Mortaine’s Blog

I forgot to add this to the last one, and I’ll make it its own post, because I don’t know, I feel like it. Making up for not posting much in the month of November, I guess.

It’s a comic strip I made for my Johnny Theremin novel-in-progress. I wrote/drew it in the first half of the month, and therefore it has little bearing to what I ended up writing, but it was fun. Plus, you can see my mad cartooning skillz, which are just, wow. Really, wow. You will be amazed that a 32 year old who is capable of knitting lace can still draw worse than a six year old with a box of crayons. Seriously.

At 50,104 words, my NaNo novel is not really finished, but it is 50,000 words, and I did wrap up the primary storyline. There’s an escape sequence I should add in if I want the story to finish with satisfaction. But as it stands, the main conflicts are resolved, just not satisfactorily.

I wrote a Johnny Theremin novel, but somewhere around Chapter 4, I started deviating from the script. By the time I finished (with 33 chapters), I was so far beyond the original outline, and flying like a fat man on a sleigh. I had a great time, really enjoyed my characters, and will, of course, do this again next year.

Also, stay tuned for the Big, Fun, Scary Adventure. 2007 was the inaugural year, in which Chris Baty challenged everyone to do something Big, Fun, and Scary in their lives. Even though I didn’t formally sign up at the time, I think we can all agree that I’ve embarked on a Big Fun Scary Adventure this year. And so, I will sign up for next year, to do something big, fun, and scary– something I haven’t done before, something I’ve always wanted to do. I just haven’t decided what that thing will be. I’m taking nominations, though. It’s got to be something I’m not already doing. My sister said “Travel,” but I think that’s already in the cards, so we’ll set that one aside for the moment and say “yes, and…?”

And yes, I realize the thing I really *should* do is: more walking and lose weight. But it’s soooo cliché!

Blocking is a process in which you stretch a knitted item into its final shape and size, using water and rust-proof pins. This process is not an easy one when you live in a small space and don’t have a large floor to pin stuff on. I bought a couple of foam interlocking mats and blocked my stole yesterday– the foam mats made it easier to tack the pins down (and gave me a pinnable surface when the stole was too long to stay on the carpet!)

You might remember the finished, unblocked picture I posted earlier:

I didn’t mention it before, but the little beads of light you can see on this picture (most noticeable on the left side) are, in fact, beads that I knitted into the stole. I have now determined that I love beaded stuff– people will be lucky if they don’t get beads on their gift socks.

Anyway, notice how it looks like a dark, closely-knitted scarf in the above photo? When blocked, lace turns into lace. It also usually gets bigger.

My stole is 95″ long, almost 8 feet, and 19″ wide. It’s knit in Knit Picks Shadow, which is an inexpensive but soft yarn from knitpicks.com. The color is “Vineyard,” which is a lovely dark purple. I love how this piece looks and feels on me. It’s big enough not to feel like it’s “too small,” but fine enough to feel feminine.

I am almost done with Clue #2 of the second iteration of this stole. The second one is knitted in a finer yarn and a lighter color, for my sister’s birthday (I already spoiled the surprise by showing it to her, and she was delighted). It will have the same pattern, but will look much more delicate and lacy, I believe. Since my goal is to finish the second one in time for her birthday, I will be working on this stole with great dedication in the month of December. I will then take a sock break, then return to lace for a bit– I have something really pretty I want to work on.

In between these, I’ve also been knitting something silly/crazy/fun for my mom, using big needles and bulky yarn. When you knit lace long enough, you feel like it’s going pretty quickly. Then you switch to bulky stuff, and realize that the bulky knitting really flies! I do that periodically, just to keep my hands happy.

PS: I found something to do in 2008. I just haven’t decided if that’s something I want to pour my energy into.