A letter to 2010, with visual aids

Dear 2010,

Where is my flying car? I was told by now there would be flying cars, and so far you have disappointed me. Hell, I'm not picky - a hoverboard will do in a pinch. But something needs to fly me to work.

Especially since 2009 left this in front of my door:


I'm not even going to show you what's on the stairs.

I don't mean to speak ill of your brother, 2010, but you've gotta admit, he had kind of a jerky sense of humor. I mean, trying to trap me inside my apartment with a layer of ice on the welcome mat, just days after Christmas? The welcome mat. Come on.

And before that, when 2009 killed the hard drive on my laptop in the middle of a semester, in the middle of several writing projects? And then, less than six months later, when he killed the logic board while I was in the middle of a novel revision? I had the same instructor both terms, so I couldn't even use "my computer ate it" as an excuse without looking like a liar.

So many people I know labeled 2009 the Year of Suck, I can't even count them all. And parts of the year really sucked for me, too. But there were upsides, especially in the realm of projects.

2009 was the year that I finished my first novel that wasn't about Tiern. It was the year I designed my first knitwear pattern (and the second, which I swear I'm still working on!). It was the year I started spinning and bought my lovely wheel, Mal, who's still one of my favorite things I own. It was the year that rekindled my love of fan fiction, which in turn brought a weird sense of balance to my writing. It was the year I got my own apartment, which immediately filled with wool and notebooks.

2009 was also the year I met scads of friends online - most notably on the Very Longest Thread on Ravelry, an epic chat made up of people so friendly and accepting that they made me feel supported in everything I did. (Here's to a millionth post in 2010, Fredizens!)

So, 2010. I think we need to sit down and make some agreements.

You see this shiny little MacBook Pro? His name is Tony Stark, and he's less than a week old. His external hard drive (not pictured because the stacks of CDs I've been importing into iTunes are hiding it) is Jarvis. Please keep them in good condition through the following year. 2009 was a total fucker to me regarding technology. Don't be like him.


This is the manuscript I finished in late 2009. This year, I want to clean it up to the point where I can send it out to literary agents. I realize that whether or not it piques their interest is totally not up to me, but maybe you could give them a little nudge? This is the first time in my life I've had what feels like a genuinely salable novel in my hands, so if ever there was a time for me to have stunningly good luck regarding the publishing industry, this year would be it.


In 2010, I'm going to finish a couple of different novels. One is a this young adult fantasy thing that shouldn't take long - maybe January and February.


The other is the final book in the Fantasy Series What Ate My Life (not pictured due to sheer bulk). I've got a couple other projects I'm interested in writing, but these are the main two. If I get them done during you, 2010, I'll be ridiculously pleased with myself. Please don't prevent me.

I'm going to finish my Sylvi coat during you as well - preferably before it gets warm again. It's been sitting on my desk so long that apartment wildlife have begun to view it as a natural part of the landscape.


Now, 2010, I'm not going to bog you down entirely with major goals and pressure.

For instance, can we just agree that spinning is awesome and should continue unhindered? I won't make any goals for spinning in 2010, because I want nothing more than to keep enjoying it.


And mittens! I'd love to finish these Cotton Reel Mittens I've been knitting, but I don't actually need them until maybe next fall. Also, they don't have to be of any particular quality, since I'm new to colorwork, the yarn is all scraps, and I kind of love the idea of having a pair of idiosyncratic but adorable mittens.


And I would like to DIG UP A DINOSAUR! But that's not a major deal, either, as you can see.


So far, 2010, I don't think you have anything to worry about. You've been doing a pretty good job. I kicked you off at an awesome New Year's party, dancing to ridiculous music and wearing a fedora. I've gotten a lot of sleep in your first few days, and even so I managed to catch the sunrise yesterday morning. I watched The Princess Bride with the Fredizens and started reading the book aloud to Hobbes (something I've been meaning to do for years).

And there was doodling!


And a great discovery!


(Dunking the cookies in Nutella cancels out the ridiculous "health" notion they advertise and makes them totally NOM.)

So, 2010, I think you'll be fine. Keep being laid back and fun. Don't let anything major break. Be kind.

And for the love of all that is good and holy, don't listen to 2009. He's a bad influence.

Love,
Nicole


P.S.

Wet sweaters and things

When I first started knitting, Bex (she who passed on the dreadful condition) helped me work up a list of supplies I needed to begin collecting: needles, notions, and yarn, mainly. As much as that list evolved over time, there's one incredibly useful item that never appeared on it: a spin dryer.

I'm in love with my spin dryer. I bought it for laundry purposes, but it's turned out to be one of the biggest sanity-saving devices in my craft arsenal. See, I'm also in love with sweaters. And wet-blocking a sweater on the very limited counter space in my studio apartment? Pain. In. The. Ass. Cooking becomes a nerve-wracking experience when you're worried about spilling chopped onions on the sweater you spent the last month knitting.

My spin dryer makes it a non-issue. Last night I decided to block a certain sweater I've been working on, which is over 1000 yards of bulky wool (read: holds water with camel-like, physics defying capacity). After two minutes in the spin dryer, it was almost wearably dry. I laid it out on the counter to block, and this morning there was just one slight damp spot left, where the fabric had been layered on itself.

The spin dryer is also wonderful for finishing handspun. Toss in a wet skein, and out comes a slightly damp skein that only needs to be placed somewhere safe to finish drying, not hung dripping in the shower. Since there's no agitation involved,the dryer can't felt anything, and it's so gentle on fabric I've tossed lace projects in there without worry. Definitely one of the coolest tools I own for knitting and spinning, and I didn't even mean it to be!

In semi-related news, I'm wearing my first sweater today. It's a year old as of last week and still holding up beautifully. Happy belated birthday, sweater!

Spinning megapost

This is what I've spun in the last few weeks. It's pretty far from my usual color palate, which is a trend I've been noticing with my spinning. With knitting, I always choose yarns that fall into my normal palate; with spinning, I'll take whatever's in front of me, color be damned, so long as the tactile experience is nice.


All of these are experimental yarns, in one way or another.

This is my first non-wool/wool-blend yarn:


It's that Coppermoose "Cherry" ingeo, leftover from Kate's stash. It came out to be a 2-ply fingeringish weight, and although the yarn is very stiff, I think it'll make a nice drapey fabric - though not a whole lot, as it's only 196 yards. I was watching a lot of Scrubs while spinning it, and the color almost exactly matches one of Carla's scrubs sets, so I'm calling it "Don't worry, Bambi, Carla will take care of you."

This is my first attempt at a super-fine yarn, which ended up being my first really consistent fine yarn:


I was going for laceweight with the remains of my BFL from Detta's, but when I Navajo-plied it it came out to about 188 yards of a light fingering weight. It's the squishiest, softest, most silky and lovely thing I've ever spun, and I love it so much I think I lose brain cells every time I look at it. The name is "Platonic Cuddles" after a scene on Alias.

This was going to be my first soft single, but uh...


It came out not soft. Kind of crispy, actually. I don't know if I'll use it for anything, but it's at least 50 yards of sportish weight merino. The fiber was also from Detta's, in the "Bittersweet Chocolate" colorway. Now it's just "Well, crap."

And this is my first art yarn:


The contents: "Sunny Peach" merino from Coppermoose, black and cream antique lace, a friendship bracelet, and a handful of dangly heart and teardrop shaped beads. It's about 42 yards of superbulky/thick and thin 2-ply with really uneven plying, and it's so ridiculous I kind of adore it. It required an equally ridiculous name: "Honeybee Wedding."

Eventually I want to be able to do things like this. I had no desire to ever knit with art yarn until I started spinning, and now all I want to do is grab random decorative baubles out of Goodwill bins, toss them into yarn, and make weird scarves.

So that's what I've been doing with my TV time.

General update

Eyeballs-deep in work and novel WIP right now, so I might not have a proper entry here for a bit. Here's the gist of my current projects:

Writing: OYMB first draft is coming along nicely. This weekend I smacked a character in the head with a baseball bat and got my protagonist into a car on the way to Climactic Plot Events. Current status: 52,481 words, 9/13 chapters. I've got a couple days' worth of pay saved up, so I'm going to take two days off in the next week, lock myself in my apartment, and plow through the end of this book Misery-style. (But with an elderly terrier instead of Kathy Bates.)

Knitting: OH DEAR GOD. I can't work on any one project for more than a few minutes without getting fidgety like mad. It's infuriating. I've gotten a few inches done on the back of my Sylvi coat, a few rows on my Garter Yoke Cardi, a little bit of a scarf, a little bit of a sock, a little bit of another sock - and the list goes on. I've never been terribly project monogamous, but rotating a small army of knitting projects every five minutes is just ridiculous. Maybe it's because I've been so project monogamous in my writing lately, and my brain is staging a creative coup.

Spinning: Getting better. I've got a handful of little finished projects that I don't have pictures of. Here's one back when it was on the bobbin:


Also, I think I managed to infect my friend Lisa with the spinning bug, and I've got a pound and a half of bulk fiber en route to my apartment right now. Some of it has tencel in it. I'm excited.

Art: What? I've been doing art? Holy crap!


False alarm, I'm just dicking around with my oil paints.

Domesticity: I've been doing a ton of stuff in this realm lately, so I figured I'll count it as a project thing. In the last couple of months, I've been learning to cook and bake, and I've been decorating a little (the Supernatural motel room themed bathroom is on hold until I find the proper shower curtain, if you're wondering).

This weekend, my former roommates moved in downstairs, so I finally got my kitchen table back and completed my kitchen! Am unreasonably pleased with my doofy 50's-tastic table and its classy DIY decoration. (The flower is fake, the vase was a hand-me-down from a former roommate's mom, and the table runner is a modified obi from a costume I wore to an anime con a couple years bac.)


I've learned to make a couple of tasty recipes. The tastiest by a wide margin being Blueberry Boy Bait, which I made for a second time yesterday. Here's Kiah demonstrating how awesome Blueberry Boy Bait is.


And the finished Bait.


And that is what's up with me.

'Cause I'm wanted, dead or aliiiiiiive

Last night, I had my first spin-in. It was me, Kate, the curmudgeonly muppet-dog, and season 3 of Supernatural. Kate brought her Ashford Traditional and demonstrated her absurd speed demonry on the wheel, and I got through at least 700 yards of spinning - easily my most in one sitting.

Dog tried to help. His enthusiasm was appreciated, but his methods were questionable. Mostly he just sat in the middle of whatever we were trying to do.


I got half of my stash of "Cherry" Ingeo spun up at a pretty consistent laceweight, which I'm looking forward to plying.


At 6am, after pizza, energy drinks, ice cream sundaes, and surprise cake from one of Kate's friends, we finished the season. And I finished this:


Colonial/corriedale/bamboo blend from one of Copperpot's "Sweet Jasmine" rovings, about 250 yards fingering-ish weight from 4 oz. I'm calling it Metallicar.

Plying machine

Yesterday afternoon, all four bobbins for my wheel were in use. By late evening, I had three empty bobbins and three new skeins of yarn.


From left to right:

* 70 yards sport-ish weight Navajo plied corriedale from my Knitty and Color "Mariner's Revenge" roving

* 154 yards bulky two-ply corriedale, also Knitty and Color, "Mariner's Revenge" and "Kermit" plied together (my first wheelspun ever)

* 50 yards thick and thin two-ply "Bitter Chocolate" merino from Detta's Spindle, spun up and plied in one sitting to go with my BFL thick and thin from earlier (I'm going to tackle colorwork and make myself a mighty cunning rustic hat for this winter.)

My favorite of the bunch is probably that first little skein. It's my first attempt at Navajo plying anything, and I'm completely in love with the things this technique does to color transitions. It is clearly some type of fiber sorcery, and I am totally in favor of that. I think I'm calling this skein "Ariel's Trove," because I'm still full of the Little Mermaid references due to OYMB referencing it a lot.


All of these yarns were spun up and plied while watching Scrubs on DVD. It's the perfect show for me to craft during, because I watched every episode about five dozen times in undergrad but haven't watched any of it in a couple of years - so I know it all by heart, but I've forgotten the exact order of things, which makes the jokes funny again. But I've been doing so much spinning in front of Scrubs that I think I've hit the Scrubs-Sanity barrier. I've been calling my dog Chocolate Bear since dinnertime yesterday, and I can't seem to stop.

Mal Malcifer Malcolm Mally Wally

My hobby: making up excruciatingly dumb nicknames for fictional characters and/or inanimate objects.

Oh, and also this:

That's roughly 4 oz of Corriedale, two different colorways from Knitty and Color ("Kermit" and "Mariner's Revenge") plied together into a mostly worsted and bulky weight. This was my very first wheel spun yarn, done on Kate's Ashford Traditional and plied rather sloppily on my Minstrel. I was experimenting with smaller whorls, and it didn't go so well.

This, on the other hand, went surprisingly well!


It's the "Mariner's Revenge" Corriedale, maybe 2 oz, in lace weight. I was spinning it on Mal just to see how thin I could get it and have some yarn I didn't care much about to use to try my first Navajo/chain ply. It ended up being the most even thing I've spun so far, though (that one chunky part in the photo is the tail end), and I kind of want to skein it up as singles and use it in a lace project instead.

And this is what I'm tormenting Mal with as of last night:


The roving is "Sweet Jasmine" from Copperpot on Etsy. I believe it's a bamboo/merino/colonial mix, and is it not the most 80's color palate you have ever seen in your life? I mean, really. Put this roving in a blazer with giant shoulder pads and you could take it to your high school's Back to the 80's Dance.

Captain Tightpants feels his wheely masculinity is threatened by this much sparkly girly colors. He's just lucky I'm spinning my sparkly "Belly Dancer" batt on a drop spindle.

Good for misbehavin'

Internet, meet Mal.


Mal is a Kromski Minstrel with a walnut stain. I bought him at Detta's Spindle this Saturday.


He got the name because he's sturdy, smooth, good at what he does, and of course, so very pretty.


Plus if he gets in trouble I can call him "Sergeant" to annoy him.


Aside from the wheel, I also bought a ton of fiber to spin. From left to right: 8 oz superwash mill end wool, 1 lb superwash mill end wool, 10 oz merino in "Bitter Chocolate," and 8 oz BFL.


I've spent the last two nights spinning while watching Scrubs DVDs. The first night, I spun up and plied about 66 yards of BFL of fluffy thick and thin (mostly superbulky) yarn. It will make a fine hat.


Told you I was screwed. (Or would a better word be "humped"?)

More virulent than the flu virus, but produces prettier results

Until recently, I had only one purple shirt in my closet and owned no purple yarn. Then the Purple Epidemic hit.

We'll call this Patient Zero:


Infected June 2009. Transmitted the purple virus to my apartment.

Masks were given out and hand washing instructions posted in all restrooms, but at the end of the month, another fiber project contracted the virus.


In mid-July, it jumped to spinning fiber, worming its way into a color transition experiment. Note how the purple creeps up through the blacks and reds - its progression seems slower in this carrier.


If infection continues at this rate, my apartment may need to be quarantined. I've separated the purple-infected projects from my green vacation Clapotis, but I'm certain that will be purple soon, too.


Send non-perishable foodstuffs and yellow yarn.

A thing! I made a thing!

Finished this last night while watching Firefly episodes and The Little Mermaid. It's at least 196 yards of 60% superwash merino/30% bamboo/10% nylon in a sport to bulky weight.



Shiny.

What I'm doing and where I've been

The problem with not having internet in my apartment is I've been neglecting this blog. The upside is that you, reader, have not been inundated with the posts I've been typing up in my head and then forgetting. Posts like "Eating an olive sandwich is oddly liberating" and "OH CHRIST A CENTIPEDE" and "Muppet-dog is judging me again." You will never have to read those posts. You're better for it.

As an apology for not having any content here for almost two weeks, here are some snapshots of what I've been up to.

First off, the yard.

I've never had a yard I loved this much. It's a little bigger than an average St. Paul back yard, entirely fenced in, with fruit trees, a huge lilac bush, and a border that only touches one other neighbor's yard. I've been spending a lot of time out there, just sort of basking.

The pear tree is laden with fruit already, all its branches bowing under the weight. There are hundreds of pears, slightly bigger than ping-pong balls.

The concord grape vines along the back of the fence:

The two apple trees have dropped a lot of their fruit already, but some of them are still growing. They're about this big now:

The muppet-dog in the yard, looking uncharacteristically heroic:
He spends most of his time out there snuffling around for apples to chew on and barking at the neighbors across the alley.

Next, knitting.

Owls sweater, knit up to the armpits:

Garter Yoke Cardi, about five inches from the body being done:

Sylvi jacket so far:
I've also been doing a lot of spinning lately.

Playing around with spinning Corriedale wool in lace weight - the most consistent thing I've spun so far:

And my favorite thing I've spun:

That's a full 4 oz of 60% superwash merino/30% bamboo/10% nylon, spun into lace to fingering weight. It's currently sitting on my ballwinder, waiting for me to get home and ply it. As soon as I get done with this shift at work, it is on.

Lastly, writing.

It's a little hard to take pictures of writing. So here are some things on my writing desk.

This is Harold. I bought him at a garage sale last week, and so far he's been an excellent supervisor.

Stone trinkets, feathers, a candle that smells like Christmas cookies, and my outline for the chapter of Or Your Money Back I just completed:
OYMB is currently in its third chapter. It took me a while to get into the groove of the story, but now it's cruising along nicely. And I seem to be bonding pretty well with the narrator. I have an odd history of my life imitating parts of my POV characters' lives. There have been instances with my long-time fantasy series narrator, Tiern, where I've written something in his life and then had a similar thing happen to me in the next week, unexpectantly - things like small injuries, particular bits of news from friends, mood shifts, even getting rejected. The more involved I got in Tiern's story, the more this happened. (Thankfully, the deadly psychic powers, major character deaths, and epic war plots have stayed firmly in the realm of fiction.)

Anyway, to the point. Over the weekend I wrote Seb getting blisters from his too-tight loafers. Yesterday I wore some sandals that usually don't hurt much...and got big whopping blisters on my feet, in the exact number and locations of my narrator's. Cue the spooky music.

I'm not going to show you a picture of my blistered toes, though. (You're welcome.)