WIP Wednesday

I'm on the ball this week - taking pictures and scheduling a blog post! Been working on a few different projects this week so thought I'd share what I've been up to.

On the weekend, I finally did the heel of this second sock and have been knitting the foot while watching tv or when I have a spare five minutes. Don't think they'll be done in time to share this Friday. Maybe next Friday.

Bampton Cowl. I did several pattern repeats of this the other night while trying to catch up on some podcasts (I think I have over 20 waiting for me!) Have 4 repeats to go. I also knit another inch of my Lifesavers cardigan but it doesn't look much different so no picture today.

My poor Mystery Knit-Along shawl. It's been set aside and forgotten. Deadline for a finished pic is Friday. Don't think I'll make it but hope to get a few more rows knit before then.

And I've been working on some Poppies. I really did miss seeing people wear Poppies in November while we lived in the States. Hope to make a few more this week for myself and family. I used this free pattern but switched the stitches to American sizes (used single, double and treble crochets instead of double, treble and double trebles).

What have you been up to?

And good luck to all my fellow NaNoWriMo'ers!

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WIP Wednesday - Gift-Making

On Monday, I made a list of everything I would like to make by the end of the year and...Yikes! I need to prioritize and finish up the things I have on the needles. I had some travel time this past week so I have a couple finishes for Friday and some good progress to share today.

The Side Squiggles sweater is just a couple inches away from needing sleeves.

Sock is ready for a heel.

My two older children have started to knit washcloths for gifts. My 10 year old son's washcloth is at the top of the picture. 14 year old daughter's is at the bottom. Both with mistakes but made with love and will be very appreciated.

Making some gift bags. Think I need to buy some ribbon for them this weekend. And then finish up some gifts to put in them.

And I couldn't resist some selfish knitting once I saw this new pattern this week. A great way to use up sock yarn leftovers.

And, it's the end of November and NaNoWriMo. I didn't finish this year. I don't think I wrote more than 3,000 words. The story was just too depressing and I couldn't handle writing it, right now. However, I did spend time this month learning about designing my own website and trying to convince myself I can do it. And I've been researching a project for 2017. Not sure yet if I'm going to do it or not, need to do more thinking and research.

What have you been working on this week?

WIP Wednesday - 2 Shawls and a Novel

Only a couple knits to share this week as I have mainly been working on two shawls. The last clue of  Jen's Mystery KAL was released yesterday. But Clue 3 and I didn't really get along last week, which caused me to frog some of the shawl and rework clue 2. 

Last Wednesday, I shared a picture of the shawl with leaf tips at the end of clue 2. Clue 3 involved picking up stitches on the wrong side of the shawl and making an "undershawl" beneath the leaves, so the leaves would be left loose. I tried a couple times and even after starting with the correct number of stitches, by the end of the first row of the first chart worked in Clue 3, my stitches were off. It got frustrating. I will pick up 300+ stitches only so many times before I give up and find another way. So I undid all 25 leaf tips. Lucky for me I had only wove in the ends of 5 of them so the first 20 were easy. The last five, I had to unpick the ends which caused the rows below them to begin to unravel, and well... I had to frog the shawl to the middle blue line you see above, between the two green sections. I reknit Clue 2, doing option 2 which didn't have leaf tips, but instead worked lace between the leaves. Originally, everyone was suppose to cast-off after clue 2 and pick up stitches for Clue 3, but I changed that. I added in some garter rows after clue 2 (the blue and green rows on top of the leaf  row), then did the last chart of Clue 3, which is the blue section on the needles. (sorry to any non-knitters who are totally confused right now).

A closer look at the leaves and garter rows.

Now I am onto the final clue. It's a bunch of garter rows before doing an I-cord bind off, which I've never done before. I admit, I kind of like my alterations compared to the original pattern so I'm not too upset that my shawl is different. There are over 500 stitches on the needles right now so it's hard to tell what it really looks like. Or how big it will be. Hope to have it off the needles by this weekend.

And last week, I got an email from my sister-in-law saying a shawl I had knit her got accidentally shrunk in the wash and asked if I could knit her a new one. I had the above yarn in my stash, which is the same brand as the old shawl, and cast on a Bradway shawl. Working with worsted weight yarn knits up so quickly. Loving the texture.

I made myself a wrist rest this weekend so I can write more at my desk instead of the couch.

And it's November, which means NaNoWriMo. I wasn't going to write a novel, since I had just finished writing one in August and have been trying to edit it. I looked through my notebook of novel ideas and nothing really jumped out at me. Then I looked at the ideas I had written down for the book series I had started with the novel "Lucy" written during Camp NaNoWriMo in 2012. And I started thinking I should have 2 books written and edited before trying to get the first published and so I made some notes about the second book and started writing yesterday morning. Wrote over 2,000 words while still in my pajamas. But, the novel is much darker than anything I have ever written before and I'm not sure I can keep that up for a month. It's kind of depressing to write. I'm thinking I might write the ending next so I know that my character has a happy ending, despite how crappy her life will be for most of the novel. We'll see. 

What have you been working on? Have you ever done NaNoWriMo? Or want to do it? It's not too late to start.

Sock Knitting, a Concert and some Editing

     This weekend I spent some time on the couch knitting. Some time at my desk editing. And a few hours at a concert. Overall, a pretty great few days.

    Friday evening I finished the first sock. I decided these are going to be a gift so I made them a little bigger than I would make for myself. Saturday morning I cast on the second sock.

     And here is the second sock compared to the first, this morning. I decided to try and make them match. It seems I'm not far from doing the heel. I haven't done this kind of heel in a while - I've been doing a short-row heel and this one is a heel flap and gusset. I looked in the sock knitting guide I used to teach myself and discovered that I have been picking up the gusset stitches wrong all these years. I won't say what I had been doing, but it wasn't right. I blame that on being a beginner and not really understanding what the book was trying to explain. And I was mainly going by the pictures. This time I read the actual steps and my picked up stitches look much better. 

     Saturday evening I took my daughter, Calliope, to her first real concert. We went and saw the amazing Ani DiFranco. It was my second time seeing her.  We had a great time and I'm so glad I bought the tickets (they were a Christmas present for Calliope). 

    And this month is Camp NaNoWriMo. I wasn't sure whether I was going to participate or not. Camp is not like the NaNoWriMo that takes place in November. For camp you can choose your own word count. You can write a script instead of a novel. Or short stories. Or even edit. I decided to edit. I have a terrible time editing so I am hoping the deadline of April 30th will keep me motivated. I cleared off the corner of my desk (again) and have been working away at the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo in 2014. The only editing I did on the first day was change the title of the novel but since then I have edited 3 chapters and added over 1,000 words. When I started the novel was just over 69,000 words. I am hoping by the end of the month the novel will be around 90,000 words. I'm going to be taking out/ reworking most of a subplot and I need to decide between one of two endings that I wrote for the novel. 

     And Floyd has been very supportive of my editing. He brought me a cup of tea this morning while I worked. What a good boy.

     My kids are home for Spring break this week so I'm not sure how much crafting will be done. My daughter wants me to teach her how to knit socks but that might be a summer project. 

How was your weekend? And what are your plans for this week?

What I Read in November

November was light on novels, and heavy with graphic novels at the end. I didn't want to read too much fiction since I was also working on NaNoWriMo...

... which I won by writing 50,000 words last month. I ended up with over 53,000 words before I had to stop. I killed off a character and now I'm not sure how to end it. Still thinking about it so I'll get back to it eventually, but probably not until next year. Here's what I read in November.

The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson

If you've read some of my past reading round-ups, you might have noticed I'm a big Jeanette Winterson fan. I first read 2 of her books for a 1st year University class and have loved her ever since. I own or have read almost all of her books. I think there's only about 4 or 5 I haven't read yet and I can't think of one that I haven't enjoyed. "The Gap of Time" is part of a series of novels by different authors, each retelling a Shakespeare play. Jeanette redid "Winter's Tale" and even though I've read the play before, the novel made me want to reread it. If you haven't read or seen the play, or it's been awhile since you had to read it for a university class (cough, cough) there is a quick summary of what happens in it.

I really enjoyed the book and highly recommend it. The characters are great. Jeanette did a wonderful job retelling the play but making it unique and sound like her. There's nothing I can really think of that people might find offensive, although I think there was some swearing, if that bothers you. You can read more about the novel here, which has a link about the Shakepeare series. And yeah, Atwood's doing one next year - The Tempest - which should be awesome.

Infinite in Between by Carolyn Mackler

I know why I read this. I wanted to read something that wouldn't influence my NaNoWriMo novel. This was definitely it. A young adult/ teen novel about several kids put together during Grade 9 orientation and how their lives change as they go through high school and meet back up at graduation. I'm not a young adult fan and this book didn't help. Is this really what teens want to read? Young adult has become such a big market (it seems that it is all literary agents are interested in seeing) but I don't understand it. If you like young adult novels, you'll probably enjoy this one. It deals with almost every teen issue - friendships (beginning and ending), sexuality/ homosexuality, dealing with parents, death of a loved one, school stress. You name it, it probably has it. Other than "Only Ever Yours", which I loved and still think about, I can't think of another young adult novel worth the genre hype. Know of some? Leave a comment below.

I'm still reading my way through the "Fables" graphic novel series. I'm half way through - 11 of 22 read - and have had to start reading a spin off that rejoins the series soon. I'm still enjoying this series and recommend it. For those who haven't heard of the series before, it's about the characters from fairytales/fables. Some live in our world. Some still live in their homelands. But they are immortal, so they've been around for a long time, although they stay the age they are in their stories. Here's the volumes I read this month. 

Fables: Wolves

Fables: Sons of Empire

Fables: The Good Prince (this one was really good)

Fables: War and Pieces (also very good as the Fables in our world fought the Adversary who had chased them out of their homelands). 

I have to take a Fables break while I read the Jack series. Jack's a bit of a rascal and there's a bit of sexy stuff, if that bothers you. We are letting our 13 year old daughter read it but warn her about it before she reads an issue and talk to her about it after, if she wants. It's an enjoyable series but I think I like the original Fables series better. My husband, who has read all the graphic novel before, says I need to read Jack as it's important to the Fables series.

Jack of Fables: The (Nearly) Great Escape

Jack of Fables: Jack of Hearts

So what have you been reading? Share in the comments below.

A Friday Finish : A Quilt

Last Christmas, my mother requested 3 holiday quilts for her bed and 2 guest beds by this Christmas. I finished the first one earlier this year, which you can see here. I finally finished the second one on Monday. 

This is the quilt that will go on their bed. I used a special ruler to cut the flying geese pieces so it went together easy. 

The black fabric has cardinals. The majority of the green fabric has holly. I used black thread to loosely go around each bird. Then used green thread on the green fabric and red thread on the red and did my go-to free-motion quilting. I had enough of the red fabric that I was able to use it for the binding as well.

The back. Some holiday fabric. Some that fit the colour scheme, plus some blue (their bedroom is blue).

I put it on our bed and it fits well. My mom didn't want it big enough to tuck in, more of an extra quilt  for the bed. It's gone through the washer and dryer now and has fluffed up nicely. Feels good to cross another item off my list.

I did more quilting yesterday and finished off 2 spools of thread.

And here's my NaNoWriMo update. I tried to get to 50,000 words by the end of Sunday. All the quilting I did interfered with my writing. I made it to 44, 375 words Sunday night, which is still pretty good. 

I persisted and Wednesday evening I passed the 50,000 word mark. This is definitely the fastest I have ever reached this milestone. The novel isn't finished yet so I am still trying to write everyday until it is complete. 

A Writing Wednesday Post

     As you can see from the picture above, my NaNoWriMo novel has been growing. I like staying above the curve. It really helped that I wrote around 7,000 words on the second day which gave me lots of wiggle room on my daily word count. I'm aiming for another 7,000 words today as I have challenged myself to finish on the 15th. I know that's crazy but I haven't written anything since last year's NaNoWriMo. I've been focused on editing this year and it's been really nice to just write. 

     How I feel about the novel changes every 100 words. Sometimes I think its good. Sometimes I think I should delete the whole thing. But I just keep writing. I can decide later whether it is any good. I admit that I deleted the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo 2013 because I didn't like it. It was a complete rewrite since I didn't want to save any of it. But it felt good to write then since I had my third child just 6 months before. Now, I want to write something that is good enough to edit. A first draft that is worth keeping. So I am keeping myself focused. Not reading much so my novel stays in my head. And I think about it a lot. I think I might even kill one of the main characters, which I've never done before. Although that might change if I get too attached him.

     And this year, I am loving the badges. There have been badges other years but for some reason I really need them to keep me going this time. I really pushed to get that 25,000 word badge this week. If I add to my word count every day of November I get that last calendar badge so even if I reach my crazy goal of 50,000 words by the 15th, I'll still keep writing but probably not as much. Just for a silly badge. It's weird how our brains work.

This guy has been enjoying a lot of PBS in the mornings so I can write. He's not complaining but he's never far away. If I write at my desk instead of the couch, he sits on my lap to watch tv. 

And to distract me from my writing, Jen's latest Mystery KAL shawl started today. I forced myself to write 2,000 words before I could cast on. I'd like to write another 5,000 words today so I might have to limit how much I can knit (although I cast on while waiting for pictures to download from the camera). If you're a knitter, you can find the pattern here. 

Socktober Results plus a new WIP

Socktober is finished and I think it was a great success for me this year.

Here are all the socks I knit last month. 2 complete pairs (at the top) which are Christmas gifts. Bottom row is the first finished Frankensock for me and the first finished Cusp sock and almost half of the second. 6 socks in a month is pretty good.

Wrapped up the socks with ribbon instead of stretching out the cuff. 

My mother gifted me some red yarn for Christmas last year to make a red scarf for charity. She had suggested the Red Scarf project in southern Ontario which brings awareness to AIDS. But I have also discovered that there is a Red Scarf Project in the States in support of Foster care. I think I'm going to send my scarf to the Foster Care one which means more to me - I have family that used to be Foster Parents and played with several foster kids growing up. I am doing the Wheat scarf by Tin can Knits which is a free pattern. Side note - I'm using straight for the first time in a long time and it feels really weird.

And I had no plans to do NaNoWriMo this year but when an idea came to me just before midnight, I decided to write. And write I did! Just over 10,000 words in 2 days! Trying to keep the momentum going but I'm a little concerned what's going to happen to all my gift knitting/ quilting if I spend this whole month writing. Time for my husband and kids to do some of the crafting this year? 

A Writing Wednesday post...

... because I've actually been writing.

     When I finished my NaNoWriMo novel at the end of November it had 50, 411 words. Skimming it last November, I had added and corrected some words but hadn't done any real editing. Last year was the first time I went into NaNoWriMo with a real plan, including a chapter outline. I didn't really look at the outline as I wrote but just writing it down before let my brain know where I saw the novel going. I finished the novel suddenly, and a few days early, because I decided to omit one major event I had planned for the novel. It no longer seemed to fit. Last week I reread the whole novel from beginning to end  - only took two days - and realized that the major event needed to be in it. I tried to figure out where exactly in the story it now fit and started writing new chapters. Since last Thursday I have added over 12,000 words to the novel. Several times I wrote over 3,000 words in one day. I know there will be some heavy editing needed for the chapters before the new chapters and especially the ones after, but the new material has me very excited to be working on this again. I was even going to give myself the day off from writing today but somehow I've already added another 700 words. I guess when I'm in the groove I better write!

My writing plans for 2015 are to focus on what I've already written and not start another novel until November. The first four months will be spent on editing/ rewriting last year's NaNoWriMo novel, tentatively titled "Stronger with Time". I don't like the title, so that will need to change, but it needed to be called something. When it gets to a point that I am happy with it or just so sick of it that I need another pair of eyes or two, I'll give it to some readers for feedback. And after receiving that feedback and revising again, I plan on sending it out to agents. I am going to be researching literary agents this spring and trying to find several that I think would be a good fit for me. I have thought about trying to be my own agent and submitting to publishers but I'm not sure if I'm ready to do that. 

Once I am done editing that novel, or need a break from it, I'm going to finish the rewrite of "Lucy" that I had started last year. I need to sit down with that work again and make some changes as something about it is not right, but I don't know what. And if there's time this year, I hope to finish writing my first NaNoWriMo novel from 2011. It currently has over 70,000 words and several chapters still need to be written. I'd like to finish it, as I still love it. Especially since writing it, is what convinced me that I am what I always said I wanted to be when I was growing up, a writer.

And when I need a break from writing/ editing novels? I plan to start sending out poetry to magazines/literary journals. I have always enjoyed writing poetry and it's a nice change from novel writing. I am currently going through old poems and deciding which ones might be good enough to publish after a little work. And of course, I'm enjoying The Little Poem Project that I publish on the blog every Saturday.

I have a good feeling about this year and am looking forward to all the joy and frustration my writing will bring me.

A Big Finish and Christmas Craft Update

On Sunday, just before supper, I finished my NaNoWriMo novel. It took a u-turn at the end from what I had planned.  I wrote over 5,000 words on Sunday and I am so happy to have it finished a week early. Gives me an extra week to make gifts for the holidays. It needs some serious edits and I thought I would wait until 2015 to start but I actually still like the novel and want to start editing right away. Yesterday, I made an 8 step-editing plan. First, I need to reread it and I'll start that today. 

Floyd helping me write on Sunday afternoon. He brought his trains to keep him company. He's very good at hitting the CAPS lock key and deleting text.

My latest Winner certificate at the bottom, hanging out with the rest.

And to keep it in context, my winner certificates hang on the side of my shelf so I see them when I change Floyd's diaper several times a day. Very inspiring.

Proud mom showing off the drawings the older kids have made for Floyd. My older son drew the dragon on the right and my daughter did the rest. Floyd loves them.

I plan on taking the next few days off from blogging and recharge but I should be back on Friday with some finishes. Above is the back of the Rebel Flock quilt which I finally started quilting. I'll probably set it aside to quilt the advent quilt since I need it done by Monday. Bought white thread this weekend so I'm ready.

And today I am dividing over 2,000 glow-in-the-dark perler beads to make something for the holidays. At first I was just going to make snowflake ornaments for my kids but now... I'm thinking everyone needs one. My brain really needs to decide what it is making for everyone. I don't think I can handle the mess I've created while trying to decide. And I'm still in the wonderful delusion stage where I think I can get it all done. Like the two sweaters I need to make my boys. Started one and wound the yarn for the other but they need to become my first priority. Trying to get as much done as I can this week because I know turning the calendar to December on Monday will be the reality check I need about holiday crafting. Or at least I hope it will be.

Off to craft. These beads won't divide themselves and I have another set of books waiting to be hollowed out.