Still alive..

Yes, still alive, just haven't finished anything in, well, a while. What can I say? Law school and pizza servitude have a tendency to eat one's brain and time. This week was the first time that I'd had a day off in close to a month.

That said, things are still happening on the knitting front. I thought I had nearly finished my Basalt tank, but not it's appearing there are *tremble* gauge issues. Which is a nice way of saying that it's going to be far, far too big on me (the fact that I've lost weight since I started it doesn't help... stupid pizza shop). However, I'm still rather fond of it, and am going to avoid frogging it if possible. If it comes out stupidly big, I might try and add sleeves to it and make it a jumper-type thing. We shall see.

Bought yarn yesterday, like the filthy depraved person I am. Among purchases was some Noro Silk Garden, and some lovely Filatura di Crosa Centolavaggi - lace weight whatnot in a beautiful teal blue colour. I haven't decided what to do with the Noro yet; I've got a few ideas kicking around, but more than anything else, I just wanted to buy some because I was bothering to make the trek out to WoolBaa - the shops that are not out of my way don't carry it, so this way I'll have some if any appropriate patterns grabs my attention. The other I bought because I'm itching to knit some kind of big, lacey thing. I've only made small forays into the world of lace so far, but found it immensely enjoyable when I did, so I figured it was about time. Thinking of making a Kiri shawl, or something along those lines...

Writing is still happening, albeit at a slower rate since uni went back (not all that surprising really, I guess). I'm 27k into the follow on, and sometime this week I'm going to go back and start reworking the draft of the first one. I haven't touched it for around a month now, except for referring back to the final chapter now and then just for continuity stuff, but I've started making a mental list of stuff that I already know needs fixing. *happy sigh* I love writing, so much fun.

Hat-ness and new yarn!

Well, Richard's hat is now finished, though I think it's going to end up being a hat for me, because I honestly don't think it would fit him and his giant teenage boy type head. Here it is on me, anyway:



I look like some kind of cartoon character in this picture... Sorry about the blurriness... what can I say, but I suck at photos (especially ones taken of myself in the bathroom mirror).


Anyway, this means that I have successfully wrangled colour work for the first time. And had to do it with a self-designed thing, because I am stubborn and overly ambitious. Well, it worked anyway, or at least the colourwork part did. However, the top shaping fell victim to my short attention span, and my lack of botheredness when it comes to maths. So the decreases are bizarrely random and weirdly spaced, and it's a little too short. Methinks I shall refine the design a little (change the colourwork pattern so it's worked over a saner number of stitches, or at least one that's more easily divisible for decrease purposes, and make it a little bigger) and then make another one for the brother dear. Since I do still owe him a hat. Oh well, it's still thirty-odd degree weather here, so I'm sure he can wait a while longer...


Anyway, still beavering away on the Basalt tank. I picked up stitches with no issues (for some reason, I'm still deathly afraid of it, one button band and half a log cabin later), and am now happily working my way through hexagon two.


Oh, and I have shiny, shiny, lovely yarn.

I ordered some Merino/Cashmere sock yarn from The Knittery earlier this week, and was beginning to wonder why it hadn't arrived yet (it didn't have to travel very far, and the website had implied that it would be there within a day or so - which had passed). I got home yesterday from a three hour lecture all cranky because my bank account was overdrawn again and I had blisters on my toes that were as big as the toes themselves (or very nearly anyway), hoping that my shiny nice yarn would be waiting for me. There was no yarn...


Anyway, so I cheered myself up in other ways (other ways in this instance being eating cheese on toast and Lindt chilli dark chocolate, reading some Michael Moorcock, watching Lady Chatterly and knitting some more of my Basalt tank - all fine things), and then at about 11pm Chris got home. When I was just going to bed not long after this he said "By the way, a package came for you the other day. It's in the car, because I keep forgetting to bring it in". So, while I was languishing and yarnless (okay, not yarnless, but without this yarn), my beloved Merino Cashmere 4ply was going for pizza scented joy rides in Chris' car.... Right...


Anyway, we finally got there!
I bought two skeins, one in Moonlight (the bottom one) and the other in Earth, and they're... just... so... pretty.
I should not be allowed to own things as pretty as this:

*swoons*. And they came with a Chuppa Chup in the package!

I'm thinking I quite like The Knittery...

Hexagons and blatant silliness (oh, and Noro)

Behold, I have hexagons on the brain. In other words, I finished my first Basalt tank hexagon and got tired of taking sensible photos of it that actually showed it properly. Seemed like a good idea at the time (this may have been due to the fact that I was actually running a fever and was generally not totally with it), and maybe it was; you can actually see the colour a lot better in this shot than in the others I took. Also, you can see some of my books. I can make out Atwood's The Blind Assassin and The Mammoth Book of Zombies just to the side of my right eye. Awesome.

Well, anyway, whatever it was that was trying to eat my immune system continued on its rampage today, so I pulled a sickie and did not vend pizza. This meant there was time for knitting and writing, the fine and all-consuming pursuits that they are.

First thing is first: THE FIRST DRAFT IS FINISHED! I'm not normally one for the good old caps lock button, but do think that in certain circumstances, using it can be justified - and finishing the first draft of one's story/novel/drivelly thing I've been writing definitely falls into the justified category. Yep. Finished. All 105,353 words of it (yes, I need to cut stuff, I'm aware of that). Written in a little over two months, which I think is a damn good effort.

I know I blather on about this, whereas if we're being realistic, I'm sure that the story isn't actually all that good, and chances are that it will never actually see the light of day in any kind of book form. But the thing is, I am really, really bad at finishing the things that I start. Just look at my Ravelry notebook for proof of this (although the scary thing is that I'm actually pretty good as far as knitting is concerned). I've spent the last few years starting stories, thinking about them, but never getting more than a few thousand words down on paper (well, in Microsoft Word anyway).

But at the start of this year I got tired of being this way about everything, so I decided I would write a properly structured, novel length story. I figured I would do a little bit every day until it was done (the fact that it's only taken two months is testament to my erratically addictive personality). And you know what? I did. And this means so much to me, beyond what anyone else might think of what it was I wrote. I am still appalling bad at finishing things. But I have now finished this, and that is a truly awesome thing.

What's more, I loved doing it. I think I've already said here that writing as kept me going in this period of job suckfulness and drudgery. That's still true. But I've loved the writing itself, and loved it totally independent of what it might do in the future. I may try and clean it up and send it off to some poor unsuspecting agent. I might not. But whatever happens, I am so glad I wrote it, simply for the pleasure of writing. I loved the way that the story fluctuated, the way that the characters would turn on me and staunchly refuse to do the things I had in mind for them because they had other ideas, the way that ideas would suddenly swoop down on my unsuspecting brain while I was walking to the train station. I even grew to appreciate the ebb and flow of the writing process; sometimes I wanted to write until my brain shrivelled up, and other times it was "no, not happening today, so there". It's all good to me. And I suspect that this is good thing.

Anyway, enough about that. And back to hexagons :D (one track mind, me?). Finished the first one, am just getting started on the second, and so far it's tremendous fun. I don't know if I'll still be so pleased about them when I'm on hexagon no. 7, but here's hoping.

Here is wee baby hexagon no. 1. He pleases me no end. I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I even enjoyed sewing the seam. Yes, you heard. Though I suspect that might be due to the yarn; I've never sewed a seam in cotton before, and it's so much better because you can actually tell what the hell you're doing because the yarn is less hairy.

And, because I'm feeling camera happy today, here is a photo of the Noro Kureyon that I definitely didn't buy on Wednesday:

And see that red mark on the wrist of yours truly? That, boys and girls, is why we need to be very careful around the pizza oven door when it is broken. Two weeks ago I would not have taken this photo for fear of grossing everyone out, but all the blisters have healed now, so I figured it was all good. I mean, honestly, what is the point in hurting yourself if you can't show it to everyone? (yes, I am one of those strange people who show off bruises - I'm so fishbelly white that mine always look worse than they are too)

Back to uni tomorrow. We now return you to law school drudgery... Note to self; bring hexagons in case of emergency (or very boring Corporations Law lecture)...

Idiocy and new verbs

Stupid Melbourne weather. It decides to crank out a cold day to celebrate the end of summer, and what happens? We all get sick, that's what happens (and by all, I mean me and about three other people I know... so 'all' might be a slight exaggeration, but so what...). So, just before uni goes back, I'm all sniffly and gross. Hurrah.

Anyway, because I'm sick and disoriented, I'm being a little bit of an idiot at the moment. I should be writing, I should be wanting to write, but instead I would rather hexagon. Yes, I have proclaimed hexagon to be a verb. Perhaps that should be 'hexagonning'. I quite like that. I've started knitting the Basalt tank from Knitting Nature, so there's going to be a lot of hexagonning around here for the next while. It's lots of fun so far; it's one of those patterns where you look at it and are totally unsure of whether it's going to actually look decent on you. But it looks like it will be fun to knit if nothing else, and even if it doesn't look good on me, I'll settle for unusual looking. Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, hexagonning:

Behold the fruits of the hexagonning! I'm liking the yarn as well (Jo Sharp Soho Summer DK Cotton); I went and raided Woolbaa (I definitely didn't buy Noro while I was there either) for it, and I'm glad I made the trip. It's nice to knit with, the colour is lovely (much darker in real life than in this picture), and it wasn't too expensive (comparatively anyway - much cheaper than the Rowan Wool Cotton the pattern suggested). Anyway, so all is well on the hexagon front, so far.

Right now it feels like there are so many things I could finish and get out of the way if I just bothered to put in a concerted effort for a short while. My mystery yarn bag only needs me to get the sewing machine out for about fifteen minutes before it will be done. The hat I'm knitting for the Pilchard only needs me to sit down for about that to figure out the top half of the colourwork, and then maybe an hour, or two at the most, of actual knitting to finish. And my story (I love my story, have I told anyone that lately?) only needs about 1-2 hours of sustained effort before the first draft is finished (not some stupid word count milestone but actually start-to-end finished!), but here I am blogging instead. At least I know what will be on my agenda if I leave work early today from being sick (which may or may not happen - husbandy type creature is a hard taskmaster - not to mention amusingly different in his views on when I should take a sickie now that he is running the place I'm working for).

Maybe I'll go hexagon some more...

So on and so forth...

Well, been taking a little bit of a writing break for the last few days. It was all going well, but the problem is that I'm quite good at writing words down (or typing them anyway), but not so good at thinking, so it was about time for me to have a good old think about Plot before I finished the first draft. Shall probably resume actual writing again either tonight, or possibly tomorrow. In the mean time, I've had more time for knitting, which has been lovely...

Finished my Argosy scarf finally. As I've already said, it ended up shorter than I would have liked, but what are you going to do? I still love it anyway, and that's the main thing.

Here is scarfy boy reclining happily on the armchair that lives in my study. Purdy. Well, even if it did end up too small, this project definitely gave me the Noro bug. It was the first time that I'd ever lashed out and actually bought some intead of just perving on it and surreptitiously feeling it up in the yarn shop (and even that hadn't been going on for very long - it's seems kind of thin on the ground here in Melbourne), and it definitely won't be the last... Shiny, shiny yarn...

Today (glorious, wonderful Monday, the day on which I do not have to vend pizza) I went shopping to try and find some clothes that aren't falling apart to wear to uni. I didn't end up buying very much - I'd forgotten that fashion at the moment is even more hideous than usual, so decent basics were suprisingly hard to find. It seems that the rule currently is that you must hide your waist - no curves here. And this is kind of the opposite of what I go for (the small waist is what makes up for having the disproportionate thighs of doom, dammit)... I digress. Anyway, while it was mostly quiet on the clothes front, I did buy two nice things: Farscape: Peacekeeper War on DVD and Norah Gaughan's Knitting Nature.

I'd had my eye on this book for ages after stumbling across a Basalt tank that someone on Ravelry had made - so many interesting construction methods. A lot of the things look more complicated than I'm used to (for a start, I've never been one for charts, odd as that might sound to some), but then again, I also have a tendency to assume that patterns are hard, then actually read the instructions through and realise that they aren't. Anyway, looks like a book I'll get a fair bit of use out of...

And then I went home, watched Farscape and knitted row after row of merry stocking stitch on my Honeymoon Cardigan - figured it was about time I got off my arse on that one, but now it's coming along nicely...

New stuff

Well, celebrated yesterday's day off from pizza servitude by making a pilgrimage to Sunspun in search of some more Noro to finish my poor languishing Argosy scarf. Unfortunately, they didn't have any more of the colourway I needed, so unless Woolbaa has it (which I doubt), it may need to be a shorter scarf than I intended. Never mind, it's still pretty, and I'm sure it'll grow a bit when I block it. I just don't like stingy scarves.

The lesson to be learned from this is that when I'm looking at scarf patterns, I should bear my above inclination in mind and buy an extra ball of yarn that what the pattern states. Problem solved. Anyway, it seemed a waste to spend an hour on public transport and not buy something while I was over there (and heaven knows they have no shortage of beautiful, beautiful yarns), so I indulged:

Hehe, what a weird photo. I was trying to get some good light, so the yarn is sitting on my knee in the kitchen (you can see the blue handle of the dustpan and brush underneath the table in the background)... Still, yarn is beautiful! I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do with it. At $16 a ball, making anything large out of just this yarn is totally out of the question budget wise, so I'm tossing up between just making a Dream Swatch head scarf out of the ball that I do have (http://www.knitandtonic.typepad.com/dreamswatchwrap.pdf ), or making Excuses (hehe), which I've had my eyes on for a while ( http://www.magknits.com/Dec07/patterns/excuses.htm). Currently, I'm leaning towards the latter, because I'm not really a head scarf kind of person. I can't even wear shawls without them falling off...

Anyway, Richard's hat is coming along well. The colourwork is coming out nicely; I half wasn't expecting it to work, but it is. Unfortunately, I couldn't take a decent photo of it because it's gloomy and overcast today, and it's hard enough to take a photo of a hat in progress even when there's good light. There'll be a pic of this one soon enough.

Anyway, the day is getting on, so I should go and prise the boy out of bed. Thankfully, I probably don't have an entire night of pizza servitude to sit through tonight (the plan is for me to get everything prepared, and then high tail it when the other staff get in - and I am very much hoping that we stick to this plan), so more work will be done on hat this evening. Also, have written nearly 90k on my story. This pleases me greatly; first draft is nearly done now!

Scarfitty scarfage!

Hurrah, Wavy scarf is finally finished. And to celebrate, I finally got off my arse and walked down to the shops (in the rain, I might add, which probably account for the state of my hair in the photo) and bought batteries for my poor abandoned camera. Oh, and chocolate. I also bought chocolate. Because.


Anyway, behold the scarfage. I am very happy with how it turned out, although I would like to have made it longer if I'd had enough yarn. Meh. What are you going to do?

I look like a fish, and the towel behind me needs to be washed, but the scarf looks awesome and that's the main thing! More scarfity scarfing:

Yeah yeah, I know I can't take photos to save my life. But I can knit apparently. And that's more important anyway...

Felt like it took forever to knit this, just because as previously mentioned, I don't have a great deal of knitting time at the moment. However, I get a few days off work this week - with me going back to uni on March 3rd, we want to make sure that the shop/staff contained therein will be able to function okay without me - so more knitting shall happen then.

I've started knitting a fair-isle style hat for my younger brother - partially because I've been itching to make something for someone else, and partially as a show of big sisterly get-well-soon type concern - he's been in hospital the last week due to some strange and so far unexplained seizures.

But yes, not so much with the actual knitting lately. Lots of thinking about it and designing in my head, but not so much with the physically picking up the needles and making stuff. Basically, in Anna's crazy head, there is always a constant jostle, with all of the creative things that I want to do vying for my attention. Knitting used to win hands down, but currently writing has suddenly gotten opinionate and bossy and is demanding the lion's share of my free time. And I think I'm going to humour it. Writing (and the ability to do it at all - quality aside for the moment) is such a fickle thing, it ebbs and flows. So I don't want to set it aside when it's actually grabbing me by the hand and saying "Come on Anna, let's go!" On a related note, I hit 80,000 words yesterday, so it's time to start winding up on this project. I can't wait to write the last word; it has been indescribably awesome to actually apply my short attention span to a sustained project and have it actually happen.

Knitting's turn will come again, I'm sure. Probably when it stops being summer and all of my creative energy is sucked away by law school. But for the moment, there is scarf. I like my scarf.