What happened in April?

The blog was a little quiet last month. I'm kind of sorry, and kind of not. Life wasn't extra crazy and we weren't sick, but I put my focus towards something else for April. My writing. April is one of the Camp NaNoWriMo months. Writers can pick what they want to write and their word goal. You can write scripts, non-fiction, poetry. Or you can do what I did, which was edit. I gave myself the goal of editing and moving 60,000 words from a first draft into a second. I ended up having to rewrite several chapters so I probably ended up writing 30,000 words and editing 30,000. 

Yep, I did it. Finished just before 10 last night. I spent most of the weekend at my computer as I was about 11,000 words shy of my goal on Friday. A lot of new chapters, for the new ending, were written on Saturday and Sunday, and a lot of it wasn't very good. But now that the words are written down, I can edit them and make them better. In February, I started editing the first draft and I'd send a couple chapters a week to my sister-in-law to read. By the end of March I only had 11 of 30+ chapters done. It was taking too long and I'd lose momentum if I didn't edit everyday. So I signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo, hoping I'd finish and I did. And I'm pretty thrilled about finishing. Winning for editing feels a lot better than winning for writing 50,000 words in November. I'll be rereading the whole thing starting Wednesday and then I'll be sending it out to some Beta-readers next week. Kind of scary but necessary. May's focus? Catching up on all the knitting and quilting that was ignored in April and researching agents and publishers to send my manuscript too (that's super scary). First up - this blog post and then mending my husband's shorts that have been sitting beside my sewing machine for two weeks.

I finished crocheting this afghan in April. (Ignore my face, I was probably yelling at the 3 year old who was outside with us and getting into trouble.) I used all 9 skeins of yarn I had and then did 3 rounds in blue for a border. Yarn was some acrylic stuff from Michael's that is perfect for afghans. It should hold up really well. And after washing became surprisingly soft.

Feels great wrapped around shoulders.

Got to love how colorful it is.

Back inside the 3 year old and I made sure it was good for snuggling under. It passed. The afghan will be a Christmas gift this year.

Other things that happened in April? My daughter and I marched for Science.

I crocheted a ton of button flowers. There are 72 in this picture if you're looking for an exact number. Only have 12 left to make!

And I have been slowly knitting my Duvessa cowlette. The KAL for this ends on Thursday so I have some knitting to do.

I'm halfway done chart A. Still need to knit charts B and C. So I will be doing that today and tomorrow.

I have several pictures waiting to get posted that I hope to do this week and next. It would be nice to feel caught up (does that ever really happen though?).What have you been up to?

WIP Wednesday

Wow, I really fell off the blogging train at the end of last year, didn't I? Well, I'm not making any promises to be a better blogger this year. In fact, I'll probably be blogging less. I hope to continue with WIP Wednesday's as I like looking back at my own progress and I'll do the occasional Friday Finish post when I have something to share but that's it. I have a couple other posts planned for this month too, to wrap things up, but then I'll be posting only once or twice a week by February. This year will be a year of change for our family. My husband's contract at his current job ends this summer, which means he's on the hunt for a new one (anyone looking for an Evolutionary Biologist?), which will lead to us moving somewhere else this summer. 

And I'm really committing to my career as a writer this year. I continued my research over the holidays about creating a website and think I have it decided. Now I need to buy a domain and a website hosting plan. And I plan on doing it this week, which means my computer time will become making a website time for the next couple months while I figure it out. I'm in no rush to get a site up and running so I'll be taking my time making sure the website really reflects me and what I want to share. I'm thinking I might add a writing blog to my life as well (because 2 blogs aren't enough for me? - I also have a family only blog besides this crafty one). 

Even my What I've Been Reading posts kind of disappeared at the end of 2016. Mainly because I hardly read anything the past few months. I think I have 3 books I haven't shared here but I've already finished my first book of 2017 so perhaps I need to do a post soon. However, I spent hours yesterday moving my What I've Read archives into Goodreads. I really enjoy stats and I like comparing the number of books and pages I've read over the past 5 years. You can find me here on Goodreads and here's my stats page (which I adore). Are you on Goodreads? Even though I joined a couple years ago, I haven't really used it, so advice welcome. And I joined the 2017 challenge - I'd like to read 30 books this year, which is low for me, but I think doable since I know we're moving.

And now for what you're really here for, crafty WIP's. I have lots to share today. And several finishes that I still need to share from the holidays. I forgot to take pictures of some - mom, I need a picture of the socks I made you! Anyway, here's what I'm working on.

If I was following the pattern exactly, this shawl would be finished. However, looking at other people's projects on ravelry, I came across one that continued the edging up the side that should be bound off. I looked at her notes and asked for her to expand on how she did it but this morning I decided to find my own way. Can you see the slight curve beginning at the point? I've only done two pattern repeats so far that decreases one stitch every two rows. This might take a while but I've got plenty of yarn. Hope I love it when I'm done.

And I picked up a lot of this colorful yarn during the after Christmas sale at Michael's to crochet an afghan. I've been itching to make one. And as of right now, this is suppose to be a gift for next Christmas. I have over 2,000 yards. That should be enough, right? Pattern is from this book and can be found here.

On the ride home I finally cast on Hogmanay. I've been waiting to start this shawl for months. I got this yarn as part of the giftables club from The Loopy Ewe, fall of 2015, and as soon as I saw it, I knew it was meant to be a Hogmanay shawl. Maybe because the yarn is similar to the one on the ravelry page? I don't know. I haven't done much yet but I'm looking forward to working on it more this month.

My mother asked me to help her with a crazy project. She has a store-bought comforter whose batting is starting to bunch. She wants to tie the quilt with buttons to help the batting stay in place, but she wants some of the buttons to become crocheted flowers like this Pin she saw on Pinterest. However, she doesn't crochet. But I do. She bought 2 packages of yellow buttons and some grey buttons and we picked up some floss and I gave her some floss from my stash and I crocheted a bunch of flowers with that really tiny hook while I was home for Christmas. I made her 34 (sorry no pictures, maybe you can take a picture of them, too, mom?). Then she placed them on the comforter and I realized she needs about 80 more. Yikes. So a package of buttons and the floss and the hook came home with me and now I have another WIP. I need to find some more grey buttons (I found 8 in my stash when I got home, mom!) and buy more floss but this should be a fun little project to work on over the next couple months.

Oh, and these are the buttons I took from my mother's button stash as payment. And yeah, I'll give you that yellow one back, mom.

I also started the December embroidery pattern by Sarah K. Benning once all the gift making was done. Still have lots to stitch but I'm really enjoying it.

And my awesome sister-in-law gifted me this project bag for Christmas. The teeny, tiny needles blew my mind. I love it, Michelle. And it's so big, I can fit 4 different projects in it. Great for car trips since the zipper at the top stops things from falling out and going everywhere.

What have you been working on? 

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?

Goal Along and My Word for 2016

     Doing something a little different this year to help me focus. Last year I made no real goals and I didn't give myself a word for 2015. I went in with the idea to make the year about improving myself but didn't really give myself a way to measure that. Near the end of 2015, I asked myself if I could give 2015 a word what would it be? The first word that came to mind was disappointment. At the end of the year I didn't feel I had grown in any area of my life. I still hadn't finished editing a novel - I had started editing 2 but that was it. I had made a list of projects I liked to complete and had it as a separate page on this blog (it will be changing to my 2016 goals soon) but every time I updated projects I did complete or books I had read, I thought about all the other things I had planned to do in 2015 and felt like a failure. My ambitions were too big and unrealistic with the time I could spare. 

When I read Sarah's post on Imagined Landscapes about a Goal Along I really liked the idea of breaking goals down into steps for each month or even each week. And it's only for the first four months of the year. If at the end of April I don't feel this is working for me, I don't need to make goals for the next 4 months, I can do something else.

But I'm going to give this a try. Sarah suggested picking 3-5 areas that we'd like to focus on and then break those areas down into monthly goals to help keep ourselves accountable. Right now, most of the discussion is in her ravelry group but if you aren't on ravelry (and you don't need to be a knitter to participate), she will have posts on her blog that you can read and comment on as well. I'm going to start with weekly Goal Along blog posts on Mondays. Once the kids return to school each week, I find Monday is my day to regroup. I look back on what I did the week before and what I need or want to do in the week ahead.

Here are the four areas I have decided to work on for the first four months of 2016.

1. Writing.

     This seems like an obvious one. For a couple years now I have talked about wanting to be a writer. First I need to change how I think of myself. I don't want to be a writer, I am a writer. Second, I need to finish editing a novel and get it out into the world. My writing goal is to finish editing a novel and also work on polishing and submitting some poetry. Here is how I will break it down.

Novel

January - edit 4-5 chapters a week 

February - reread novel, make notes about what needs to be added or taken away and fix it. Continue to edit spelling/ grammar, etc... as I read.

March - look for a few readers to read the current draft and give me comments in return. 

April - finish making edits so it is ready to be sent out to agents/ publishers 

Poetry

Weekly - revise 3 poems

Monthly - send out 3 submissions 

2. Crafts

     It's no secret I love to create. I knit, I quilt, I crochet. We are fairly certain that we are moving the summer of 2017 so a big part of my crafting this year is stash busting my yarn and fabric. I've done really well not buying fabric the last couple years as I do a lot more knitting than quilting now but the yarn stash keeps growing. Here are my crafty goals.

Knitting

More selfish knitting. Of the 11 pairs of socks I knit last year, I gave 7 away. My sock drawer is in desperate need of more socks. 

January - is all about finishing WIP's like the socks for my SIL above that were suppose to be for Christmas (oops). Other WIP's to finish are a pair of socks for myself (first sock is done), Pi Shawl, Mystery KAL shawl, Minecraft Creeper afghan for my son's birthday (has a deadline of the 22nd)

February - finish Thermal Tunic for myself. After knitting 4 sweaters and a cardigan as Christmas presents, I started this one at the end of December as a selfish knit that I can't realistically try to finish in January.

March - another pair of socks for myself and a cowl for me too.

April - to be decided.

Quilting

January - mini quilt that is a birthday gift

             - lap quilt that is a birthday gift

February - finish snowman face quilt

March - finish Cuzco quilt

April - a quilt for Floyd (our toddler who turns 3 beginning of May)

Food for Floyd

For Christmas, Floyd was gifted a set of play dishes. Since he is our last, I didn't want to spend money buying him a play kitchen so I painted 2 boxes to give him an oven, stove, fridge, sink and cupboard. He really likes washing and drying his dishes. He loves playing with his kitchen but has no food. This is just a short term goal but I wanted to remember that I need to do it.

January - make 2-3 different foods for Floyd each week

February - evaluate if he needs/ wants more.

3. Health

     One of the things I did last year but didn't share here or with anyone until the end of the year, was how much I was doing yoga and exercising at home. I felt very self conscious about it. I bought myself a couple sets of hand weights and have a secret pinterest board where I pin different workouts and yoga routines. I don't know why I hid it. Both are good things for me. It is the only goal last year  that I found a good way to keep myself accountable. I printed off a free calendar and marked the days I did yoga or exercised. 

Here is the calendar. When I think I didn't do yoga at all the year before and that I can't remember the last I time I purposely exercised it's not bad. When the kids were home in the summer I definitely did less and I gave myself a break in December so I had more time for gift making. You might be able to read my totals at the end of the year - I did yoga 53 times and exercised 65 times. The Mondays where I did both is due to the new yoga class my friend and I started going to last fall. It's the best/hardest yoga class I've ever done and it leaves us dripping in sweat (it's not hot yoga, just a Vinyasa flow class). I figure if I sweat like that, it also counts as a workout.

I will continue to focus on eating better this year. I have tried to give up pop completely in the past but always end up failing. I need to allow it as a treat and not feel bad about it. Here is how my health goals break down.

Yoga - 2-3 times a week

Exercise - 3-4 times a week

Pop - no more than 1can a week

I think I need consistency so I am not aiming to increase the number of times I do yoga/ exercise but that they become a regular part of my life.

4. Blogging

I enjoy blogging but it's a lot of work. I don't know if people who don't write blogs realize how much time this takes. Today's post is unusually long and I've already spent over two hours on it. Last year is the most I have ever blogged. I have a second blog I write that is just about our family for all our relatives in Canada that's just over 10 years old now. Between the two I wrote over 200 blog posts last year. I was able to schedule some blog posts in 2015 but I need to get better at that. I also find I get blog fatigue quickly. I want to post but don't have the energy to do it. I had been doing a post every Sunday where I shared links to interesting things I have found on the internet during the past week but it became stressful to find stuff and have the post up Sunday morning. I might bring it back in some way because I do enjoy sharing but I burned out doing it every week. 

Again I think consistency is key and doing regular, slightly predictable posts would be good.

Weekly - 1 post about WIP's (if I have several yarn and fabric WIP's, this could be broken into 2 separate posts.)

            - 1 post with finishes (if I have any to share)

            - Monday post about Goal Along

Monthly - write up 1 tutorial/ pattern and have it free on my blog

               - blog post about what I read each month

January - update Goal page 

February - add icons on sidebar that link to twitter/ pinterest/ etc...

March - ?

April - ?

    

     Okay, I think that's it for Goals. 

     In the title of this post I mentioned that I had a word for 2016. As I wrote this post, I was thinking I should change my word to Focus, but it doesn't feel right. My word for 2016 is...

... Be.

Just, Be.

I want to take the pressure off myself this year and enjoy life. If I don't make any of my goals, I need that to be okay. It isn't really a big deal if I knit another 6 pairs of socks for myself this year. It would be nice but not the end of the world if I don't. In the past I have gotten too down on myself for not completing goals and that doesn't help me or my family. Just saying the word Be to myself when I start to feel stressed, relaxes me. My shoulders drop down, even though I didn't realize they were up.

My real goal for 2016? I don't want to feel like the year was a disappointment at the end of it. When I look back on 2016 in December I want to feel that I did my best. I was kind to myself when I needed it and loved my family. Everything else ... will just Be.

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. 

Still Editing.

I've still been busy this past week editing. I had my mother read the very rough first draft of "Lucy"over the summer and she gave some helpful suggestions. One of them was moving an important part of the plot to earlier in the novel. So part of chapter 10 was moved into chapter 4. That means the next few chapters will need some major editing.

Floyd "helping" me edit. 

And sometimes the editing needs to be set aside so I can use my new yarn swift for the first time and listen to podcasts while Floyd naps.  I love the swift but the screw got stuck after the third hank was wound. Not too happy about that but my husband is going to try and fix it.

Now back to editing.

Finally Editing

     It's that time again. The older kids are in school and I am left alone for most of the day with a toddler for company. The last few weeks of summer vacation I started to get the writing itch. But I didn't want to start something new, I wanted to edit. However, editing takes focus and time and three kids running around the house don't really help with that.

      So I fought the urge and got frustrated that the kids take so much of my time and energy. Then last week I realized I could start planning and get ready for when I would have more time for myself. I made notes of some editing ideas and decided to make a map and some sketches to help me.
I spent some time Thursday and Friday drawing a map of the town my novel takes place in. I then drew an outline of what my main character's house looked like on the inside, since I don't think the layout I have in my rough draft makes sense - especially the second floor.

     Once I was done, I cleared most of the stuff off my bulletin board and put them up. My desk got cleaned off last week as well and once again I have room for my computer and my notes and whatever else I might need. I bought some new pens that I love and I feel ready. Ready to tackle my novel and edit it and make it something I could be really proud of. I know I will have many moments over the next few months that I'll want to throw in the towel and forget that I ever wanted to be a writer but when that happens I want to remember what I feel like today. The desire to write and to share my work.

     I know I don't talk about my writing much on the blog and there's the possibility that might change but not until next year. I have continued my Little Poem Project everyday this year but I have not been sharing it here. I've been brainstorming ideas for what I might want to focus on next year that I can share here on the blog. But for now I'm happy that I've spent time editing or making notes about my novel 5 of the last 6 days.

Drawing of main characters house. 

Sketch of the town. This has been really helpful.

Up on the bulletin board for easy reference while I edit. I've been adding to the map as the characters explore more of the town in the novel.

And here is how I've been editing. I make notes/ edits on my printed out rough draft and then make the changes on the computer. The post-its contain big changes  - full sentences or even a paragraph that I want to add. Each is numbered so I know where in the story it goes. I'm doing a chapter at a time. I might also be watching the U.S. Open.

Only problem with working on the couch. Floyd tries to help.

But at least he gives me kisses.

Making room for editing and Floyd. He's also on my lap while I write this blog post. I guess my lap is more comfortable than a couch for watching tv.