Time to catch up a little

It's not that I don't make things or do things, I'm just crap at keeping up a blog.

Time to catch up a bit.

For the holidays I completely a scarf for my MIL:

That's five feet of http://knitty.com/ISSUEsummer07/PATTwisp.htmlWisp by Cheryl Niamath done in KnitPicks Shimmer (discontinued) in Turquoise Splendor. 

I sent a pair of Foot Ovens off to my FIL.

I used the Paisley Pincushion Reversible Apron to make a fabulous apron for the husband.

I crocheted a whole bunch of snowflakes for the window.

I made stockings for each of our three cats:

That's Danni, Smokey and Sasha, in order.  I should put up a post about our fur children.  I will soon.

I made a couple of new tank tops.

I made a woobie for Danni because she's a tree cat and likes to sleep on top of our dresser.

I am currently making the husband a set of mitts, and more woobies for the beasties.

And I've made serious headway into quilting.

Also, the husband has changed jobs (good but scary!) and yes, we had a new fur baby move in.

But the one thing I haven't done enough of is take pictures.  I'll edit this post as they come in.

I have a confession to make

I'm a fan fiction writer.

There, I said it.

I started writing fan fiction because it sounded like an interesting idea.  It was a writing exercise, take an idea and write 1,500 words on it a day.  Take someone else's characters and world and use them as a writing prompt and just go.  And it came with a ready-made community for feedback.*

It's not something I talk about often because when I do game I tend to game with real, honest-to-god, published writers who churn out original plots and stories and characters in amazing ways.  Somehow by comparison what I do does not seem really real, even though more and more I'm creating original worlds and ideas and characters and I'm just borrowing someone elses to get a look at my world through their familiar eyes so I can better understand my own creation.

And it's fun.

So to add to the completion list this year the roughly 230,000 words I turned into stories.  Given the ideal novel length of 80,000 words that puts me at just under three so far and I'll likely make three by New Years.

Not counting RPG time, which sucked down most of the spring.

Now if I could turn this commercially viable I'd be golden.

If you do wander this way and you are at all interested I present you with:

Hunger - which is an interesting novella about the lengths people will go to cope with an abusive family member

The Infected - A chunk of supernatural sci-fi.

The Island - A look at what love is and why we need it so badly at times

The First Run - An alternate history piece set five minutes in the future.  This one I am particularly fond of since it will be spun off into a wholly original work if I can get it together in the new year. 

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*And when the author of one of the stories you were hiving off of tells you you did well with their material it's kind of amazing.  That happened here.

Ear warmers

They slide up the straps on your helmet and button to the frame.  And your ears stay warm.

I do like having a warm.

The mini quilt

Done!  And just in time to go up with the fall decorations.

Done on a tea stained sort of muslin from Jo-Ann's, it's about 12 inches square.  It's whole cloth, I took an old feather circle stencil from Dritz and quilted it for practice.  It came out so nice it's staying on the wall.

Thread is Gutterman hand quilting, #2453 (red) and 5322 (blue).  The binding is Worth pre-packaged in berry, I believe.  It was a scrap I had in the stash.

Not quite up to the infamous 7 stitches to the inch of Amish fame, I'm about 5/inch, a look which I quite like. 

Now I'm ready to tackle my log cabin star.

The Well-educated mind: Chapter 3 - Keeping a journal blog

The point of this sort of reading isn't merely to read, it is "to fix our minds, to organize our reading so that we are able to retain the skeleton of the ideas that pass in front of our eyes"

Apparently the best way to do this is to keep a journal of what you read.

She spends several pages going over the history of reading journals, or commonplace books.  She makes it quite clear that it is NOT a "subjective, intensively inwardly-focused collection of thoughts and musings".  No, you're supposed to put down quotes from the book, then a summary of the book, and lastly your own personal reflections about the book.  To master the content of what you read, summarize.

She then uses E. F. Forester as an example, even though much of what he wrote in his journal was exactly the collection of thoughts and musings she railed against, along with a handful of other examples.

None of those examples are very clear or good, unfortunately.  It rather feels like we've been left to muddle it out on our own.  Hopefully the next chapter will clear it up for us.

The reason why this entry has been so late in coming is because I've been trying to nail down my purpose in taking on a great books course.  Why on earth does it matter for a 42 year old woman with no children to educate?  The answer is that I honestly believe I missed out on much of my education.  I got by with a knack for test taking, as opposed to any actual learning.  What mental space I had for taking in and digesting information was eaten up by surviving in an abusive household with a number of mentally ill relatives, and rather ill health.  Now that I am healthier in body and in a healthy space and relationship I'd like to try to reclaim some of what has been lost if I can, including my much vaunted prep school education.

Knowing that, that my goal is to know each book deeply and well will, I believe, help inform my journey.

The question of which books, or why I've chosen the list that I have, will come up in the next chapter.  It won't take me as long to get to it as this one has.

A general update

So the Log Cabin quilt top has been paper pieced

And has been paper pulled

And then I looked at it and realized that I needed more hand quilting practice before I quilted it.  So I put together a small whole-quilt to practice.

Which is what I am currently working on.  You can see the center heart and the beginning of the feather circle there in the middle, under all the basting.

The quilt is the Log Cabin Star kit by Rachel's of Greenfield.  The pattern on the whole top is from a Dritz stencil.  I can't find a link but I just found a lot to lust after.

And the scarf for my Mother-in-law is finally taking off.

Pattern is Wisp by Cheryl Niamath.  Yarn is Shimmer by Knit Picks in Turquoise Splendor (Himself picked it out for her)

What I have not been doing nearly enough of is reading.  I need to finish the next two chapters in The Well-Educated Mind and get those up and then I plan to start with the Waterstone's Top 100 Books of the Century list.  British readers and all and I believe that will help me overcome an unfortunate high school experience and catch up.  I'm planning on doing that this week.

OK, off to tend to the garden in some ridiculous heat. 

Suit of armor

Our old french press cozy died.  It was stretched out and too thin and not keeping anything warm.  So I decided to make Himself a new one.  At first I was going to make one that looked like a Supreme Dalek from Dr. Who. using the Caffeinate! Press Style Coffee Maker Cozy pattern by Coryna Blasko

Picture credit to sixxenomorph from Deviant Art

But the pattern had bobbles.  I was trying to work in a wool acrylic blend and I have to go down two needles to get gauge anyway and to make the bobbles anywhere near tight I was going to have to use a size 3 needle on worsted weight so that was not going to happen.

So I found another pattern, the French Press Cozy pattern by Christine Jewett, which was a lot easier in the body.  But still, not the serious layer of warm we wanted.  And the top of that one didn't fit our press.

So I fiddled.  I knit the simple pattern until it was time to switch to knitting in the round to make the top, then I picked up above the bottom ribbing and knitted in a garter stitch lining out of scrap wool.  At the top when I switched to in the round I knit one stitch from the shell and one from the lining together to join, then I used the top from the Dalek pattern.  Crochet around the openings to seal in the lining, added the back flap and this was the result:

A suit of armor fit for a coffee lover's press.

Himself is quite pleased.