 218 fecking words.

i'm going to worry less about writing quality for a while. i'm also going to focus less on the length of the pieces, so i'm not obsessing over whether i'm writing something that could become a novel. i'm just spitting out ideas, and if one snowballs and turns into a story, then great. if that story could be expanded upon, also great.

i'm not setting myself any lofty goals. i'm just going to write. and i feel good about that.

life gets in the way

2010-12-24T22:21:00.002-05:00

yeah, so i've been in TO since dec 10th, and rather disinclined to do anything but pig out on comfort foods, cuddle with my mum (yes, i realize i'm 31. shut up) and scam back rubs from my dad. also some nephew squooshing, and of course spending time with my own kids and husband have been taking up time too. so the blog is getting neglected. the writing is non-existent. even the knitting is falling by the wayside, except when i go to knit nights.

spending time with friends and family is more important that my little hobbies.

spending two hours in a walk-in clinic with my 5 year old and his split chin isn't exactly how i'd prefer to spend christmas eve day, but that's life for you.

the kid is tough as nails, and other than a little whimpering when the doc injected the anesthetic, he was totally perfect, cooperative, compliant. so a big fuck you to the doctor who basically insisted he would have to be forcibly restrained because 'all kids his age freak out.'

now to bed. tomorrow- presents and peameal bacon. pretty much perfect.

post nano

2010-12-02T03:20:00.002-05:00

yeah, i finished my 50K words. yay me. can you feel the enthusiasm?

i don't know, maybe it's just because i never got super jazzed about the story in the first place. i'm just not feeling that fantastic. the story isn't truly done, might never be.

i got some good ideas while i was working on it. brainstorming like crazy (mostly on that 750 words site. it's seriously awesome for that). started reading again, about a book a week, though mostly it takes 2-3 days to read, then another 2-3 to recover, get my head out of the last book's 'world'.

wanting something not too heavy, finding my bookshelf severely lacking in that regard. the few supposedly funny books i have i just can't get into.

second, third, fourth guessing many of my ideas. i think my self-confidence cycles, and right now i'm in a low part of the cycle, where nothing i think or do is good enough. my ideas are contrived, my writing is stilted, i'll never be good enough or smart enough (but doggone it, people like me anyway?)

i'm not really this down on myself. i'm overreacting to a blah day. whatevs.

oh right, i have a blog

2010-11-20T07:54:00.003-05:00

i discovered this nifty little site called 750words.com. i've been throwing the randomest of my random thoughts out there, so i've forgotten about the blog a bit.

the idea of the site is to give you a bit of an incentive to to some freewriting, random idea dumping, creative stuff, 'morning pages', whatever you like. what you write is totally private and you can even password protect it if you're on a shared computer. but after you write, you get this neat analysis of the words you use and how they reflect your mood, and the topics you tend to think about... i dunno, i find it kind of neat. and i'm using it as a place to brain-dump so that i can get on to the real writing.

so how's that real writing going? well...

on the plus side, i have 47K words, so there's no way i won't meet the NaNo requirement. that's good, right?

on the not-so-plus side, i really have realized that the amount of salvageable content is severely outweighed by the unsalvageable. it just is. nothing to be done about it, no point in whining or complaining that i suck (because i mostly don't) or worrying that i'm wasting my time (because i mostly am). the thing is, i set myself a goal, i'm going to meet it, and for better or worse, i had a lot of fun doing it. plot twists and turns that came out of nowhere, characters that sprung fully formed from my head and refused to go away until i'd given them a major role in the story- that's the kind of stuff i love about this frantic writing. just because i'm not picking the prettiest, most eloquent ways of saying it, doesn't make it totally worthless.

but true to form, i've gotten a new idea. speaking of characters dropping into your head fully formed- it's alarming the clarity with which this story has formed itself. i also know that it's going to require real research on my part, because i'll be writing about real issues, things that i can only make up and extrapolate so far without a good solid understanding first.

right now, when i'm not NaNoing, i'm fiddling with the character profiles, googling madly, jotting down random snippets of dialogue, and trying to resist starting the writing until i'm 'ready'.

three days into december, i'll have an opening scene. not a promise, just a prediction.

declaring suckitude, right on schedule

2010-11-11T23:27:00.003-05:00

okay, not total suckitude.

actually, on the whole i'm still feeling very positive about this whole novel business.

so why haven't i written anything on it in two days? hmmm.

see, i got to about the halfway point, and i got stuck, plot-wise. basically, i wasn't sure if my reasons for having the characters in that particular situation even made sense. and i thought of another way to get them into a similar, though more sensible situation, but that would require some re-writing of scenes. and i'm refusing to actually delete any more work, because it's nano, and nano is not for deleting.

so i can either forge ahead, and write the stuff that makes more sense, and just pretend that it fits in with what i've already written, that there aren't enormous plot holes to be filled, and that my novel isn't going to collapse under the weight of all the crap i keep tossing in there.

or, i can go back (not deleting, mind), and i can write the scenes in the way that might make them work better, so that i can write on knowing i've got the holes at least patched up a bit.

the problem is that the second option feels a little like cheating. writing more words/new scenes without deleting the old ones. 'fixing' mistakes, but leaving the mistakes there just to keep my word count up.

but trying to write it the first way, i keep getting stuck, losing track of what's actually supposed to have happened.

i'm so confused by my plot. i'm even confused by this blog post. geesh.

blogging does not add words to my nano wordcount

2010-11-08T00:37:00.004-05:00

but it does help me get out some of the random fluff that seems to clutter my mind, so that i can get on with writing. so...

yeah, yesterday sucked. mostly, because it was sunday so everyone was home and i didn't have the nice quiet house to lull me into the writing zone. and i had started to come up on a roadblock in my plot (in that, i ran out of it) so even if i did sit down and try to write for five minutes, i'd keep questioning my writing, striking through the last bit i wrote, over and over...

the husband got home around 6:30, and while we were making dinner, i started to toss out some of my issues. he's a fantastic sport, and he usually lets me blather on until i get an idea, or until he's about to fall asleep, or until his brain feels like it'll explode (i try to get an idea before either of the latter happen). and it worked, he gave me this really awesome idea, a totally new twist on the story, an opportunity to add several more characters, a new setting, a whole new perspective on the overriding issue of the story, really. and i was so excited, and it buzzed around in my head while we ate, and while the kids wound themselves down for sleep.

so in the quiet house, i start to jot down notes on what's happening now, with all these new brilliant idea. and i find a hole. it wasn't a big hole, in fact it was really minor, sort of 'oh let me just get a needle and thread and stitch that up'. but even the tiniest bit of pressure on that hole made it spiderweb out, spreading in all directions into a chasm big enough for my whole story to fall through. clunk.

talked through the issues with the husband, who conceded that these holes were in fact insurmountable (without me rewriting the whole thing, which... are you crazy?). and so i pouted. and i stared at my computer. and i wrote a sentence. and then two more. and an hour later i had written 1500 words, met my daily word count, and had introduced a minor twist that just might carry me through to the end of the story. here's hoping anyway.

so i guess the point is not to give up. i truly believe my little brainstorming session paid off, even if none of the ideas we came up with actually made it into the story. just throwing the ideas out in the air makes them open up in new, unexpected ways.

(check in later for the post where i declare my suckitude once again. it's bound to happen. i'm on the NaNo seesaw here, and when i hit bottom, it hurts.)

end of week one

2010-11-07T03:43:00.004-05:00

okay, here's the deal. this is NaNoWriMo, and i'm going to write a novel in a month, because that's what you do.

last year, my first NaNo, i didn't know a damn thing about writing. I had never written anything longer than maybe 5000 words. i hadn't written anything i felt proud of since high school. so when i sat down and ideas started flowing, and i got more and more words, it boosted my confidence immensely. i knew it wasn't perfect. i suspected it wasn't even that good, but i kept going, because the ideas kept coming.

now after writing that, putting it away, going back to it, editing, redrafting, editing again, i realized that as much as i love the story plot-wise, from a structural point of view it's really seriously flawed. my main character is dull (sorry Ruby, but it's true and you know it), my writing is okay, but inconsistent, and the story doesn't really achieve what i was hoping it would.

is this stuff that upsets me? no, not at all. because i'm learning from it. i'm learning from all the reading and writing and talking about writing that i've been doing in the last six months.

here's where i think my problem lies for NaNo this year (did i mention i'm having problems? yeah, hence blogging rather than writing). i keep learning things, these 'rules' about what should and shouldn't happen when you write, about what you need to make compelling characters, about how to keep the story moving so people won't throw it against the wall in frustration. i'm learning these things that help when you actually have a story. i still don't have a story. i have 17k words of lead-up, i just don't know what it's leading up to. (I suspect it might be leading up to action, which is another wrinkle, because i don't know how to write action either.)

i'm doing this to challenge myself, to prove to myself that i still have it in me to finish a draft, and to get enough down on paper that it 'counts' as a novel in some way, shape, or form. i'm starting to suspect that whatever this is, it ain't a novel. i'm going to finish it, because i am, but i may just never look at it again at this rate.

guh.

(have to edit to add- do you see the problems i'm having ^ writing coherently? the fuck?)

mixed success and various ramblings

2010-11-04T21:40:00.006-04:00

so NaNo got off to a brilliant start. 11000 words in the first day. No, that's not a typo. No, i don't know how i did it, but don't get too excited. Day two added another 4000, though i was starting to get concerned because it really seemed like i was writing myself into a corner. Day 3, i was firmly sandwiched in that corner. there was a guy fixing the drywall in the apartment, so i left to find a quiet writing spot somewhere else. the public library was a bust, too cold, and the tables were too high to type comfortably, and it was too quiet. i used to think i needed total silence to write effectively, but it turns out i just need the right kind of noise.

That kind of noise can, apparently, be found at starbucks. by the time i got there, i had realized the problem with the writing i had done so far. aside from the plot not doing what i wanted, my writing itself was flagging because i was writing in the 3rd person. i keep trying to convince myself that i can do it, but i've never had much success. the short story i wrote for the anthology coming out later this year was in 3rd, and it was a nightmare for me to get right. i think there's a bit of a stigma against 1st person, that it's less sophisticated, less literary, or some crap. frankly, if i'm going for sophisticated and literary, the POV i choose is going to be the least of my problems.

What this meant was re-starting from the beginning, telling the same story, many of the same exact scenes in fact, only in 1st. i got 4000 words in the three hours at starbucks (before my knitting buddies arrived), added another 3000 after i got home that night, and added another 5000 yesterday, so i feel i am firmly back on track. the story is working better, though there are enormous holes, several areas where i just glossed over details i couldn't be bothered to research at the time, and 12000 words in i'm only just starting to get a handle on my MCs voice, but this is NaNo. If i come out at the end of this month with a decent story, i can work with the details come december. or january. or, you know, may. whenever i can stand to look at it again.

so if i'm doing so well, if i'm such a keener, why am i blogging and not writing? two words: no school.
two more words: kim possible. *twitch*

NaNo Anxiety

2010-10-31T07:40:00.003-04:00

NaNo officially starts for me in just over four hours, so naturally i'm freaking out.

the last week and a half has been spent planning, worldbuilding, techbuilding, character building, and so on. no actual outlining, because outlines apparently make my writing suck. but i know who is going to be in the story, i know where it starts, and i have some idea of where i want it to go, and how to get there.

other than that, i'm relying on my mad pantsing skillz to pull me through. we'll see how that goes.

it has veered so far away from the original prompt that inspired it, it's kind of hilarious. besides one character name, and the general idea of computer hackers and the social network, it's entirely unrecognizable. but it's incredible what you can come up with from a few simple sentences.

the tech stuff has been the trickiest, because even though i don't have to fully explain how it works in the story (at least not up front) i need to know in order to be consistent. and it would be helpful if i could come up with names for all these things i'm inventing. i need a name for the implants, and for the terms they use for communicating through the implants, and what they call people with implants vs people without, and the ones with apparently malfunctioning implants (oops, spoiler alert). right now i've just got a bunch of placeholder terms, and i'm just hoping something better will come to me at some point in the next 30 days.

is anyone reading this? doing NaNo? add me as a writing buddy (i'm divy over there).

i'm gonna go hyperventilate for a few hours.

NaNoWriMo 2010

2010-10-19T00:24:00.002-04:00

it's almost time! NaNoWriMo is a challenge to write a novel in the month of November. last year's nano is what got me started writing for real. it was a fantastic, mind-opening experience.

the novel i completed last year has been going through various betas, revisions, edits, stompings-on, etc. for about 6 months. i'm starting to accept the fact that it might be a trunk novel, or at the best, something i will revisit and re-plot/re-write in a few years when i'm better at this stuff. but the experience was invaluable, so naturally i'm doing it again.

now to me, nano is definitely about challenging oneself, in some way or another. just finishing 50K is a big enough challenge, but this year i've managed to take it even further. sigh.

my writing buddy and i agreed to do a plot-swap; we came up with very basic ideas for each other, a main character with a goal and a general sense of what their major obstacle will be. i was totally into the idea because I tend to get emotionally attached too characters too easily, so that i'm afraid to properly torture them ;) he also fully admitted to me that he wanted to force me to write outside of my comfort zone.

i admit i wasn't inspired by his ideas at first (he gave me a choice, which was part of the problem. i'm terrible at decision-making.) but i persevered and finally something clicked. i've been brainstorming most of last night and today, and i've come up with something i'm really really thrilled with. i can already see a bunch of different ways it can go, sub-plots i can expand upon, major crises for my MC that i can just keep piling up until she begs for mercy.

and apparently it's going to be some sort of cyberpunk/speculative fiction deal. umm, okay? i have never written anything remotely fantasy/sci-fi before. (save about 9K words of weird fantasy drivel that was probably more romance than anything, just with magic and shit.)

but the idea hit, and it won't let go. it's got mind-controlling brain implants and government conspiracies, neuro-hackers, etc. the main character is a teenager, so i'm probably also going to work in some standard edgy YA themes (drugs, disobedience of parents, runaways, etc.)

(i'm going to add here that i'm incapable of synopsising anything to save my life. i go off on tangents and ramble and completely lose the thread of what i was talking about... i know, shocking, isn't it. but once i get a hold on the meat of this thing, i'll post my synopsis here, or link to my nano profile, or something)

on the one hand, i'm totally freaked out because i haven't read much in this genre (or at all) and they (they who? i dunno) always say you should read in the genre you're writing. but then, this is nano, i'm not looking to send it out to publishers on dec. 1st or anything. it's an exercise more than anything.

now because i haven't read anything, not even the major names (i'm totally kicking myself for not picking up my dad's copy of Neuromancer that sat on his bookshelf for my entire life) there's also the possibility that i'll write something totally derivative and unoriginal, without even trying to.

i've been googling 'brain implants' and such (whoo, there's a lot more out there than i thought) and it seems a lot of my ideas aren't unique at all. they also might not be really all that unrealistic. but the underlying premise of the story relies on the fact that the majority of this society has willingly implanted themselves (or their children) with these devices. i'm not sure how i'm going to wangle that.

i am going to need to constantly remind myself that i can write anything i want, and if it's crap, then that's okay, because nano is really really good for writing crap.

september who?

2010-10-14T21:51:00.007-04:00

yeah, so i missed a month. bite me. september sucked big fat donkey balls.

plus i had nothing worth blogging about. and frankly, i was reluctant to push the baby picture post down. still feeling bereft of smooshing. but i will be home for christmas, so babysmooshes for the holidays!

knitting is great these days. finished several projects, including Buttercup in hempathy (omg, i love hempathy so much) and my 2 year (!) sweater project in malabrigo sock yarn. yeah, if you care about this stuff, you're already on Rav, so i'm not going to even bother linking. i'm lazy like that.

writing is going... weird. i've decided to write from an outline. i actually wrote an outline. i know what most of the scenes in this story are going to be, and i know how the character arcs will work. i even whipped up a freaking timeline in a spreadsheet. so now i have to write it.

and i like the story. i like the characters. my protagonist is fun to write (he's a very sweary teenage boy, and he's kind of a jerk, and a total player. it's awesome.) and this has the potential to be really good, in my opinion (though i'll grant i'm a little biased).

but right now, all it is is potential. there's no story yet. the words that go on the page to tell the story aren't coming. i'm writing scene after scene, plugging along, but they're all disjointed and wrong, and they're too short, and not enough happens. i mean, stuff happens plot wise, but all i have is the stuff that furthers the plot. the inbetweeny stuff, the deeper characterization, the setting, any description at all, is just gone, and i don't know where the part of my brain that writes that stuff went. (also missing? the part of my brain that writes concise, non-convoluted sentences. sorry about that).

so writing it has just become this frustrating exercise of blah. and blogging about it, while not productive for the story, makes me feel like i'm doing something. (something besides procrastinating? well, no.)

feel free to give me kicks in the ass, i can probably use them.

awesome

2010-08-25T03:25:00.004-04:00

this is the best thing going right now-- my new nephew

with the blanket i knit for him (see, i still blog about knitting),

smiling. sigh.

yeah, i'm totally in love. i'm much too far away to snuggle him properly, so i have to gush over pictures instead.

don't mind me, i'm just going to sit over here in the corner until my ovaries stop twitching...

fic happens

2010-08-25T02:29:00.002-04:00

sometimes i hate writing. no, that's not really true, i always love actually writing, putting words on (virtual) paper and making them sound, you know, good, and stuff. (get off my back. i'm saving all my prose-writing energy for the real stuff...)

but the part of writing where i know i need to make something specific happen, and i can't do it because the words, or the characters, won't cooperate, that just sucks.

it's like with knitting- knitting back and forth without worrying about what you're making is easy- though usually you end up with not much more than a strip of plain knitting- wheee, scarves. if you want something that actually looks like something (sweater, socks, whatever) you need to make changes, shift, manipulate the stitches differently, add and decrease. and usually you have a pattern that tells you how and when to do this so you end up with something that looks like something you wanted it to look like in the first place. (hello, train of thought? where did you go?)

but writing isn't like knitting. because there isn't a pattern for a good story. there are guidelines, sure, and if you outline obsessively you can sort of shape the final product before you write it. (but i can't outline, and besides, that's another post). so for me, writing is like knitting a giant piece of shapeless nothing and just crossing your fingers that you can turn it into something decent when you're done.

phew. this post is brought to you by poorly crafted, tenuous metaphors.

(it's a good thing i'm pushing this post down later today with something far far more awesome.)

stutter

2010-08-23T22:48:00.002-04:00

hey blog, i'm going to rant at you for a bit, okay? because frankly, no one else wants to hear it (the husband has been listening to this rant patiently for a few days, but i just can't subject him to it anymore. also, he's at work.)

i'm writing a piece of short fiction. i actually have a sort of a deadline too. for the first time, i'm writing something because i was asked to, not because i just feel like it, and it's a fantastic feeling to know that anyone besides me is actually interested in my work! i was given a very broad category, a working title as a prompt, and i immediately came up with a perfect idea.

perfect, if you ignore the part where i spent ten minutes alternately typing and sobbing. stupid fucking emotions. writing something that depressing has long-term consequences on my mood, and i just can't afford to be a weepy, grumpy ball of grr right now.

so, i brainstorm, come up with two or three other fairly decent ideas before i settle on the idea. the one that i know will work, that has a beginning, middle, end, conflict, interesting characters, potential to be both touching and humourous (a balance i try to strike most of the time. also, is it just me or are there too many 'u's in humourous?)

so there's no problem, right? oh, until there's a problem. i can't write it. i feel like i'm stuttering, like i keep starting and getting a few sentences out but then the rest of it just stops. ideas shut off, gone. my ability to write readable prose seems to have disappeared as well. my dialogue is stilted. i hate my characters. i don't think the conflict is all that interesting anymore, and i don't know if i can fix it. (i'll grant that my husband read what i have so far and he thinks it's good. i don't think he's lying to spare my feelings, but i also don't think he's a very unbiased source.)

i don't have time to start from scratch with a new idea. besides that, i like this idea, i really do, and i really think it will make a good story if i can just get it the fuck out of my brain!

if you need me, i'll be bashing my head against the keyboard.

this blog post is brought to you by a crippling fear of heights

2010-08-15T23:16:00.006-04:00

and if you don't already have one, you probably will once you see the pictures.

(yeah, pictures!)

whenever there are small repairs to be done on an outside wall of one of the apartments, the workers build a little bamboo scaffolding outside the window. they're like makeshift balconies, and the mere idea of stepping out on one gives me the shakes. a friend of ours had work done on their apartment, and apparently the workers warned them not to let the kids out to play on the scaffold after they'd left. they live on the 36th floor. umm, yeah, i'm not thinking that's going to be a problem...

the other day, the same friend called us (they live across the complex) to point out another apartment that was being worked on. they were at the very beginning stages of building the scaffolding, so there were just a few metal beams sticking out of the wall. and a guy straddling the beam, harnessed by a strap around his waist (the harness may have been more secure than it looked, to be fair. i wasn't that close).

pretty crazy, right?

this was also on the 36th floor. here's a pic of the full building, just for perspective. i've circled the guy above in red. if you can't see him, look up, waaaay up...

yeah. i really don't have anything else to say about that. on the plus side, neither of my kids want to do that job when they grow up. one less thing to worry about, i guess.

home again

2010-08-09T20:53:00.002-04:00

i mean, i guess i'm home...

right now, i feel like home is a million miles away. i have some fantastic friends out here (one is currently taking my boys swimming, giving me some precious alone time. gotta love that) and once school starts and i get into a routine, i'm sure that things will be okay here. i'm sure of it.

but now, all i can think is how much i miss my mom and my sister making me laugh myself silly and giving me big squishy hugs. i miss talking my dad's ear off about writing, and listening to him talk my ear off about food. i miss playing guitar and singing with my big, grown-up nephew. i miss the tiny baby nephew that is going to be born any day now (i didn't realize you could miss someone you've never even met) and i miss my brother and (as-good-as) sister-in-law, who are doing awesome getting ready for this new little life.

i miss home. there's nothing wrong with hong kong, but dammit, it isn't home.

justified self-doubt, or am i just procrastinating again?

2010-08-02T16:01:00.002-04:00

okay then.

i wrote 20K words in 10 days, that was kind of cool. and i do like the ideas that i formed in that time, i even think it might make a decent story... someday. right now, i've managed to talk (think) myself out of working on that particular plot. i lost focus, lost the grasp on what i wanted from my characters and my story, and i started to question whether the idea i had could really be carried on for another 50-60K words. basically, i bailed. just like i told myself i wouldn't. i figured once i had 20K words it would be a lot harder to abandon the idea. apparently not.

but, but, but...

i realized i have 3 months until NaNoWriMo, and I will do that again this year, no question. So i figured, 3 months is more than enough time to bang out a first draft on one of the myriad ideas i've come up with since april. i picked the idea i've had the longest, the one that i felt had the most potential, the one i've already written the beginning to twice (both times i fizzled out after about 5K words). i tried a new approach. i changed POV and tense, i changed my mc name (i hated her original name anyway) and i made it 10K words in... then i started thinking about it again.

several major plot points started unraveling. if character A does this, why doesn't character B just do that? what's the character's motivation for this? why is she behaving this way instead of that? and all my questions were totally valid and entirely unanswerable. seriously, i don't know how i have had this idea bouncing around in my head for so long and not noticed all the problems with it until now.

i had a clear idea of where i wanted this to go, i even had something i would call an outline, and i hate outlines. maybe that was part of the problem. writing into an outline has sapped my will to write.

so i went back to the drawing board, so to speak. i went back to the original ideas that spawned this whole story, and it boils down to the two main characters and the setting. everything that came after that (the characters' families, their romantic pasts, their jobs) is probably going to go out the window.

now i can't decide whether i'm just excusing this pattern of behaviour (which is- write write write, oh wait, that sucks, nevermind...) or if i actually might have a better plot to stick these characters into. i suspect this is just another way for me to justify to myself the fact that i am abandoning yet another wip.

so, in keeping with my pattern, after the 'nevermind' i need to spend at least three days beating myself up for abandoning this before i can get back to writing properly. gah.

this blog post has been brought to you by the little voice in my head that says 'you suck'. i should probably see about getting that removed...

good news, bad news

2010-07-24T10:18:00.002-04:00

good news: i have reached my 20K goal, much sooner than planned even. I have the beginnings of a story, really almost a skeleton of a story, with a beginning, middle, and something that could be leading towards an end.

bad news: i have no fucking clue what to do next. i'm trying to expand upon the scenes i have, and i'm stuck. i'm trying to add new scenes, and i'm stuck. i'm trying to write stuff that i know won't be a part of the story, just to get into the character's voice. nope, still stuck.

the whole point of this exercise was to not have my writing end up amounting to nothing more than practice. don't get me wrong, practice is good, but it would be even better to get to the point where i can write a whole fucking story instead of just random bits and pieces.

sigh.

my next goal. keep writing this damn story. finish writing it, even, before i move on to something else.

wish me luck...

accountability

2010-07-14T10:12:00.003-04:00

alright. i'm done fucking around.

i need to start writing something. something new. something with more than 5000 words. something with a story that is at the very least interesting to me. (i'll worry about whether it's interesting to anyone else after i'm finished the first draft).

i'm setting a goal. it's a small goal, imo, but i don't want to fail and discourage myself. by the end of July, i will write 20,000 words on something, anything really. but it must be one thing, one story with at least a vaguely cohesive plot. i don't know what that plot will be yet. i'd better get on that.

i'm going to ask a small favour from anyone who actually reads this blog (and again, i know there are maybe three of you). if you happen to see me screwing around on facebook, or if you actually see me or communicate with me in any way at all, pester me about my writing. the more persistent, the better. i'm going to enlist my husband and my dad and anyone else who is going to see me regularly in these next few weeks. if my laptop is on my lap, i should be writing. i might have to disable my wifi, but dammit, it's the only way anything is going to get done.

tales from an 8 hour flight

2010-07-07T20:02:00.002-04:00

keeping in mind, 8 hours is cake compared to the 15 hour hauls from HK to TO and back, but this 8 hour flight was in the middle of the day, meaning the kids were awake the whole time. i still have a twitch in my eye.

the first major bummer was realizing that there was nowhere for me to plug in my laptop (i've been spoiled by the higher-end airlines, this one was barebones.) it would have been mildly irritating if i'd been planning on watching a movie or playing games on my computer, but i was actually hoping to write. i actually had the desire and the inspiration to do some real work, and i spent the whole time frantically checking how much battery i had left.

i'm currently re-writing scenes from my ms based on the critiques of several betas (when three separate sources with very different backgrounds--both in their lives and in their writing experience-- point out the same flaws in your work, you should probably listen). i'm now trying to work on the scenes again, but it feels like 1 am and my mojo ran away... feh.

so not being able to write, i defaulted to the next obvious thing- knitting. this led to one of the nicest things about the trip. a woman sitting across the aisle from us started to chat with me about my knitting. she noticed that i knit continental (yarn in the left hand), while most knitters from TO, in her experience, knit english style (yarn in the right hand) (for the record, she's english but she knits continental, so the labels clearly don't count for much)(believe it or not, this was quite an interesting discussion. i know some of you won't believe it. you know who you are. you can shush). in any case, i got to chat about yarn and stuff with a total stranger, and she turned out to be quite lovely. she even engaged my five year old in conversation for the last half-hour or so of the flight, which was a relief to my husband and i, to say the least.

oh, and speaking of the five year old, apparently the novelty of air-travel hasn't worn off for him. he squeals like he's on a roller coaster every time we hit a bit of turbulence, he whoops excitedly when we start to land. add this to the incessant chatter, the fighting with his brother about whose magazine was whose (yeah, the crappy duty free catalogues are apparently very interesting to these children) and the occasional whines tantamount to 'are we there yet?'
this incited some dirty looks from people around us, and while i can't really blame them (hell, i was shooting dirty looks at him too) i couldn't help but think 'you people have to deal with this for 8 hours. this is my life'. i couldn't feel too sympathetic.

this has been an especially rambly and pointless post. i'm blaming the jet lag, yet again. someday i'll spend more than three weeks in the same timezone, and then i'll be unstoppable...

first Canada day not living in Canada

2010-07-01T04:07:00.004-04:00

thirty years, and this is the first Canada day that i haven't actually been living in Canada. I'm in the UK at the moment, not in HK, and i'll at least be hanging out with my Canadian family here, but it still feels weird.

being Canadian is a huge part of my identity. more than even the knitting...

it wasn't something i ever realized was so important until i found myself actually living so far from home. it wasn't until i started making Canadian friends in Hong Kong that i realized that i missed Canadians, not just Canada. i think it's a case of not truly appreciating something until it's gone.

i'm too tired and distracted (by british children's television, wugh) to properly express what i love so much about Canada. it might be easier to say what i don't love...

umm... well, it can get a little cold.

Happy Canada Day!

creative blue balls

2010-06-26T06:32:00.002-04:00

i'm super jetlaggy (again) and half asleep, and about an hour ago i was snoozing, listening to music (i don't even remember what, but it must have been something very deep and evocative or some shit). and i get ideas... actually, i get the feeling i've got a really really good one, but i'm too sleepy to grab hold of it, and then the song changes, and then my idea is ripped away and i'm left feeling all cranky and unsatisfied. and now that i'm almost, sort of awake, i keep getting these moments where i think i might be remembering, but if i try to grab the idea it disappears. i have this anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach that might be the jet lag, or it might be the kids' fault, but i think it's this missing idea, nagging, gnawing, tapping me on the shoulder and then when i turn around it isn't there.

so close... sigh.

perplexing

2010-06-23T01:13:00.006-04:00

for the past 5 years, at least, all my social interactions (that haven't revolved around my kids) have revolved around knitting. i'm used to talking to people about knitting and having them 'get' me. well last night at a social event for writers, i had a shocking realization: non-knitters really do find knitting kind of insane.

last week, when my writing buddy started mocking the knitting, I thought it might just be him- that he was just closed-minded, or more likely that he got a kick out of teasing me (hi Jay!) but i think it's not just him. people think knitting is weird. who knew?

last night a man compared me to his 100 year old grandmother sitting in her rocking chair, waiting for death. naturally, i took offence. this was followed by the classic "why can't you just buy socks" line. to which i pulled out my socks to show him how so-much-cooler they were than storebought socks. (he wasn't impressed. also shocking.)

then he joked that i should write a novel about knitting, and i shouted "done and fucking done!" (we were probably both a little drunk and argumentative... i also told him not to fuck with the lady with the pointy sticks...)

all in all, it was a very fun night.

so for the first time in a long time i was the weirdest person in the room because of my knitting (this doesn't imply i haven't been the weirdest in the room for other reasons...not by a long shot). i'm not sure how i feel about this. i've never laboured under the illusion that i'm normal- hell, who wants to be normal?- but i didn't think sticks and string would be what made me so strange.

i lied

2010-06-19T12:28:00.003-04:00

i just deleted a whole blog post- something i said i wouldn't do.

why? because i don't want anyone calling me up or emailing me asking me if i've gone off the deep end. i haven't, for the record.

i am a good writer. i'm actually a very good writer, and if that makes me sound conceited, then so be it.

i have to strike a balance between writing what i want to write, and writing what i need to write. i need to get stuff out of my head, so i write. i want to make an impact on people, so i write. i'm ridiculously anxious about sharing my writing, but when i get positive feedback, it makes me so damn happy. and when i get negative feedback it just pushes me to do better. (and sometimes makes me cry a bit- but mostly it's the 'do better' part).

right now, most of what i write is depressing. i don't know why. maybe it's just the headspace i'm in. but my best stuff, some of my favourite stuff, is the depressing stuff. the happy stuff just doesn't do it for me. my own full manuscript, the one i've been obsessing over since november, is at its best (in my opinion) in the depressing parts. my husband disagrees, of course, but then he doesn't do depressing. i suppose that's a good thing. a balancing thing.

said husband is watching star trek: enterprise at this very moment, a fact that makes him very happy, and me sort of depressed. what does that tell you?

it just occurred to me

2010-06-14T05:06:00.004-04:00

i'm leaving town again in ten days. i feel like i just barely got back (wait, i did just barely get back). i'm still jet lagged. if you fly halfway back to where you were when you're still jet lagged, does that negate the jet lag at all?

as a bonus, the next trip includes my husband and kids, which is great because i love them and all, but equally crappy because we'll have two jet lagged parents and a couple of jet lagged kids. joy.

i got a message from a knitting friend who knows i'm a writer about a flash fiction workshop in town this evening. very last minute, but i think i'm going to go. it sounds like fun.

the problem with this last minute stuff is, usually it's in central or thereabouts (basically downtown Hong Kong on the main island) which is easily an hour from where i live. so i really have to have a few hours warning if i want to do this sort of thing. today i think i had just enough warning (the fact that my husband is so awesome that he's willing to come home early to watch the boys helps immensely. i owe this dude hardcore. i'm making a list).

last time i tried to go to a writing event in central, i ended up at a closed bar, completely missing a sign on the door saying that they had moved to the bar next door, and so i spent two hours total on a bus for nothing except a bruised ego and a major case of 'i'm a fucking moron'. any bets on whether i'll make it to this one in one piece, on time, and without embarrassing myself?

don't worry, i wouldn't bet on me either.

ETA: one piece? check. on time? check. without embarrassing myself? eh, jury's still out...

recipe for a perfect friday night

2010-06-11T13:28:00.002-04:00

start in the afternoon, with a good 4 hours of knitting, with five fantastic friends. try not to fall asleep on the oh-so-comfy couches. stay hydrated, and mainline something caffeinated.

fizzy pink stuff, calamari, bruschetta (hold the olives, though) and laughing a lot, sitting in a ridiculously comfy booth.

tram ride up to the peak. okay, in all fairness, i could have skipped this out- the buildings and trees were at a 45 degree angle to the car. it felt wrong. distracted by stories of fingernails falling off (thanks again, Anna!) but still, i don't need to travel sideways up a mountain ever again.

dinner on the peak, including much too much wine, fancy cocktails (mine had coconut- yum), delicious food, and boozy hot chocolate for dessert (it actually didn't occur to me at first that hot chocolate with baileys and frangelico was alcoholic, which speaks volumes about my state of mind at that point...)

minibus down the mountain (yeah, i could've skipped that too. fucking psycho minibus drivers. at least i remembered to put on my seatbelt...eventually)

longest taxi ride home ever. how i managed to stay awake i'll never know.

get home, and get a second wind. perfect timing...

blog. because i'm awake already, why not ramble for the masses (or, the three people who actually read this...)

sleep should come next. right?

startling priority shift

2010-06-10T22:42:00.003-04:00

for my trip to TO, i packed everything into a small suitcase, then packed that small suitcase into a medium suitcase. the reasoning being, i would be able to bring stuff back with me (namely yarn) without having to worry about having things not fit.

well, first of all, i still barely managed to fit everything in- i actually had to leave a few books behind, but they weren't ones i was going to read soon anyway. second, while unpacking today, it occurred to me that the smaller suitcase was filled almost exclusively with, not yarn, but books. really? since when did i become so damned interested in reading? maybe around the time i started writing like a maniac? hmm.

in fairness, about three of them were knitting books, and there were some knitting magazines in there too. and two knit-lit books. but still, what the hell has happened to me that i didn't manage to fill my entire spare suitcase with yarn?

i guess that's what July will be for.

you know you're jet-lagged when...

2010-06-10T01:21:00.004-04:00

-your five-year-old is wearing a pretzel on his face like a pair of glasses, and you're nearly on the floor in hysterics.

-it takes you twenty minutes to write the above sentence.

i may just edit this post and add more as they occur.

fucking hell.

back home

2010-06-09T20:04:00.002-04:00

hong kong has decided to welcome me back with pouring rain and thunderstorms. nothing like riding in a plane while lightning flashes around you to get the adrenaline pumping.

the next few days are going to be an experiment in how truly jet-lagged i can be and still parent effectively. any bets? it's 8am (meaning it feels like 8pm) and i feel completely fucking upside down right now. i'm not terribly hopeful.

wish me luck!

WIPs in time out

2010-06-07T13:11:00.003-04:00

i've decided i've way overthunk my two WIPs. over-outlined, over-worked, but i'm still not actually writing the damn stories, i'm kind of tiptoeing around them, and i'm pissing myself off.

i'm putting them in time out for a while. i want to get them back to the point where they were just really awesome ideas so that i can write them without stressing about the specifics, the details. details are for editing, but i have to write the damn thing first.

i'm thinking about writing a few more shorts. i'm getting some good ideas... not a lot.

i want to get my query/synopsis figured out for my current MS. once i'm done that, i'll feel a lot better about my writing situation i think...i hope...

short

2010-06-05T08:55:00.003-04:00

two days ago, i dug up a paragraph that i wrote about two years ago and started to fiddle with it. it was something i came up with using an online story spinner (like a prompt generator, basically). it wasn't like it was good or anything, but it was the start of a story that was potentially interesting.

yesterday i finished the story. 5000 words, which is sort of an average for general short fiction, i think (actually, i think there's a pretty significant range in short fic, like from 500 to 20K words).

i'm almost positive that the story is actually good, too. of course i'm biased towards my own work, who isn't? but i've re-read it and edited it a bit, and i'm mostly happy with it.

i'm going to get a few people to read it who aren't me and who have no reason to like it and no reason to lie if it sucks. then we'll see.

this is the first short story i've written since high school. i really hope i've improved since then...

writing for myself

2010-06-03T16:10:00.002-04:00

i've never been good a journaling. i kept diaries as a kid, but i always got bored of them. when i started writing again, i figured out why.

i'm a great big attention whore.

i like to write for an audience. i like to write as if someone might read it someday. if you know me, you know i like to talk. i can talk for hours, for days, and never run out of stuff to say. now i can write like that too. it's not always interesting, and in fact, it's probably usually not at all interesting, but i like to put it out there, whatever it is.

i don't have any illusions that i have a ton of people reading this blog. and most of my readers used to be my knitter friends, and since i'm not talking about knitting much, i doubt they're interested anymore. i don't really care, because it's out there. it's public for anyone who wants to read it, for anyone who knows me, or anyone who doesn't.

i don't put personal crap up here. i mean, i have my kids names, my husband's name, my name's probably down there somewhere. people know where i live, more or less (hey, come stalk me in Hong Kong!) but i don't put the really deep shit on here, the stuff that matters. the stuff that hurts.

but apparently i still need to write the stuff that hurts, even if i don't share it. i was tempted to share it, but then i read it over and i started bawling, so no, not going to post that.

things are mostly good. things are often great.

things aren't always great. and that's okay. that's life.

i'd rather write for you guys (all two of you). writing for myself doesn't work as well, because if i can't share it, i still feel like it's all in me. it's on paper (well, computer screen, but same diff.) but it's still only mine.

maybe someday i'll blog about the hard stuff. and then nobody will want to read it. huh.

need to gush about knitters a bit

2010-06-01T23:32:00.002-04:00

Whenever i'm in TO, when i was visiting from Kingston, and now that i'm visiting from Hong Kong, I go to knitting groups. I don't feel sane if i can't go out and knit with people. I can knit at home, alone, in front of the tv, or while talking to my parents, my husband, my kids, but it's just not the same as talking to other knitters. i have two regular groups in Hong Kong that meet weekly, one that meets monthly. all three groups are made up of different people. i think i'm the only one who regularly attends all three. they're all different people, all fantastic.

in Kingston, i had two regular groups. there were more i couldn't get to every week, the one at the LYS for example. when I was visiting last week, just for two days, i went to two knit nights. it was just obvious that i had to do that. that's what you do. (also, i was staying with a friend who is a knitter, so that made it easy). there is overlap in these groups. people show up where they can, when they can. i got to see several old knitting friends, and it felt like almost no time had passed.

in TO, there is one group i go to whenever i'm here. there are others in town, and at least one other that i try to go to semi-regularly, but the one i go to on tuesday nights is a must. now, you have to understand that i have never lived in TO as an adult, certainly never lived here as a knitter. I was born and raised here, but moved away when i was 19. i've only ever been here in my adulthood as a 'visitor'. i've never felt like a visitor though. this will always be home. and the weekly group, the one i only ever got to attend when i was visiting, over holidays mostly, in the summer, is one more thing that makes me feel like this is home. i show up two weeks ago, nobody was expecting me, nobody knew i'd be home. every single person i knew was happy to see me. They were friendly and cheerful, asked about Hong Kong, about my kids. and we got down to knitting, and again, it was like i had never left.

this is one of those things that is awesome about knitting, about knitters. we see each other on a regular schedule, like clockwork. often, you only see these people at knit night. it's a once-a-week relationship (sometimes twice). for me, it was maybe five or six times a year, just for the last two years, really. and yet, i talk to people, we talk about our lives, about our families, births, deaths, work, school, no topic is off the table. it's almost effortless. when you've got knitting in your hands, all your differences are irrelevant. i talk to people a decade younger than me or more, i talk to people old enough to be my mother, or my grandmother. doesn't make a difference. we always find a common thread (if you'll pardon the pun).

and it's not just the regular people that you connect with. just tonight i talked to three people i had never met before, one of whom is a fellow expat. you don't expect to meet someone and immediately have a great connection with them- i mean, i'm sure it happens sometimes, but not on a regular basis, not on a weekly basis. but apparently with knitting, you can.

knitting groups keep me sane. they kept me sane when i moved to Hong Kong- i've made fantastic friends there already, i never would have found them without knitting. they've kept me sane here, while i'm visiting my parents but still desperately missing my husband and kids. i don't know what i'd do without them.

to sum up- knitters are awesome. they're a special type of person, and i don't know what makes them so great, but if we could figure it out and bottle it, we'd make a fucking fortune.

uninspired

2010-05-29T22:23:00.003-04:00

i didn't write today. i'm trying not to give myself a hard time about it, i really am. but i sort of miss it. i feel like i forgot to do something important, like brushing my teeth or putting on deodorant (managed to remember both of those today, ftr).

i've sat down a few times, opened up my writing program, and stared. i have three things on the go now.

the fantasy thing- for a while it was going at a steady clip, but i started to think about it too much, and realized that some things i tried to set up in the beginning didn't happen, and that some characters were completely inconsistent. basically, it's a little crappy, very draft-y. which it should be. it took me all of two days to write. still, i'm being hard on myself for it. so i'm letting it rest for a bit.

my super-complicated four main character story is still in time out. i go back and re-read bits- i have a few scenes i really love- and go over my character sketches. i like this story a lot, i just can't get my head around how to write the damn thing.

my third, which is the one i've had on the go the longest, is probably the best one to be working on. but i can't make myself do it. i think i overthunk it from the very beginning. i had a rough outline- clear beginning and a lot of middle, fuzzy end, but i knew what i wanted to happen, i just didn't know how exactly. and i had all these ideas for scenes that occurred throughout the story, so whenever i thought of one, i'd just write the scene (usually pretty rough, and too short, but i just wanted to get the basic idea out). now i have all these files and sub-files and sub-sub-files full of random scenes and character development, and i'm fucking overwhelmed. i think i need to start fresh, start with a new file, without any previous content. i'm thinking i might even need to start the story in a different place, just because the starting point i'm using is getting me nowhere.

blah. my brain has given up on me for tonight.

i'm a self-centred, self-indulgent type

2010-05-29T00:17:00.002-04:00

i just went back and re-read all of my old blog posts. I was curious to see what my style of writing on here was back then. i started blogging in '05, mostly about knitting, but also mostly random rambly ridiculousness. so not much has changed.

i didn't swear as much before (although check out the post titled 'death to smooshy' from july '07...phew. i feel the need to apologize to the yarn in question- dream in color 'smooshy' is a lovely sock yarn with which i had a severe misunderstanding. that yarn ended up being swapped on ravelry. i hope it is happy in its new home).

but going back and reading my writing, i was surprised to find i'm actually kind of funny, sometimes. at least, i think i am. i'm not terribly impartial on this fact though.

Haven't had much writing success today. the train got really annoyingly noisy right after i posted (figures) and i couldn't concentrate. however, at the same time the seat beside me became occupied by a woman who was knitting socks (!) so i decided to knit on the way home instead. i'm telling you, we knitters are everywhere. we're going to take over the world. mark my words.

but yeah, the writing is sucking. i'm trying not to give myself a hard time about it, because that just makes me feel guilty, and right now i'm only writing for myself. if it ever becomes something that makes me money (ha!) then maybe i'll be tougher.

apropos of nothing, my dad is reading my novel. he's on chapter 9. i'm pretty sure chapter 9 is where the smutty stuff starts.

i'm going to be avoiding my dad for the next few days...

i'm 99% positive that my dad will never see this blog. he could find it if he were really motivated, i think. but it don't think he would be.

if you're reading this dad, hey there! let's not mention the smut, okay?

one more thing

2010-05-28T13:00:00.001-04:00

as of the previous post, i have officially blogged more in the past week than i had in the previous two years. so yeah, go me?

blogging on a train

2010-05-28T12:54:00.002-04:00

mostly just so that i can say i did it. kind of love free wi-fi on the train- though these tray tables aren't the best surface for my laptop.

it turns out the train is a good place for writing. quiet, very few distractions (except maybe the aforementioned wi-fi).

also an unexpectedly good place to write- at my friend's house, despite the four little girls under five, two of which decided i was the coolest thing ever and didn't want to leave my side (and seriously, if you know these kids, it's next to impossible to say no to them. holy cuteness.) and i still managed to write another 6k ish words (on the damn fantasy that i'm still not writing, tyvm.)

in case you're wondering, two 30 ish women, when put together after about 11pm, can still turn any situation into a pre-teen sleepover. we didn't put anybody's hands in warm water, but we did almost pee ourselves laughing. good times.

now i'm going to turn of the wi-fi and write. or read. but definitely not just surf the net for three hours. nooo.

I don't write fantasy

2010-05-25T11:55:00.002-04:00

really, i don't.

i can't explain why i spent the last four hours world building and writing a history for a made up race, because i don't write fantasy.

i don't need any more projects in my brain right now, dammit.

it's an early 90s extravaganza!

2010-05-24T16:22:00.003-04:00

so, in addition to my awesome cassette, i dug up a couple of books that i read when i was about the same age (13-16 ish). They're both urban fantasy (i guess that was what i was into back then)

Elsewhere and NeverNever by Will Shetterly

a two book series about a world in between our world and the faerie world. i liked it then (i haven't read them in a while, so i'm going to have to reread before i give full endorsement)

Dangerous Angels- The Weetzie Bat Books by Francesca Lia Block

this is an anthology of five books published between '89 and '95. i actually read all five books separately, and i bought the anthology for convenience more than anything. it sort of defies description, but i think i might re-read that next.

both of these were books i just devoured as a teen, and then re-read like crazy. the first two were out of print, and i lost my copy, and then found one online in my late teens/early 20s and i went a little nuts with excitement. they're back in print now, apparently.

this post has been brought to you by teenage divy.

nostalgia hurrah!

2010-05-24T09:59:00.002-04:00

i went through one of my mom's 'big boxes of crap' (tm) yesterday. it contained mostly a bunch of old school binders- seriously, i'm not going to need my grade 12 math notes, you can throw that shit out.

but in among the papers, and a good stack of old teen magazines (yikes) was a cassette tape of a toronto indie band that i started listening to when i was about 13. they're called Blue Dog Pict, and i'm going to bet no one who ever reads this will have ever heard of them (unless Em is reading this, hi Em!). they released two subsequent albums on cd, and they're on my ipod and they still get regular play, but their first album was only released on cassette, so i haven't heard it in probably ten years (the album was released in '91). maybe my tastes just don't change all that much, or maybe it's just the nostalgia talking, but it was still farking awesome. actually, it isn't even the original cassette- it's a dub that i made when my original was starting to sound a little wobbly from over-playing.

my next mission- get that cassette into a digital format so i can keep it forever. i'm such a dork, and i don't care.

i'm going to have to start taking my laptop to bed with me

2010-05-24T09:06:00.004-04:00

because when i wake up at 5:30, and suddenly i have a great idea, and i think 'hey, that's pretty good, i should try to remember that when i actually wake up', i should realize that it's 5 fucking 30 and i'm not actually thinking clearly, and there's no fucking way i'm going to remember at 8:30 what i wanted to write at 5:30 when i've been asleep for 3 hours.

fuck.

p.s. in case you haven't noticed yet, i'm going to swear on this blog. probably a lot. that's what happens when i don't self-edit, apparently.

in over my head?

2010-05-23T18:23:00.003-04:00

so i'm having a self-doubty day. this happens, no big deal. but i figure, hey, it's something to blog about.

this usually happens after i've a) read a really good book or b) spent a really long time pounding out words only to find that they're all crap. but today, neither of those things happened.

i was looking around on writing forums and various internet resources, trying to get my mind around POV issues. i think i might not actually know how to write in 3rd as well as i thought. one of my current WIP could conceivably be told in 3rd limited, there's one clear main character. but i keep wanting to pop into other people's heads, just for a second, because hey, look, they've got something interesting in there... sigh. so it's taking serious restraint to fix that, and keep it just in one POV.

my other WIP is something that i know is way, way beyond my current writing ability. i have four main characters, all of whom are equally important to the story. most of the scenes will only involve two characters at a time (since two of the characters are fighting through most of the story) but there are some scenes with all four, and it's damn near impossible to decide whose POV i should use. i could use 3rd limited, rotating between the four, but in these big scenes, it's just going to seem clumsy, or i'm going to have to leave people out. so it looks like i either head hop (meh, i don't really like reading head-hopping, why would i write it) or go full out 3rd omniscient, which scares the bejeezus out of me for some reason.

it's times like these that make me want to take some sort of writing course. i need help with the nuts and bolts. i just don't think i do that well under pressure, with any kind of class structure, or any kind of real responsibility to the writing. i'm doing this for fun, dammit.

seriously?

2010-05-22T23:56:00.002-04:00

okay blog- i'm going to forgive you for interrupting my sleep this time, but let's not make a habit of it.

yeah, sometimes as soon as my head hits the pillow, the thoughts turn on, and i'm powerless to stop them, and damned if i'm ever getting to sleep. tonight the thoughts wanted to be on the blog, so here i am, mere hours since i posted last (i think that might be a record. don't get used to it)

So i'm thinking about books. specifically, the endings of books. i've been reading a lot more recently than i think i ever have (comes with the whole writing obsession, apparently). the most recent book i read (just today) is called BREAK and it's by Hannah Moskowitz, and it's really super great, and it's her first book and she wrote it while she was still in high school, which makes me totally jealous, and makes me want to hate her, except i can't because her book is too damn good. go read it. seriously.

anyway, as i often do once i've finished a book, i went online to look at reviews, critiques, etc. just to see if people in general thought the same things i did. i do this with books i like, because i love to read praise of the same books, sort of confirming that i have taste that falls somewhere in the realm of 'normal' (though is that necessarily a good thing?). i do it with books i hate too, because i'd like to see someone else whining about it for the same reasons i did.

the only really critical thing i've read about BREAK is that some people feel the ending was unsatisfying. now i'm not going to spoil the ending, don't worry, but if you're one of those people who doesn't want to know anything about a book, i mean any teeny insignificant detail (hi Chris- oh who am i kidding, he doesn't read this) then you might want to skip the next sentence or two.

i didn't have any issue with the ending. the only real complaint i had was that i would have happily read more, if there was more to read, but i didn't feel that the story lacked a satisfying ending. it was perhaps less dramatic than the overall tone of the book. the absolute worst thing i could say is that it was abrupt, and i'm still not sure that's even negative. and the ending didn't make me want to go shoot myself in the head, which is always a plus in my mind. (more on books that make me want to shoot myself in the head later).

so what makes an ending 'good'. does it have to be happy? or does it have to be in the same tone as the rest of the book? (if the whole book is sort of dark and depressing, does that mean it can't have a happy ending? what about the opposite?)

one type of ending i've seen a lot of is the whole 'flash forward' technique. generally i hate these. it feels like a bit of a cop out- like you get to the end of the real story, but the author wants to wrap everything up in a neat bow, so they flash forward to a point in the near future where all the drama of the last 300 or so pages has been resolved, and everybody lives happily ever after.

i say i hate this, but you know what- that's exactly how i ended my own farking novel. big dramatic scene with slightly ambiguous ending, flash forward a month, final scene that's probably a little schmaltzy and a happy-for-now ending (as opposed to happily ever after, but it's close).

maybe i just hate those scenes when they come at the end of books that i'm already not feeling the love for... that's a possibility.

last thought on books, not on endings necessarily- the stealthy-depressing book. i've been bitching to everyone i've talked to recently about a book i read, and i'm not even going to bother naming it because, frankly, i'm over it, but i had a good four days or so where this book infiltrated my brain and made me feel all weepy every time i thought about it. and it was chick lit too. granted, the author is known for dealing with 'serious' issues- but her other books weren't quite as sneaky about the specifics. this book draws you in by telling you that Something Bad has happened, but not giving you any important details, and ...

shit, you know what, i'm just going to spoil the whole damn book, okay? i'm not going to go back up and edit either, because i said i wouldn't, and breaking my word on the first day back blogging seems like a bad precedent to set.

okay, so the book is Anybody Out There by Marian Keyes. i have to say that i really did like the other books of hers that i've read. they definitely had serious overtones, and i'm pretty sure they both made me cry at some point, that's not the issue. this book spends 150 or so pages telling you about the main character, Anna, and the fact that she's obviously had some sort of terrible accident, the details of which we are not privy to (again, Keyes does this, and usually it's okay. it's interesting to see how she sprinkles the details in slowly, usually it's a great effect). interspersed among the scenes about Anna's injuries and recovery, we get some backstory about her life before whatever happened to her. we hear about her job and her friends in new york, and how she met her boyfriend, Aiden. a little more backstory later, we find out she actually married Aiden. so when Anna's desperate to return to new york, to get back to her job and her friends and Aiden, we start to wonder- why isn't her husband with her during her recovery. my immediate thought was that he had somehow caused her accident, hell, maybe he even deliberately hurt her, who knows. but Anna keeps emailing him, calling his cell, and we get to read these sweet emails that she always signs 'your girl, Anna' and she even catches a glimpse of Aiden on the street, and now i'm just saying "What the fuck Aiden, call your fucking wife already". and then we get to the big reveal (and you've probably figured it out by now, but it wasn't quite so obvious in the book, at least not to me). Turns out, Anna was injured in a terrible car accident, and Aiden was in the car with her, and he was killed. Wheee! we even get to read the scene where they are in the accident, seeing it from Anna's point of view, describing Aiden being badly injured, but still sort of putting on a brave face for her (until he dies!).

this is the point where i start sobbing, and i don't stop for another four-fucking-hundred pages! we go through Anna's bereavement process, and it's all very well done and very real, but i was just so damn sad about Aiden (and yes, i am a giant suck. mock me if you will. he seemed like a really great guy. *sniff*)

now, after finishing the book, and after still being annoyingly upset by it three days later (like, to the point where i'd start tearing up if i caught a reference to the boston red sox- Aiden was a fan- god i'm pathetic) i started to realize that i was having a particularly bad response because the book hit on two of my big panic triggers: spousal death (but i mean, honestly, that's a pretty tough subject regardless, right?) and car accidents (been in two, neither fatal to anyone, in fact no one ever got seriously injured, but it fucked my head up about it, so...yeah.) so i cut myself a little slack for being upset, and then told myself to get the fuck over it already. and i read some fluffy chick lit, and a book that i wanted to throw against the wall for entirely different reasons, and i felt better.

so i guess my issue is that sometimes books can try to use the whole twist aspect to get a reaction out of readers, and sometimes it's kind of cool, but mostly it feels like a cheap trick, and for me, it lead to a lot of unnecessary moping. because i am a suck, but still...

hey, if anyone is reading this, and they know of any other books that haul out and punch you in the gut halfway through like that, let me know so i can avoid them. thanks muchly!

What the what?

2010-05-22T22:58:00.003-04:00

hey, it's a blog post! no, really.

okay, let's get the basics out of the way.

-still in Hong Kong (though atm i'm in TO at my folks house, sans kids, for another 2 weeks or so. it's wild)
-still knitting, though not with quite the same speed or obsessiveness, mainly because-
-i got me a new hobby. apparently i write now? yeah, go figure.

and since blogs tend to involve, well, writing, i thought i'd resurrect this baby again. any bets on how long i'll last this time?

so it all started back in november. i was homesick and kind of lonely, and the kids were settling into their routines, and the husband was working lots, and i though 'hey, there's this thing people do in november called NaNoWriMo, where you try to write a 50K word novel in a month. that might be fun.'

now, i have been trying to write for as long as i can remember. seriously, i have stories i wrote from when i was about 7 or 8, and they mostly involved unicorns or some crap, but i wrote them myself, out of my own head and everything. the problem i had was that i never actually thought i was any good. in junior high and high school, when we wrote short stories in english class, i was always left with this feeling of 'now what?'. and i didn't seem to be able to pluck an idea out of nowhere anymore, i needed someone to feed me an opening line, or a juicy plot point before i could take off.

when i was about 16 i wrote a really long, meandering story on my home computer. this was probably the point that i realized that more than anything else, hand-writing held me back. my hand-writing is illegible at the best of times, fucking ridiculous at the worst of times. i think it's that my brain works too fast and my hand + pen can't keep up. but i can type pretty quick (even quicker if i eschew the shift key, which explains the lack of capitals, because i just don't give a shit right now). so this story was incredibly long, longer than anything i had ever written before (or since, until NaNo) at least 20K words. at some point i printed it out. that computer is long long dead, but my mom swears she still has the printout around here somewhere. famous last words...

(i feel the need to point out at this time that i'm not going to go back and edit any of this shit. if it doesn't make any sense, sorry. this is mostly just for my own purposes anyway.)

so NaNoWriMo sounded like fun. I had a plot in my head that i thought up one night on the streetcar coming back from a knit night (see, i worked knitting in there somewhere) and i happened to have a notebook with me, so i jotted it down. the thing with my memory is, once i've written something down, there is a part of it that is permanently etched in my brain, or at least the gist of it is. so this idea had been bouncing around in my brain for over a year, and i sat down on november 1st and started writing, and suddenly i'd written something like 5k words and i had no idea i could do that. it was awesome, and a little scary.

i 'won' NaNoWriMo (in that i wrote more than 50K words in 30 days- 72K in about 25, to be exact). i read over my 'finished' novel once or twice, shared it with a few trusted friends, but basically i stuck it in a (figurative) drawer and left it there until april. i spent a few manic days editing the crap out of it, a few more days editing the crap that i'd just edited, and about two weeks later i had a suddenly-much-better second draft.

the novel is still no where near done. i have one fantabulous friend (hi Anna) and my husband telling me that it's really good. i totally trust them, i do. it's just that i also know that neither of them want me to cry all over them if they tell me it sucks (i totally wouldn't cry. just for the record). so i think i've found me a few beta readers (though i can always use more, but only if you're willing to be mean to me), and i'm keeping the project in the back of my mind at all times, fully intent on 'doing something' with it, once it's ready, and i'm ready (i need to write a query and a synopsis, and that makes me want to die a little bit, but that's another issue entirely).

besides that, ever since i finished the second draft, i've needed to write. like, constantly. i have a little folder of ideas, and every so often i'll go and pick one up and just start writing whatever comes to mind. and sometimes i actually get something good, and then i try to expand. right now i've got two ideas that i'd almost consider 'works in progress'. i have a pretty good idea of how i want the story to go, who the characters are, scenes, themes, blah blah blah. i just have to sit down and write now.

and this is where i come to the problem. for NaNo, you're more or less forbidden from editing as you go (i'll admit that i did edit a bit as i went, because i'm incapable of leaving completely fucked up sentences, or not at least attempting to end chapters somewhat properly. but i didn't edit much, and i didn't delete anything without replacing it with something better). it's about quantity, not quality. you make it better when you edit it (hopefully). but now that it's not NaNo, now that i'm not technically challenging myself, i'm letting myself fall into the write, reread, criticize, rework, edit, rewrite, just shoot me now routine. it's not terribly productive, and i know that if i'd spent even half of the energy i've spent criticizing myself on actually writing, i'd be a lot better off right now.

So i'm blogging right now as an exercise in not editing (like i said, if this is rambly and unintelligible, that's because it's for me, and not you. i mean, you're welcome to read it, feel free, that's why i'm blogging it, just don't expect me to make any special effort).

i'm hoping to force myself to blog on a regular basis, basically whenever i'm stuck on my 'real' writing and i just need to get some crap words out so i can get to the good stuff. that means i'm probably not going to be blogging much about knitting (but i might) or hong kong (because how many times can i say 'jeez it's fucking hot here'). if you're one of my friends following this to find out what's up with me, first of all, Hi there! second, thanks for reading this far. i'm so terribly sorry. third, this is probably as good as it's going to get.

this is where i click the publish post button without reading back. wish me luck...

So, this blogging thing...

2009-09-13T22:31:00.002-04:00

yeah, turns out i still kind of suck at it. sorry about that...

i have some pictures that need uploading, but i think i'm going to just be uploading them to my flickr acct. and linking them here when i do. maybe i'll do a fancy sidebar or something!

the boys started their swimming classes last week. Miles can put his face in the water, and can swim pretty impressively with a big flutter board. Asher has yet to actually touch the water during class (though we can barely keep him out of the pool at the apartment- go figure).

we have our apartment mostly furnished, though i desperately need more workspace in the kitchen. also, i'm still getting used to the gas stove- i really hope i don't blow anything up...

a few random things:

- the wet market- where you can get all manner of fruits and veg, very fresh fish (i.e. still wiggling) and cooked meats, and somewhat puzzlingly, various hardware bits- is called the wet market for a reason. it's advisable not to wear your nice leather sandals. yuck.

- also, the wet market is especially crowded in the mornings, and there seems to be an unofficial direction of movement. going against traffic is probably not worth the effort.

- if you're listening to music in crowded places (such as the aforementioned wet market), tuck earphone cords safely away, lest you snag them on some poor unsuspecting woman's pretty blouse buttons. i'm just glad i didn't accidentally cause her to flash herself at all the fishmongers.

- speaking of music, i had several episodes of The Vinyl Cafe podcast backlogged on my ipod. i wasn't sure why i didn't feel like listening to them, but i figured it out today. apparently, it makes me stupidly homesick. i discovered this standing in the middle of japan home centre, trying not to cry while listening to the weakerthans. sigh, really?

- speaking of homesickness, i just finished reading two books by an author from Parkdale (the neighbourhood where i grew up). her name is Pat Capponi, and the books i read are from her new fiction mystery series. check her out, they're quite good (and thanks for the rec. Nancy).

- people here don't seem terribly bothered by heights, or the fear of falling to your death (like i am). this was evidenced by the air conditioning repair guy who hoisted himself out our 25th floor window, with nothing but a very rudimentary harness around his waist. (incidentally, when i mentioned this to my new local knitting friends, the only thing that surprised them was that he was actually wearing a harness).

i think i do better writing this stream-of-consciousness style. i'm definitely incapable of sticking to one topic, or having any sort of consistent theme.

p.s. i'm not proofreading this, or capitalizing anything that i don't have to. my brain is just not up to the task these days.

love you, miss you, wish you were here (if only to commiserate about the heat!)

days like this...

2009-08-17T16:43:00.003-04:00

whew. today was just unbelievable. so much accomplished, yet so much more to do...

we started the day by looking at apartments. one was really good. most of them are about the same size (977 sq ft) but how they choose to distribute the space seems to make a huge difference. this one had a nice big living area, and still managed to have a decent sized master bdrm, and even a tiny storeroom (for yarn?!). the kitchen needs a good cleaning, and there are a few doorstops* missing, one of which is in the bathroom, and would prevent the door from hitting a full length mirror, so it will need to be replaced ASAP.

between apartments, we picked up M's school uniform and some registration forms. We also got A's school interview done, picked up his uniform, etc etc etc. all of this stuff is needing to be paid in cash at the moment, because our HK bank account won't be fully set up until the end of the week, and nobody likes our visa card very much (actually, that's not true, the electronics store, Fortress, has no problem taking our visa. go figure).

so we finally decided that we should just go with the 'good' apartment, rather than keep looking for days for a 'better' apartment. we meet the landlord, we sign papers, make arrangements, lo and behold, the visa doesn't want to work for the real estate agent either. to make a long story short (too late) we have a place, we have the money to pay for it, but we don't have any way to access the money at this point. i think we're going to be doing some sort of wire transfer with my ILs, so hopefully this won't actually be a huge deal.

So on to other things. both kids start school on Wednesday (though M just for an hour, kind of an introduction day). the schools seem much more structured and official here (or maybe the schools in Kingston were just really lax?) but i think it will be good (I'm sure Miles will cope, not so sure about Asher, but here's hoping).

We got home from our trip out at about 6pm and we all just passed out, didn't even eat dinner (the boys both had some bakery treats on the way home though). Hence why i'm up at 4:30...

we're all well, though tired and smelly. i still haven't found the usb cord for my camera. pictures forthcoming when i do.

miss you all!

*the word 'door stop' is apparently not in the chinese english vocabulary. there was a fair amount of pantomime (and a few sketches) necessary to get the point across. we all had a good laugh once it was sorted.

Now with twice the Honk!

2009-08-16T07:36:00.002-04:00

Hey! So I haven't blogged in a year or so...ummm, my bad.

Our family has just moved all the way to Hong Kong (or as Asher likes to call it, Honk Honk). Things have been crazy hectic, but I really want to get back to the blog, if for no other reason than it's a crazy convenient way to keep people up to date on our lives out here!

So it's Sunday, about 8pm here, so most of you are just waking up on Sunday morning. We've been here since Thursday. The first few days were just a complete whirlwind of hauling bags around, trying not to fall asleep mid-afternoon, trying not to collapse from the heat (currently 30/86, feels like 43/109) and about 17 trips to the tiny park'n'shop downstairs- they sell everything in small packages because of the small kitchens, small fridges, etc. But when you have a 4 year old who eats very little besides peanut butter sandwiches, you start to wish for full sized loaves of bread already!

Major successes so far:
- Chris and I both managed to get cell phones (his is rather pathetic, but it was really cheap. he's such a luddite).
- ordered Miles' school uniform, and discovered his new teacher is from Toronto!
- made a million appointments with real estate people. We're well on the way to getting a permanent place by Sept. 1st.
- discovered that it doesn't really matter if you're constantly sweaty and gross, because everyone else is too!

Random stuff:
- we lost one of Miles' sneakers for about a day and a half. it turned up just before we bought new ones (which is a nice change from the murphy's law). it was in my knitting bag. wtf?
- we're still trying to figure out the medical stuff so that we can get Miles' cast looked at, and hopefully get him a waterproof one now. there are lots of neat swim/water play areas, but the poor guy can't make use of them yet. boo.
- Miles has inherited his dad's dislike of sweet/savoury food combinations. so that's a no on the chicken teryaki.
- also, Miles still hasn't really warmed up to any type of noodles. I still blame the manchu wok noodles he had at Ohare airport in may...
- I'm really liking the bottled sweetened milk tea (cold). it sounds weird, and it is, kinda, but mmmmm...

Hopefully next time I post I'll include pictures or something. Right now I am just too damn lazy to get up and find all the camera bits.

We miss you all terribly, and we hope you're well. Please post a comment to say hi if you want, or email, or whatever.

Love,
Dani

Fight evil in style!

2008-06-27T14:24:00.003-04:00

Mini seasilk socks with mohair trim- I think these should be a necessary part of every superheroes' wardrobe, don't you?

The lovely Superboy modelling:

And then The Flash had to get in on the action:

Inexplicable Knitter Behaviour

2008-04-02T15:55:00.003-04:00

Long story short- Damn that was fun. Boy am I sore.

I scored 3rd place in the scavenger hunt with 61 points! I swear I didn't set out to get that many points, but I'm a little obsessive, and once I started I couldn't stop.

Most of my pics are up on the flickr group. I left out the really out of focus ones, and the ones that are of no interest to anyone, including myself.

I was out and about bright and early, and as such I was the first knitter to arrive at Romni and Lettuce Knit (and thus the first to bring them hot chocolate). I also had the great honour of being the first person at the Old York Bar and Grill (owned by Stephanie's sister)- and as such, I was the one who got to break the news...

It went like this:

Me: Umm, hi. I need someone to hold my sock.
Her: Your sock? (short pause) Is this for my sister?
Me: Um, yeah.
Her: Did she tell them to come here?
Me: Yes. Didn't she tell you?
Her: No...
Me: Oh. Well, can I take a picture of you with my sock?
Her: Sure. Can I give her the finger in your picture?
Me: Oh, definitely!

She really is quite lovely. She gave me a happy photo too:

She also asked me if I was knitting socks for a dwarf, which made me laugh more than it probably should have.

The entire day was indeed "stupid amounts of fun".

Thanks Stephanie for enabling us all to be as inexplicable as possible.

Dead blog

2008-03-24T16:52:00.003-04:00

I know, I'm pathetic. Like every diary I've ever owned, this blog is just floundering.

I'd love to blame it on Ravelry (I do so love that site) but honestly I've barely updated on there, because I've barely been knitting. Those gorgeous stripy socks from the previous post, well they're almost long enough to start calf increases, and I'm not sure how to incorporate them into the (ridiculously simple) pattern. My brain just refuses to compute it. Meh.

I knit 3/4 of a mini-cardi in my handspun merino silk, then lost momentum. Ditto my seasilk shawl (seriously, what the fuck is wrong with me that I don't want to knit with SEASILK!). I made awesome progress on my Belle shrug, until I had to rip back almost 8" of the second sleeve because I only made one decrease per 8 rows, instead of 2. That one really hurt.

So my mojo is broken. Clearly what I need is serious knit-therapy, and since I can't really justify the retail type of therapy, it'll have to be the social.

I'm taking the bus to go see The Yarn Harlot's book release on April 1st. Who's with me?

Stripus Interruptus

2008-01-26T10:33:00.000-05:00

We might have a little problem...

First, the foot of the sock. Gorgeous, stripy, and yes, the second one matches.

Short row heels. This is where I started to notice a little weirdness:

Continuing up the leg after finishing the heels:

*twitch*

Is it as bad as I think it is?

High Fibre Post

2007-11-14T12:10:00.001-05:00

Oh blog, I do apologize for neglecting you. I'm sorry to say, I'm just not that interesting...

Ahem. Yeah.

I have been spinning. I have been LOVING spinning. I bought myself a Golding spindle at Rhinebeck, and it is my new favourite toy. I spun all the way home in the car (well, until it got too dark) (oh and thanks to fiberkat for the idea) (hey, are you allowed to use parentheses like this, one after the other?) (yeah, I don't know either...)

Le sigh.

I also got to spin on a Golding wheel. It was very nearly a religious experience. I have to add a picture I stole from my friend Erin's blog:

I look like an utter goof in the picture. Clearly I was high on yarn fumes.

Now look at some stuff I've spun!

50/50 mohair and merino. It was only an ounce, but I did it all on the drop spindle (in fact, I bought this fibre specifically at the last minute on Sunday so I could spin it in the car).

This lovely merino:

is currently on the drop spindle becoming this:

I'm actually trying to spin singles here. We'll see how it looks when it comes off the noddy.

Ooh, that reminds me, the spinning workshop was fabulous. I need to take pictures of the stuff we spun and post it. I'm just not that organized right now (hah- try ever!)

Lastly, I have finally finished spinning Nicandro (the sunburn alpaca fleece from the sheep dog trials). I was going for laceweight, I'm not sure I quite got that, but it is just lovely nonetheless.

If you need me, I'll be huffing fleece.

Home from Rhinebeck

2007-10-22T08:01:00.000-04:00

There is so, so much I want to write about, but it is much too early in the morning, and I don't think my muscles have completely un-kinked from the camping. I will have to post in installments as I remember everything that happened. The whole weekend has blended into a fuzzy, fiber-y dream!

I do have to share a conversation I had with my 4-year-old in the washroom,
"Mummy, what is the toilet paper made of?"
"Paper. What else would it be made of?"
"I don't know. Maybe wool?"
(laughing) "Why would the toilet paper be made of wool?"
(said with a 'well duh' tone) "Because it's a wool festibal (sic)"

I love my little guy!

feeling a little less dumb

2007-10-10T21:32:00.000-04:00

Yeah.

We have a local Spinners/Handweavers guild. I rented a Lendrum folding wheel from them for $1/day.

Wheee!

(though still feeling a little dumb for not having thought of that sooner)

How did I miss that?

2007-10-09T20:56:00.000-04:00

I'm currently working on remedying an oversight that, frankly, is still baffling me. I don't know how I managed to overlook this particular detail, but then, here I am, clearly in this predicament because I wasn't thinking.

So we are going to Rhinebeck in two weeks (!) Myself, the husband, and the boys (nearly 3 and nearly 5). We are camping, and given the fairly pleasant weather, I'm optimistic that we will not all freeze to death. (I have also assured my husband that, should the weather become dangerously cold, there will be no shortage of warm woolyness with which to insulate the tent.)

Our campsite is reserved. We are slowly but surely assembling all the supplies we'll need for the 5 hour drive, the 3 nights camping, and the festival itself.

I have also signed up for a workshop. A spinning workshop, which I am thrilled about, which I signed up for months ago. I got the email yesterday with all the details, including the supplies/equipment I'll need to bring along.

Like a wheel.

Oh, yeah. A wheel. Of course I need a wheel. Why hadn't this occurred to me before now?

I do have a wheel. It's an Ashford traditional. Our car is a Honda Civic. We are camping, which means we're packing a tent, mats, sleeping bags, etc. We have two young boys, so we will necessarily have to pack the better part of their entire wardrobes, to allow for all manner of messes (food, water, mud, other...) and it would be prudent to pack plenty of clothes for ourselves too. Oh, and our smallish stroller.

Do you think I can fit the Ashford in the trunk too? Heh.

I'm checking out my local options to rent a travel-sized wheel. Failing that, I'm not sure what I'll do.

I'm still marveling at how I managed to overlook this issue until now.

Wartime Knitting

2007-09-21T17:39:00.000-04:00

While on vacation in Muskoka (Bala, to be precise) we came across a small sign in town announcing that there would be a knitting exhibit at the Bala Museum. My cottage neighbour (also an avid knitter) and I went down to check it out.

It was all contained in one small room, but there was so much to see. Naturally, there were socks and hats, and patterns for the "Wartime Woolies" and such, but there were also several posters set up, that existed at the time to encourage everyone to participate in the wartime effort in any way they could.

There were also items I never would have imagined (and I suppose that fact shows how very naive I am about all this). The rifle mitts, with an open thumb and index finger for working the trigger. And there was a table full of hand knit medical bandages- bedsocks, bandage covers and leg and arm amputation covers (those last ones were both fascinating and disturbing).

For efficiency's sake, I have arranged the photos from the museum in a Flickr set:

Wartime Knitting Exhibit

p.s. I'm sorry I couldn't devote more time to this post. I am sick, and burnt out, but I really wanted to share these photos.

d.

Ravelry Swap

2007-09-10T21:50:00.000-04:00

So I participated in my first ever swap last month, just by stumbling upon it while browsing on Ravelry.

I got my package a few days ago, but with the insanity of getting the kids into school, and my house into order (hah!) I haven't had a spare moment to post pictures until now.

The swap specified sock yarn and roving, but it allowed for other goodies as well:

A calendar and notebook (that notebook is going to wreak havoc on my diet!)

A great little wooden box, with a set of super-cute stitch markers,

The sock yarn is just awesome- hand dyed, it has both autumny colours, and some gorgeous teal jewel tones. The picture doesn't really do it justice:

And last but not least, the fiber. Oh it's really something- it's from Crosspatch Creations, which I'd never even heard of before. They have three different colours of fleece: two hand dyed, blue and purplish, and one natural black, and all three are blended through with wisps of multicoloured silk.

It is going to be so much fun to spin, I can't wait. I am going to save it until I get back from Rhinebeck though, since I'm attending a workshop about spinning multicoloured fleece, and I want to put the knowledge to good use.

More of the fleece, close up, so you can see the silky bits:

Thanks so much Janet!

If someone could kick my ass in a few weeks

2007-08-30T19:11:00.001-04:00

I'd really appreciate it. I have a ton of stuff I need to get on this blog. Primarily, my trip to the War-Time Knitting exhibit at the Bala museum- absolutely fascinating, but I need more time, not to mention more brain cells, to compose a full post about it. But I have to get to it, because it's really neat.

I've knit a bunch of stuff this summer which hasn't made it on here yet because we've been out of town so much. I have had just enough time to upload my pics, update my ravelry account, and feel guilty about not blogging more.

Forgive the blitz picture posting. I just don't want to neglect these, because they're so damn cute.

Finished cotton stria baby surprise:

Finished baby surplice, with matching hat and booties:

Both of those sweaters went to the same person, one of my oldest friends who is having her first baby any second now!

I barely stopped to take a breath before casting on my second baby surprise, this time in Koigu with Fleece Artist sock yarn accents (also with socks and hat to match):

This is for another baby, due in November. I'm itching to give it to the mom right.this.second. Patience was never a quality I managed to achieve.

I should mention that all the buttons for the sweaters were from my mom's personal vintage stash. I don't think I'll ever need to buy buttons in my life. I might anyway, but not because I need to.

This hat for my nephew was just ridiculously easy and quick- Misti alpaca chunky, 2 days knitting time:

I also cast on, then frogged, then re-knit, then frogged again, one of my entrelac socks. That's an annoying story. I don't really feel like elaborating- it makes me cranky.

I got a big Knitpicks order right as we returned from our vacation, and so I began knitting Miles a sweater (per his request). It's not interesting enough for a picture yet.

And to soothe my sock-knitting pride, I've cast on a pair of Monkeys, in STR- autumn colourway. I'm doing them toe-up, but I'm leaving the pattern as-it, so they'll be upside down Monkeys. Meh, I figure Monkeys like being upside down, no?

I have decided to name them Reese's Monkeys. Get it? Like Rhesus Monkeys? I'm a sucker for a bad pun. I blame my dad. But I do have a good reason for the name. Just look:

Damn, hungry. Need candy. Grunt.

Where there's sheep dogs, there's sheep. Where there's sheep, there's me.

2007-08-11T17:38:00.000-04:00

I went to the Kingston Sheep Dog trials today. We saw a ton of neat stuff (big cats, lizards, birds of prey) but somehow managed to almost completely overlook the actual sheep dogs. Whoops.

I had an embarrassingly good time checking out all the crafty tables, and watching the sheep-to-shawl competition, and I found a guy who makes his own wheels (and almost considered buying this one tiny one that was only $350- until I saw dh's face when I said the words "only" and "$350" in the same sentence). I did buy a hook for pulling the yarn through the orifice (I know there's a name for them, but I'm blanking). I actually need one too. My bent paperclip is really not cutting it these days.

But my big score was while Miles was on a pony ride, I saw two gorgeous alpacas standing next to a table full.of.yarn! And fleece! And I just couldn't resist taking a little something home. A souvenir, really.

It came from an alpaca named Nicandro (I'm absolutely giddy about the fact that my fleece has a name, and yes I know exactly how silly that is). It's 86% fawn alpaca and 14% 'merlot' silk (I don't know the names of the worms that provided the silk, but I suppose that would be asking too much, wouldn't it?).

Here's Miles cradling my fleece (that is only half of it) like it's a newborn child. I'm so proud. *sniff*

I suppose my joy at this new acquisition left me a little distracted, and I did come home with something else, far less desirable:

(Oh holy hell, my roving matches my back!)

The only explanation is that I must have neglected this area during re-application of sunscreen (I may have also neglected this area in my primary application. That was just dumb).

So the whole Sheep Dog trial event gets an A from me (though I can't comment on the dogs themselves), the Alpacas get an A++. I get a D, but the sun gets an F. It was, after all, entirely his fault.

Death to Smooshy

2007-07-31T15:08:00.000-04:00

The following blog post contains foul language. Reader discretion is advised.

I am cursed. There is no other explanation for this situation. Fucking cursed.

I have finished several projects recently, and I am itching to cast on my entrelac socks. I have the yarn already- two skeins of Dream in Colour "Smooshy", one teal and one sort of coral-y, watermelony red. They are very large skeins, so I set myself up in front of the TV with my ball winder and swift, carefully placed the red skein on the swift, and began to wind.

Snag. Fuck.

I had made maybe three revolutions when the yarn stuck, a rogue piece of yarn looped around the (supposedly) free end. No big deal-

Wind the yarn off the ball winder.

Slip the end of the yarn through the offending loop.

Re-wind the yarn onto the ball winder.

Turn, turn, turn. Snag. FUCK!

Repeat a few more times, adjusting the yarn on the swift, turning the other direction, removing the whole skein and replacing it upside down.

Say fuck a few more times (this was surprisingly unhelpful).

Decide to take drastic measures, and start winding off by hand. I had a good sized ball going by the time things had worked themselves out, so I wound it back onto the ball winder. Turn, turn, turn.

I'm going along at a good clip, with only a few minor snags, but nothing that requires actually removing the ball again. Turn, turn, turn.

The yarn-winding gods will only let me be happy for so long, though. Turn, turn, whomp! Something hits me in the forehead, hard enough that it takes me a few moments to compose myself and figure out what the fuck that was about.

The tube dealie (yes, that's the official term, fuck off) on the centre of the winder had come loose, and the fucking thing flew right up and clocked me. To add insult to injury, this has also resulted in a fair bit more tangling. This isn't funny.

I spent the better part of 5 hours untangling this yarn (while watching TV, taking computer breaks, and of course eating and drinking) and I am still not done. I am not happy with this yarn, especially since this is one time I know that the tangling is not my fault.

Fuck once more, for good measure.

Update: I have now officially finished untangling the fucking yarn. I haven't forgiven it yet.

Not for lack of knitting...

2007-07-13T15:58:00.000-04:00

This blog has been suspiciously empty. We spent a week at our cottage in Bala (the cranberry capital of Ontario, FYI). The ridiculously fresh air seems to have an odd effect on me. Quite frankly, it puts me to sleep- honestly, I just could not get enough sleep. Luckily, the cottage is the one place that I can pretty much lay down anywhere, anytime and take a nap (assuming the kids are with my husband- which they tend to be because he's much more fun on vacation than sleepy mum).

When I wasn't napping, but hadn't risen out of my fog enough to play in the river, I was knitting. I finished my Malabrigo Hourglass sweater- just in time for summer (grrrr). But it is absolutely glorious. I even got to wear it for a whole evening because it does occasionally get cold up there.

This photo was taken pre-blocking, in the dim cottage bathroom. It was the best I could do at the time.

Post blocking, on the bed-

hmm, still looks a little lumpy and wrinkly. I blame the futon.

I also finished my first Baby Surprise Jacket. I used Manos Cotton Stria, in aqua and tangerine. I started out with one skein of each, but at about this point:

I started to worry that maybe there wouldn't be quite enough yarn to finish. My LYS was out- they only had 2 skeins of purple, which I decided I could not work in to this already- erm- eclectic colour scheme. A two-day stopover in TO gave me the opportunity to hit up Romni- even there, I could only find one skein of the tangerine, and it seemed significantly duller than my original skein.

I carried on, hoping that the striping pattern would hide the irregularity. What do you think?

I have to admit that at this point in the sweater, I was more concerned about the fact that I could not for the life of me see how this was going to become a sweater. I worried that EZ knew something I didn't about sewing up seams, or that I had completely misread the pattern, or otherwise entirely fucked this pattern up. Ah, me of little faith...

I love Ravelry

2007-06-20T08:22:00.001-04:00

Really, I do. It is such a great concept, and I hope the developers do really really well with it. (If you haven't gotten your invite to Ravelry yet, then I'm sorry if this sounds like taunting or bragging. Trust me, your patience will be rewarded.)

The only downside (and I admit that the fault lies entirely with me) is that I now have so much less to blog about. I started blogging mainly as a way to keep my projects (current and future) organised, and to help keep my few online knitting friends up-to-date on my progress, without flooding our message board with FO posts. I did slowly become more accustomed to writing about knitting as lifestyle, almost approaching actual journaling levels (which is so bizarre to me, since every diary I've ever owned contains two to three very bland "introductory" entries before my interest waned and it became buried under stacks of "Seventeen" magazine).

So I'm going to give blogging-as-journaling a shot, please bear with me (and I'm going to need to learn how to spell "journaling", since this is 3 times now I've written it with two ls. Thank you little red line...)

So. Hmmm.

*cough*

I'll be back...

not so very long ago

2007-06-10T16:27:00.000-04:00

I couldn't resist posting this. I found it buried in my crafty folder while adding projects to Ravelry.

This must have been taken around February or March 2004. I'm knitting my first sock ever, for Miles (out of Pingouin 100% cotton. Sigh. I've learned so much).

Miles is "helping".

The knitting bag behind me was hand-woven by my mother, for her mother.

There are so many things in this photo that make me so very very happy.

I crawled with the Yarn Harlot...

2007-06-09T19:30:00.002-04:00

Not to mention about 20 other fabulous knitters. I'm sure everyone has seen some version of this picture a thousand times, but I find it so farking hilarious that I have to share my own version.

The whole day was awesome. If you want details, go to the Yarn Harlot's blog. She tells it better than I could.

A few assorted photos from the Toronto Extravaganza, just for my entertainment:

This is actually the night before at the book release. Just before I was to give the hat I knit to the Harlot, I realised I didn't have a picture of it. This picture didn't show much of the hat, but it did manage to capture me in all my flushed-and-sweaty glory (In case anyone was wondering, it does get warm in a bookstore filled with hundreds of knitters, and donning a wool hat does nothing to relieve it, surprisingly)

Side note- this photo was taken by the lovely Erin, who I just happened to sit down next to in line, and ended up being my crawl buddy the next day as well. I got to make sure she didn't pass out at Romni. Hee!

First stop on the crawl was The Naked Sheep (again, I'm not going into major detail, I'm not linking to all the stores, it's all on Stephanie's blog, as well as about a dozen others). I convinced my wonderful friend/spare mum Gaye to pose for a "First Sock" photo. It's a dandy first sock.

At Americo, I bought some lovely handspun llama that matches my knitting bag. When I got home that evening, my 4 year old decided to wear it. On his face.

Yeah, kids are weird.

I also coveted this fantastic wooden ball winder:

Note to self: Find out if Sherri ever got a quote on that. Live vicariously through Sherri. Sigh.

Romni, Lettuce Knit, Big Fat Burritos. It's not that this wasn't all awesome, I just don't have anything to add that hasn't been said. That's what I get for procrastinating.

Alterknit was a great place to wind down. Yummy iced coffee. And their front window display still has me giggling:

What also got me giggling was someone's (I can't remember who, was it Barb?) comment that it looked like all the monkeys were knitting "peter heaters". Hee!

Long story short, I bought a lot of yarn, met a lot of cool people, and I got my picture taken with "The Yarn Harlot" aka "The Wool Pig" aka "Stephanie"

She's holding my socks. She even said they looked good. Speaking of which...

Ahhh, FO bliss...

My yarn nightmare

2007-05-22T15:27:00.000-04:00

I am a tangler. There is no way around it. When I wind my yarn from a hank to a ball, it tangles. When I try to knit with more than one ball of yarn at a time, it tangles (don't ask how this has affected my two-socks-at-once habit). I especially tangle when I get a bug up my butt about something that many people would just ignore (stripy matchyness, for example). Still, I press on, hoping that next time will be different. Sigh.

Here is a little taste of my ridiculousness,

Last week at my knitting group, I sat happily knitting my Pomatomus socks:

(aren't they pretty? Fleece Artist Sea Wool, colourway unknown but gorgeous).

I start to notice that the yarn is being annoyingly splitty. It seems that the two plies of the yarn were coming un-twisted. It was kinking the yarn, making knitting with it a rather frustrating experience.

(Please note, I in no way hold the yarn itself responsible for what happened here. This was one skein that I split into two nearly equal balls, so that I could knit the two socks at once. That was a yarn disaster in itself, but it ended with two neatly wound balls. However, I can't rule out the possibility that the winding and re-winding of the balls may have been responsible for this.)

With the support and advice of many of my knitting group friends, I tried spinning the ball, twisting the ball, dangling the ball over the railing- all of this did nothing to correct the twist of the plies, nor did it do anything to stay my ever-increasing frustration:

As we wrapped up for the night, it became clear that this yarn was not going to respond to gentler encouragement. It was time to get tough with it:

It should have been easy. Cut out the offending section of yarn (really only a few inches) re-wind the rest of the ball, checking carefully for more twisty bits, and re-join to the sock. No big deal.

Until at some point during the winding, I was momentarily distracted, and my yarn snagged, and the partially-wound ball went flying off the winder in a great lump:

Once again, this shouldn't have posed a serious problem. I should have just collected myself, and very slowly, cautiously and gently pulled apart the tangled mess. Indeed, that is what I intended to do. But it was like some cruel Sisyphean torture- the more I untangled, the tighter the remaining tangles would get.

Understand that my children were asleep, and my husband was out for the evening. If there had been another human awake with me in the house, I hope they would've been able to extricate me from this mess before things got worse.

Two hours later, I found myself stuck with this:

This is the point where it stopped being funny. This is also the point where I stopped taking pictures.

Long story short (too late, I know), I got the yarn down to about 3 knots that were determined to be permanent. Another encounter with the scissors, and a few (very, very careful) winding sessions later, and I had an un-twisty, un-tangly (if slightly shorter) ball of yarn.

In retrospect, I don't really think it was worth the effort. If I ever think about doing something like this again, somebody smack me, okay?

Just for a little variety

2007-04-28T20:44:00.000-04:00

Here is some of the spinning I've been doing. I'm not progressing all that quickly, simply because I need to lock myself away in a room away from cats and children in order to spin. The opportunity just doesn't arise that often.

These are some mystery fibres that I acquired at the end of my spinning classes in December. The oatmeal-coloured one was very wispy, with and it had a bit of darker, coarse hairs running through it. I have no idea what it is, but it was nice to spin.

The purple/green was actually just a bunch of dyed locks that I flick-carded and spun, mostly just to experiment with blending colours.

This is the espresso Shetland wool that I got for Christmas. I have spun two bobbins full like the one above, and I still have this much to go:

Yeah, I know it's a crappy picture and it's hard to see. It's sitting on my knees. For those who don't know how big a spinning wheel is for reference, the ball is more-or-less soccer ball sized.

I wanted to see how my spinning was shaping, so I plied the two bobbins together and got this:

Oh it is really pretty. I'm going to have a lot of it by the time I'm done, too. Hours and hours of fun-this was the best gift ever.

still with the socks...

2007-04-26T17:25:00.000-04:00

I haven't gotten totally bored of them yet. I suppose that's a good thing, since I still have a fair bit of sock yarn (not to mention several patterns I want to try).

Several FO:

M. has been bugging me to knit him something with the leftover yarn from my husband's socks. I decided to whip off a pair of teensy wrist-warmers, because I wasn't sure I'd have enough for socks.

My sister's socks became my mom's socks, because they fit her and so I worried they'd be too roomy on my sis. Plus I don't think I could've gotten them off my mom once she tried them on.

Forgive the carpet. It's my grandma's, so I think it gets a pass.

Then of course, M. wanted to know where his socks were, and I definitely had enough of this yarn left over.

And since my sister still had no birthday socks, I cast on these:

Lang Jawoll cotton jacquard in a mock cable pattern. Simple enough to work on anywhere, anytime. Fancy enough that I don't die from boredom.

And I know the stripes don't match. Believe me, I know. The twitch in my eye is just starting to go away.

Last but not least, I finished the boyfriend socks for me:

I made them pretty short more or less on purpose. If I'd done another cable pattern repeat, they would have been tall enough to reach past my bizarrely muscular calves, and I would've had to work an increase in there, and it was after easter dinner and frankly I was too stuffed and lazy to bother. It also leaves me with a bit more blue for a...something small and blue. Hmm.

...and here are all the pictures

2007-04-01T20:25:00.000-04:00

Lana Grossa Meilenweit cotton. Note the slightly crappy short-row heel. I find my gauge on this yarn is a little loose, but the resulting socks are coming out very very soft.

Fleece Artist merino socks. Pardon my stash in the background.

I did the afterthought heel on these ones. Nice finished look, but I'm not sure it's worth the trouble of getting the heel stitches on the needles.

Now these are my socks-to-be:

This is Lang Jawoll cotton. These will be for my mom, so they are going to be the plainest socks ever. She has issues with tightness, scratchiness, texture, etc. It's going to be pretty boring. She's lucky I love her.

Koigu KPPPM. I have no pattern ideas for this one. I'm waiting for it to tell me what it wants to be.

Fleece artist Sea Wool (in Cosmic Dawn, I think). Yes, it really is that shiny. I think this wants to be Pomatomus, don't you?

Update- no pictures

2007-03-31T18:51:00.000-04:00

We spent the day at "Maple Madness" with the kids, so I am entirely too tired and lazy to get up and get my camera, and my knitting, and find a cat-and-child-free space to take pictures. You're just going to have to take my word for it that I'm progressing.

My boyfriend socks are nearing the end, I think. I did the heels (afterthought heels, which I loved the first time I did them on my husband's socks, but this time it seemed unnecessarily fiddly) and I'm now just knitting up the leg, I guess until I'm out of yarn. I have discovered the one drawback to toe-up socks though, at least for me: I can see that I am going to do a lot of coaxing to get myself to knit these up to the appropriate height. I'm so tempted to just cast off now and turn them into ankle socks, but I know I'd be disappointed later.

My sister's socks, which are top-down, are also just past the heel. I decided to try a short-row heel on those, and I do believe I'm a convert. I like the evenness and roundness of them, and there is no fiddly picking up of held stitches. And no flaps. I'm very not fond of flaps for some reason.

I have already started planning for my next socks- since I've decided to join the Slow-Poke Socks KAL, I am going to have to start thinking ahead. And I realise now that if I'm actually going to talk about future socks, I should put in pictures of the damn yarn. So I'll have to save that for a less lazy day.

Socks!

2007-03-19T10:03:00.001-04:00

If someone had ever told me that I would derive such pleasure from socks, and that I would dedicate significant chunks of my life to talking, writing and thinking about socks, I would've thought they were nuts. Gosh, I can only imagine what you all think of me.

Well, no matter- I have finished socks!

First, this pair has actually been finished since the beginning of this year. I just haven't gotten around to taking pictures until now. They are the Fleece Artist soft sock/mitt kit (blue-face/mohair).

I have no idea why they look like they are two completely different colours.

Next, I have the socks I made for my husband, out of Lana Grossa Meilenweit. The pattern is Thuja from knitty.com, except I knit them toe-up.

Here is a decidedly cuter picture of the socks.

These are my half (okay, maybe 1/3) finished socks, just for meeeee! I'm using the boyfriend socks pattern, and Fleece Artist again, just the standard merino socks. Yum!

Finally, I just cast on another pair last night, more Lana Grossa, but the cotton blend. These are going to be for my sister, for her birthday (I'm quite sure she doesn't even know I have a blog, so I'm probably safe to post that).

I also have 3 pairs-worth of sock yarn all wound into balls, waiting to be knit up as soon as I decide on the patterns. I have sock fever, and the only prescription is more cowb...err, socks.

Toes!

2007-03-01T10:39:00.000-05:00

My toe-up fleece artist socks are making me giddy. I'm making very slow progress, simply because I can't help but stop to admire them every row. I'll get over it eventually...I hope.

I used the Magic Cast-On from Knitty.com. It is perfect and flawless, and I have beautiful, seamless toes. Even the insides are pretty.

I'm sick, I know. But I'll have the nicest socks in the asylum, I'll tell you right now...

FO alert!

2007-02-26T16:53:00.000-05:00

I've completed the rumple scarf, and I'm very pleased with it. It's not going to be practical as a winter scarf, so now I can't wait for spring.

It's about 5 feet long, and I used up every last scrap possible of the silk. I have a small hunk of the mohair left for some reason. I'm not sure what to do with it. It's way too small to make anything useful.

WIPs!

2007-02-24T12:17:00.000-05:00

More of them than I usually have at once. Four of them, which may be insignificant for some, but i tend to be fairly single-minded, so I'm finding this pretty cool. The truly remarkable thing is that they are all actually in progress, all at once. Shocking, no?

First is my Hourglass sweater in Malabrigo. I did end up frogging the sleeves, after I washed and measured them and used them as swatches (see, it wasn't a total waste). Then I started on the body instead of the sleeves, because I have a really hard time ripping out something and then re-knitting the exact same thing immediately. It makes no difference in the long run, but it seems to help psychologically.

Here's the finished body (up to where you do the raglan shaping):

And the sleeves in progress now:

I not only started with a lot fewer stitches than before, but I am not doing the full belled sleeve. I'm only doing one decrease between the wrist and arm sections. I think that the cushy thickness of the finished material makes the bells much clunkier than is really practical.

The rumple scarf is still on needles. It's taking it's time, because, well, it's a scarf, and it's mostly my take-along project because it is brainless and can be put down anywhere. And thus it gets put down a lot. But I think it is almost done. I will say, I got a heck of a lot of yardage out of this kit:

Pretty no? Only one tiny issue. About it being 'brainless'- sometimes that leads to the most brainless mistakes.

I must've knit two plain rows instead of alternating with the YO row at this point. I didn't even notice until I had knit a good 5 inches past this point. So frogging it was completely out of the question. The good thing is that it seems to be landing itself smack in the middle of the scarf (or close enough anyway). So I may actually be able to pass it off as a creative design alteration, rather than a flaw. Yay creativity!

The cashmere/silk is making it's way into a lovely Diamond Fantasy shawl/scarf. I love the way the colours are lining up, I love the look of it, the feel of it, it's absolutely luscious. The only issue I'm having is that the yarn feels really really fragile, like if I pull it too hard it will just snap. Because of this, it's all coming out a little loose, and progress is really slow because I'm terrified of making a mistake, and I don't think the yarn would hold up very well to frogging.

But man is it lovely, even if it wouldn't stay flat for the photo:

Last thing I'm working on at the moment is a pair of socks for dh. I'm using a ball of Lana Grossa that I won as a door prize at my LYS holiday party. I've never been particularly drawn to these kinds of sock yarns (the 75/25 wool/acrylic blends) because they always seem terribly scratchy when they're wound into a ball*. But dh is less picky than I am, and as I'm knitting them up, I'm finding the scratchiness quite tolerable, and the finished fabric is really nice. I'm also using my new knitpicks circulars on these (not the options, since they don't come in 2 and 2.5mm sizes) and I'm smitten. The metal needles aren't bugging me as much as they have in the past- probably because they are so slidy- and the cord is amazingly flexible. These would be fantastic for magic loop.

I'm doing these toe-up, two at once, which I think is going to be my technique of choice for socks for a while. Avoids second sock syndrome, and all that counting of rows, and there's less yarn waste. And because I bought the knitpicks needles instead of getting bamboos or addis at my LYS, I got 4 sets of needles (two of each size) for the cost of maybe 2 bamboo sets, or one and a quarter addis. Wheee!

*(I tried to explain this to dh last night, but unfortunately my choice of words was "scratchy in the balls" and we were too hysterical to form a complete sentence for a good hour after that, because we are both 12)

I love bell sleeves...

2007-01-23T08:45:00.000-05:00

I really do love them. But for some reason, I can't stop obsessing over the fact that these sleeves are going to be too belled.

I'm really playing with fire with this hourglass sweater.

Firstly, I didn't actually swatch (I know, I know, don't hurt me). I realised that for my swatch to be at all accurate, I'd have to knit it in the round, and therefore I'd have to have enough stitches that I could get an accurate gauge on half the stitches. Since the sleeves are worked in the round anyway, I had a brilliant idea. The sleeves can be my swatch! That way, if I get gauge right away, I won't have wasted all that time knitting a swatch. Besides, I had already started the body of the sweater on 5mm needles and determined that it was way, way too big, so I had a good starting point with 4.5mm.

After knitting the up to the hem for the sleeves- Oh yes, sleeves. I knit them both at once, so that I can avoid obsessive row counting and still have sleeves the same length. Again, this seemed like a brilliant idea, but perhaps not so much when combined with the "sleeves as swatch" idea, since it's much harder to just scrap-and-start-over two sleeves, rather than one. Which is how I managed to get this far before questioning my progress.

So as I was saying, I knit up to the hems on 4.5mm, and measured my gauge. It was about 16sts/inch, still a little big (I'm going for 19), but I was not concerned. I knit the hems up (provisional cast on, then k2tog the hem and sleeve stitches to avoid sewing later) then switched to my 4.25 needles for the rest of the sleeves. After several rows, I checked again. About 21 sts/inch. Well, that's actually smaller, but since it's already looking a little big, I'm okay with that. In fact, to prevent the extreme belled-ness of the sleeves from translating all the way up the arm, I've actually knit 2 extra decrease rows already. I'm pretty much trying to get the sleeves to the small sized measurements (from the medium which is what I cast on).

Goodness, if anyone is still following this, good for you. I'm totally lost.

The second thing that is vaguely concerning me is the colour difference. It's a double edged sword with Malabrigo. I love the variation, it's gorgeous, and subtle, and makes a much more interesting knit than a super consistent colour (at least for plain stockinette stitch). But doing both sleeves at once (hence two balls) makes it difficult to alternate balls to prevent pooling of a lighter or darker skein- since that would require four balls at once. I think I'd go mad(der). This has left me with two gorgeous sleeves of slightly different colours. I'm okay with this, I think.

Of course, the fact that I'm posting this all is a sign that I have not completely resigned myself to continuing.

I may need to switch projects for a while, to keep myself from progressing on the hourglass if I am going to eventually frog it. I can't believe I just typed that.

Happy New Yarn- er- Year!

2007-01-13T22:13:00.000-05:00

All I wanted for the holidays was yarn, or money with which to acquire yarn, or roving which I could spin into yarn. Santa (and my relations) were all extremely good to me in this respect.

My darling husband bought me two gorgeous balls/lumps/pillows of roving. A 100% shetland in 'espresso', a very very dark brown, and a 70% shetland, 30% alpaca in 'oatmeal'. I never realised just how much I loved the natural colours of fibres. I could just sit and stare at it all day. I spend an inordinate amount of time over the holidays just squishing it.

Of course, colours not always found in nature are also quite appealing. So with some of my festive funds, I purchased some merino/silk roving too. I was almost swayed by the alpaca/silk as well, with beautifully contrasting colours (Think darkest brown alpaca streaked with copper-coloured silk. Black streaked with nearly iridescent red. Caramel streaked with gold. Now wipe the drool off your chin). Alas, at $10/oz, it was well beyond my reasonable budget. But don't get me wrong, the merino/silk is very nice. Don't you think?

But my real holiday treat was the boxing day sale at 'Lettuce Knit' in Toronto. 30% off. It may not sound like a lot, but it was apparently all that was standing between me and a whole buttload of Fleece Artist/Handmaiden yarn.

Merino socks- haven't decided on a pattern yet. I just want to swim in it.

Silk Rumple and Angel Hair (mohair/nylon). Part-way towards becoming a beautiful bias lacy scarf.

Cashmere/Silk, in (I think) the Paris colourway. Hopefully this will be a Diamond fantasy shawl by spring.

I also have a pair of Mohair/Blue-Faced Leicester fuzzy socks, but I don't have a picture yet. They've been spending too much time on my feet.

And quite a few months ago, I bought 6 skeins of Malabrigo in Azul Profundo. I was going to use it to make tubey, but after casting it on I became apprehensive that the pattern was not going to work for me. Fit issues. I now expect it to become an Hourglass sweater. I'm not particularly rushing on this one, since I won't likely get much wear out of it until next fall.

Pictures of that yarn to come, for those of you who like that sort of thing.

A Few More FOs

2007-01-13T21:49:00.000-05:00

Before I get too far into the new year, I have to update on my last few FOs of 2006. I would like to add that I finished ALL of my gifts well before the 24th, thank you very much. I am very proud of myself.

This is the scarf from the hand spun wool that was roving that belonged to my grandmother-in-law (follow that?). I re-dyed it, because I found the bright green to be a bit garish for granddad. The colour looked a lot nicer in person than it does in the picture.

A felted bowl, made from a skein of Noro, for my mom. She's using it to keep my grandma's glasses in, so she can find them easily. I love making useful things.

In other FO news, I finally (finally!) finished the broadripple socks that I started...ooh, when was it? When my youngest was about 3 months old? Yeah, he'll be two this month. That was pathetic. And while they are lovely socks, I am so sick of working on them that I didn't even want to keep them for myself. Luckily, I have a beautiful friend whose birthday is this month, and she has small feet like mine. Also, she's allergic to wool, and since these socks are made from cascade fixation, it's all good. They are currently en route to her in Germany. In my haste to send them off, I forgot to take a picture of the pair. Well, go back to my first blog posts, there's a picture there of one of them, almost finished. The other one? Looks just like it. You'll have to imagine the toe though.

I will also update that everyone loved their knitted gifts. They all think I am incredibly talented and creative. Well maybe I am.

spin, span, spun

2006-12-09T20:32:00.000-05:00

I'm not abandoning my knitting. I'm really not.

I am, however, having a torrid affair with a man named Ashford.

He's lovely, isn't he?

The big hunk of fleece is what I'm currently spinning. But here's a little photo journal of my progress so far.

This was the end of my first day of spinning:

Pretty good, but we were given some really nice tops to spin, so that helped.

This is the same white wool, and some grey wool too, plied and washed:

The grey was a lot coarser. And a lot harder to spin. It shows.

After my second class, when the instructor checked over my wheel and pronounced it fit to spin, I found some roving in a box with all my bobbins and other spinning accessories. The wheel and the roving used to belong to my husband's grandmother. The roving must have been at least 5, maybe 10 years old, but it spun up quite nicely (despite my questionable skill). I dyed it with blue and green Kool-Aid, and I'm planning on knitting a scarf for my husband's granddad out of it.

It's not quite as bright as the picture shows:

Class #2 homework- beautiful, but very sticky, grey coopworth. Spun, plied and washed (actually a little over-spun, over-plied, and still wet):

Today was the day we got to spin alpaca. It was baby blue, and looked just like cotton candy. She didn't give us much:

The colour is not quite true. And that is a quarter beside it, for reference. It's a really tiny ball.

Lastly, this is my homework for today (class #3 of 4). This is what I've spun off the big white puffball in the first picture:

I think I'm improving. I think I'm in love.

FFO!

2006-12-02T18:31:00.000-05:00

I'll leave the extra 'F' up to your imagination.

This is it. This is all my holiday knitting, with the exception of a hat for my husband (which has been a nightmare involving the brioche stitch and earflaps- don't ask).

First, a bag for my dad. This was the first present I knit, in June, I think. I still haven't felted it yet.

These are a pair of knucks for my brother. They were fun to knit. I have plans to make several more pairs- um, eventually.

These are mittens for my brother-in-law. His hands are not, to my knowledge, two different sizes. I have no excuse for why the mittens are. I'm fully prepared to rip one back and make it smaller if I need to, but I'm sort of hoping he won't notice.

A wine cozy for my father-in-law. He likes wine. Maybe this was a bit of a cop-out. My husband got him a $60 flag from his university, so that should make up for it.

The only person not getting a knitted gift from me is my mom. I was going to make some felted mobius bowls, but I didn't get my book back in time. Instead, she is getting a record by Jonathan and Darlene Edwards. Yes, an actual vinyl record. Very retro.

My kids are not getting knitted gifts because they grow too damn fast and like to paint and play in mud puddles. They are getting toys. I don't think they'll be too disappointed.

A real sense of accomplishment

2006-11-20T17:45:00.000-05:00

Just pretend this is artfully draped over my shoulders, and not over my computer chair.

A close up:

It really does speak for itself, doesn't it?

Icar-ish

2006-11-19T09:20:00.001-05:00

Sometime this summer I decided to knit all my x-mas gifts for my family this year. I thought it would be fun to do a lace weight shawl for my MIL, both because she is probably the only person I know who would wear one, and because I had just finished a worsted weight lace project, and I wanted to try the real thing.

Sometime in June, I picked up some Misti Alpaca and the pattern for the Icarus shawl from Interweave Knits (many thanks to the woman at Lettuce Knit who set me up). I know that it was June, because I took this picture on June 19th, to show off a few days (weeks? I can't remember) of progress:

Now here we are, exactly 5 months after that picture was taken, and we have this:

I am fantastically proud of myself. Now I just need to find a place to block it that is safe from children and cats. Ummm, yeah.

Oh, in case you can't tell, that is not a full-sized Icarus. I skipped a couple repeats of the rather tedious first chart. I think my MIL would get more use out of it as shawlette (shawlini?), plus it meant she would actually get it for x-mas. Bonus.

I'm lazy.

2006-11-17T19:37:00.000-05:00

That's the best excuse I have, seriously. At least, I'm a lazy blogger. It's not like I haven't been fairly productive in the last few months. But apparently it takes too much effort to write about it. Or take pictures of it. Actually, the problem with the latter may actually be finding space to photograph my knitting. I used to lay things out on my computer desk, but my HCD (horizontal clutter disorder) has gotten seriously out of control. Maybe I need to start arranging my knitting outside in flower bushes or something, like the Yarn Harlot. Speaking of, guess who I met last week. Well, no, don't guess, I just told you. I am even in the group photo of her Kingston post. And she showed me how to un-screw-up my shawl (note to self, knitting while laughing hysterically and trying not to cough up a lung do not mix). And part of the reason I am updating now is because I told her I would email her a link to my blog, and I'm embarrassed to do so without having at least semi-recent posts in it.

I still haven't taken recent pictures of my knitting. For my own accountability, here is a list of FO which I must photograph and then post. If I make a separate post for each object, maybe it'll actually start looking like I post on this blog after all.

Winecozy for my FIL. It needs to be embellished but I'm stuck for ideas, so maybe once I post it someone will comment and tell me what to do.
Mittens for my BIL. Probably too long, but better than being too short.
Moebius sling bag for my dad, though it still needs to be felted.

Also, I need to post a picture of my Icarus shawl as it is now. It is really very close to being finished. I think it deserves a post all its own.

I have two more projects after the shawl and then I am more or less done my x-mas presents. I still haven't decided on a hat pattern for my husband, but since that is neither a surprise nor something he desperately needs at the moment, it is probably going to be a very late x-mas gift. Or a very early next x-mas gift. It's good to plan ahead.

June???

2006-10-07T23:17:00.000-04:00

Suffice it to say, I am a woefully negligent blogger. I will take my lashings.

My main stumbling block to posting updates has been, believe it or not, that I am too damn lazy to take pictures of all my WIPs and FOs. Yes, I said FOs. I have at least 3 of them since I last posted. I'm currently working on my x-mas knitting list. I am actually making steady progress, which is thrilling for me. I also bought myself a new knitting bag. It's big and corduroy *drool* and it fits several projects as well as most of my important notions. And a book, and a snack, and anything I might decide to buy on my way home.

So soon, I promise, there will be pictures of my new projects. Er, but not for at least a week, because I just remembered I'm going out of town tomorrow. Happy Thanksgiving!

Meet Casey and Finnegan

2006-06-06T09:19:00.000-04:00

Mr. Dressup would be happy, I think.

They are absolutely wonderful. They're adjusting well to the house, the kids, everything.

They even snuggle up together to sleep, either in their own bed/scratching post:

or, in an alternative location (I don't blame them, that pillow is damn cozy):

And yes, I realise that my knitting blog has transformed into a kitty blog. I don't care. I'll get back to the yarn- eventually.

Kitty Love!

2006-06-03T18:28:00.000-04:00

We are getting kittens on Monday. Two ones! (as M would say). They are not actually siblings, but they are the same age (14 weeks), and have been together for a while.

We had hoped we could bring them home today, but the manager of the store wasn't there to complete the adoption papers (we're adopting from the Humane Society, via PetValu).

These poor kitties do not have names. Dh and I are completely stuck. Maybe you all can give us ideas. We like mythological names, or literary names, or maybe historical/philisophical names. We want names that go together to some degree.

Now for a little inspiration:

This is the first one, the boy, who is an absolute doll, very laid back, purrs like a motor boat. He is very hairy, his body is mostly black with a few tan rosettes, and fairly big for a kitten. He looks terribly surly in this picture, but I guarantee you, that is an act.

The second one, a girl, white with black patches and stunning gold eyes (the picture doesn't really do them justice). She's a little more timid, but cuddly, and she's teeny (at least compared to the boy). She perched herself on my shoulder for a while. She had a minor freak out when someone brought his huge white dog into the store (I mean absolutely massive, like a small polar bear). And then she ran away from me for a bit. I caught her again, so it's all good. She is going to be an adventure I think.

Holy hell, those pictures are huge. Ah well.

Olympic Gold!

2006-02-28T15:21:00.000-05:00

I finished my mobeius pretty early. If I'd had enough yarn leftover to make the wristwarmers, I think I would've had a bit more of a challenge. But I am absolutely happy with the result (modelled below by my 3 year old son).

I'm still in love with that colour. I need to find an excuse to use up the 2 metres or so that I have left.

I want to thank Yarn Harlot for instigating this incredible event. I want to do it again. Though I probably wouldn't be so eager if I'd just knit an entire fair isle sweater, or a 6 foot shawl ;)

Oh my, Mobeii

2006-02-09T15:18:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure that's a word. But hell, that's never stopped me before.

I finished my practice mobius yesterday. I decided that I needed to be totally familiar with the basic concept before I attempted my olympic pattern.

I think it went quite well, especially considering the longest circular I could find was 30" (I have a very limited choice, particularly for bamboo needles, in this town).

I used up the half ball of andean silk in lettuce from my hoodie. Right now, it's basically a plaything for my 3 year old. But if he ever gives it back, I may try to felt it into a headband.

I started knitting in plain stockinette, and realised quickly that in mobius knitting that results in a strip that is split horizontally through the middle, with half being the RS and half being the WS. It was actually a pretty neat effect, so after about 5 rows, I turned my needles the other way, so I k the ps and p the ks, and got a cool striped/rib effect. You can see it better in this picture.

I'm still trying to get my hands on a copy of Cat's book (again, stupid small-town-no-book-nor-bamboo-needle-having-crap), and I'll probably have to wait until I go to Toronto next and pick it up at Village Yarns (which was where I saw it the first time, and now I'm cursing myself for not buying it right then).

Olympics start tomorrow. I will be tracking my progress on the Sybermom Yarn Whores knitting blog. Good luck everyone.

Knitting Olympics Hopeful

2006-02-05T22:25:00.000-05:00

My friend and fellow blogger Lisa are heading up a team of Sybermoms
to participate in the 2006 Knitting Olympics (Do you think I could squeeze any more hyperlinks into that sentence?) We've set up a team blog and everything (Whoops, there's one more.)

I am going to attempt a moebius cowl (I'd link to that, but it's a pdf and every time I try to open acrobat my computer flips out) from Cat Bordhi's site. I've knit moebius bands before, but that was over a year ago, and using a different technique. Still, I thought I was actually being a little generous planning to knit only a cowl in 16 days (mind, I have two young children, so not that generous). I've been playing with her cast on method for, oh, an hour or so, and now I'm thinking I'll be lucky to get the cast on figured out before the Olympics are over.

I love a challenge...

What's three months between friends?

2006-01-29T20:32:00.000-05:00

Hey there. I'm Divy. I have a knitting blog. No, really.

*sigh*

Well, it was a very long, tiring holiday season, and that is my only excuse for not updating. I had two baby birthday parties, so I'm now the mom of a 1 and 3 year old, which kind of boggles my mind.

But it's not like I didn't get anything done. I did finish my hoodie. So long ago, in fact, that it's already starting to pill and look lovely-worn.

And, well, that's pretty much all I've accomplished until today. No, wait, that's not true. I made two "Miss Dashwood" hats with beautiful cashmerino in a deep red colour. I am absolutely in love with that yarn. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of either hat before I gave them to their respective babies. One baby lives down the street from me, so I may be able to sneak a picture soon, if the little darling doesn't outgrow it.

So where was I? Oh yes, today. Today was the day of totally accidental craftiness. I finally hauled out my sewing machine, hoping to hem a couple of pairs of cords. Then, I realised my cords were all in the washer. Since hemming wet corduroy didn't sound like much of a laugh, I decided to sew up a bag for my yoga mat.

What? Yes, I said sew. What, a girl can't be multi-craftalented?

I was totally intending to knit one. I got Stitch 'N' Bitch Nation out of the library and everything. Then last week, before my yoga class, I was looking for a short-term carrying solution, and I found this gorgeous silk scarf that my mom had given me a few years ago. It had belonged to my grandpa, who was a bandleader, and owned some pretty funky and flamboyant clothes. It was already stitched into a tube, and it fit my mat pretty much perfectly. So I did a little hemming, put in a ribbon for a drawstring, sewed a circle on the bottom, added a strap, made of another wayward scarf, and I made a yoga mat bag. Yay me! I even had enough left to make myself an eye pillow (with lavender, yum).

I think I might like sewing now. Something about the nearly-instant gratification. Though it certainly isn't as relaxing as knitting. Or yoga. Or baking. Mmmm, I have to go stuff myself with chocolate-cherry-almond rugelach now.

I gave up knitting in favour of reading

2005-10-12T15:47:00.000-04:00

Okay, not exactly. I've joined a bookclub, and last month's book was a wonderfully engaging (but very long) read. Once I finished I got right back to the knitting though, and I have made decent progress on my hoodie. I just have to knit the hood and sew the whole thing together. Wheeee.

Here is the front

and the back and sleeves

I am using andean silk from knitpicks, in sangria, navy and lettuce.

Halfway There

2005-07-04T14:56:00.000-04:00

I've halfway finished my "Good Bias" shrug. I'm taking a break now, so I can work on my hoodie.

Here is the first sleeve-

That's really it. Sorry. I never claimed to be interesting either.

neglectful blogger

2005-07-02T20:25:00.000-04:00

i couldn't let a whole month go by without posting something. i'm typing one handed (baby in arms), which explains the lack of caps and such.

broadripple is at a standstill. too fiddly, plus aluminum needles make my hands ache.

i have about 45 rows left on the lace shrug. the first arm, that is. when i finish it, i think i'm going to give that project a break. i need to start working on my hoodie (which uses the same needle)- the yarn has been staring at me longingly making puppydog eyes-well, you know what i mean, i feel guilty.

i feel like i'm breaking some unspoken rule about leaving projects by the wayside. but at this rate i'm spending more time putting off/obsessing about/bitching about the stuff i'm bored with than knitting the stuff i like. call it short attention span, or severe over analysis. i've never claimed to be normal.

speaking of breaking rules- i went to my lys "buy-the-bag" sale, and bought 10 skeins of Eden Bamboo in mocha for 20% off- and i have no idea what to make with it. i'm a little panicked, actually. $60 and no plan??? what was i thinking???

yes, i obsess a tad. i'm backing away slowly. when i get back to this plane i'll drop another line.

Penguin Love

2005-06-03T23:03:00.000-04:00

Now I have two.

Have you felted your penguin today?

2005-06-02T13:21:00.000-04:00

I have. Yes, that is correct grammar. Look:

Either my knitting was too loose, or my yarn was to fine, but he had a bunch of holes where the stuffing showed through. It was making me crazy, so my son and I gave him a bath (after I carefully unstuffed him). Pinguino (thanks Dora) is recovering nicely.

For the second penguin I'm making (for the baby), I'm going to use 4.5mm instead of 4mm needles and felt him down even more. I'm loving the felted look (plus it means I can use my bamboo dpns instead of the monstrous aluminum straights).

It's a penguin

2005-06-01T12:35:00.000-04:00

I got my order from knitpicks yesterday-

On the left is the merino style in butternut (top), cinnamon, nutmeg, storm and fog. On the right, the andean silk (which will be for "Under the Hoodie" from SnB) in sangria, lettuce, and navy.

My 2.5 year old (that's his hand on the right edge of the picture) quickly adopted the merino style, carting it around on his trike, and hugging it like it was his firstborn child. I wrestled it from him, with the promise of making him a penguin with it. And so I spend the better part of yesterday knitting, and this morning finishing, this:

He requested a brown one specifically. He gets that from his dad.

Quiz Madness!

2005-05-31T21:38:00.000-04:00

This post is brought to you by the letter V and the colour blue ;)

You're a young knitter, just starting out. Welcome
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and grab a latte- it takes a while to finish a
project but it's well worth it.

Are you a knitter?
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You appear to be a Knitting Guru. You love knitting
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is the plan, you still love the process, and
can't imagine a day going by without giving
some time to your yarn. Packing for vacation
involves leaving ample space for the stash and
supplies. It can be hard to tell where the yarn
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What Kind of Knitter Are You?
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You are Dishcloth Cotton.
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What color of sock yarn do you prefer?
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the never ending i-coooord

2005-05-29T00:18:00.000-04:00

aaooaah aaooaah aaooaah

Now that you're all damning me to hell for that earworm (and if you're not, where the hell were you in the early 80s?) I have finished my booga, and I realised too late that the bag itself only takes 2 skeins, and that the third skein is to be devoted entirely to the i-cord. Well, I suppose that the idea was to have some left over. I hate leftovers. Some people hang on to them until they have enough to make a larger, multicoloured project. I could never stay organised long enough to accumulate that much noro. The little ball of noro from a sophie bag I made a year ago has just now finally been finished up (making, of all things, an i-cord for my son to play with). So as I was saying, I felt an overwhelming pressure to finish up the last skein of noro, no matter what. Once the requisite amount of i-cord was finished (5-6 feet according to the pattern), I decided to add a pocket to the inside of the bag. Actually, I added two- a medium-large pocket that will fit my wallet, and sunglasses, or other crap that tends to fall to the bottom whenever I seem to need it, and a tiny key pocket, complete with a little key loop (yet another i-cord with a snap sewn in). And there was still yarn left. Oh bother. So it was back to the strap. And I i-corded myself to death until I had about 10 feet of strap.

After all that silliness, and after felting and completing the darn thing, I think the strap is just about perfect. I can carry it with the strap crossed over my back and still reach the contents, or hanging off one shoulder and it'll just dangle at hip height. Or, if I'm carrying my full half-litre Nalgene bottle, I could swing it around and it'd make a nifty weapon. Just kidding. Sort of.

Here it is unfelted, you can see the little key pocket and loop in there:

Here is an inside view of the felted purse- oooh, pockets:

And the finished purse. I really do love it:

WIPs

2005-05-17T15:58:00.000-04:00

Or should it be WsIP? Meh.
NAK and TOH today, so I can't be wordy, but I have a few pictures of my progress.

First, Booga bag, about 2/3 done. I am currently thinking about adding pockets when it's done, since it looks like I'll have extra yarn.

Second, the lace shrug from Interweave. I'm going back and forth between loving it and being insanely frustrated. But it's going to be gorgeous.

And a close up- because the lace is purty and I'm proud of myself.

I am mid-heel into my second BroadRipple sock. Damn aluminum needles are holding me back. I won't post a picture until they're done (as incentive, or...something?)

Mmmm...yarn

2005-04-29T22:56:00.000-04:00

So I decided I needed a booga bag. Really, I just need a basic tote, but I also needed a good excuse to buy some Noro. So hey, booga bag kills two birds with one skein- er- stone.

And my LYS still has some mission falls cotton, and I found a shrug pattern for it (and I have been looking for a nice shrug pattern for ages)- this one is from the spring 2005 Interweave Knits. Yeah yeah, crappy picture...

It's lace knitting, using a chart. I think this will be my "challenge" project for the next little while. Because I really could use a challenge. /sarcasm

But really, isn't this yarn gorgeous?

Suddenly

2005-04-23T17:22:00.000-04:00

I have a million ideas, and only one project. I'm really dragging my heels (no pun intended) on the broadripple socks because I hate the aluminum needles. I will look for bamboo next time I visit my parents (many many wonderful LYSs in their city), but until then, I have a million other decisions to make.

1. I want to make the lace shrug from the spring 2005 Interweave Knits. I already have 4 skeins of mission falls cotton with no project attached to them. I need to get 3 more, and hope they're the same dyelot.

2. I want to make myself a sweater for fall. I'm torn between the "Under the Hoodie" and the "Cowl" (from the Cowl and Howl set) in S'n'B. The hoodie would be more fun, I think, but the cowl would probably get more wear. But, the largest size for the cowl has a 37.5" bust, and I'm a 40 easy. It says the loose gauge results in a stretchy sweater, but just how stretchy? Hmm....

3. Once I decide on a pattern, I need to find the yarn. The hoodie calls for kid classic (not in my budget, not in my dreams)- and while I think I've found a decent replacement in Diamond Yarns Carioca, none of the colours at my LYS really inspire me. The cowl uses lamb's pride worsted, but pure wool makes me itch too much to wear a large garment, so I need a substitute in a blend- wool cotton, or cotton silk, or something else soft that will meet the gauge of the pattern.

And now I have a 15% discount at my LYS, so I feel the need to buy all the yarn I could possibly need for the next year or so at once. I'm sure that it will be more stress than it's worth.

Knitting is supposed to be fun. Someone needs to kick my ass and remind me of that.