Year of Projects Update - #18 - Dressing Peppa Pig's family

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Okay I think I am back on track now - and with the ten hour time difference from home I might even get this posted while it is still Sunday.  Let's go:

I did frog the Birdsong back to Row 3  It took a while, but I am happy I did it  I have knit two rows since then and I am working hard to make sure my fairisle is not too tight and lumpy. I am using my long dpns, instead of a circular needle now, but I forgot to pack my knitting belt - so necessity being the mother of invention I crocheted one out of some handspun I had and stuffed the little egg with some polyfiber I had on hand. 

It works quite well!

I have almost finished the first sock on the testknit.  I have to say I love the way the sock looks, but it is not an enjoyable knit.  It is a 10 stitch repeat, but the stitch marker has to be moved every eight rows - but I am almost at the toe decreases so I will keep going. I should have it off the needles by bedtime tonight. 

This week I have three finishes  and here they are modelled by their receipients!

Wendy Wolf's Cloak for riding her broom 

Momma Pig's Shawl

Poppa Pig's Cabled Scarf

I was excited to win a prize in the Imagined Landscape group for my Gnomes.  I have ordered two mini skeins (for future gnomes) and a wooden tool for measuring the weight of the yarn I have spun.  When I get back from overseas they should be waiting for me.  I do love winning things!

It is almost Halloween and today my gd and I will be carving a pumpkin and roasting the seeds.  We got her costume yesterday which she hasn't taken off since (except for reluctantly wearing pjs to bed).

My daughter aned I found the wings, crown, jewelery and wand in one store, and while shopping for some socks and pants in another store, my gd walked up to be holding the dress.  It was perfect!!  A wee fairy princess will be trick n treating tomorrow evening for certain! 

Happy Halloween to all tomorrow, and in a week North America will catch up to the time change that Europe started this morning.  Not sure why we don't all do it at the same time, but for a week we will be out of sync, and then all we be back to normal.  Funny world.

Year of Projects Update - Week 16 (I think)

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If you read my previous blog you will see why I haven't been posting about my knitting projects, but rest assured I have been knitting.  

doubleknit heel

other side of doubleknit heel

used slip stitches to get blue to "pop" on the sock

I finished the above sock I had designed just before boarding a plane on October 4th, and then while on the plane I started another new design  My designs are experiments on how to manipulate colour while using variegated yarns. 

different technique using loops for knitting whenever I came to pink in the yarn

I have knit my October Advent Gnomes:

I love her braids

Halloween gnome so Orange of course

and since my Advent gnomes wanted a cozy bag for winter I knit them a larger version of my clothespin bag.

20 down, 4 to go

Bag o'gnomes

I have mostly been working on Birdsong, and last night I finished the birds but I am not happy with the puckering so I am going to frog back and re-start.  Live and learn, eh?  Or knit, frog and re-knit in this case. 

pre-frog picture

I might try knitting this inside out to have more control over my floats.  I brought my long dpns on this trip but forgot my knitting belt so I tried using a circular needle but with over 300 stitches it was quite cumbersome as my circular needle wasn't as long as it needed to be. 

I have also almost finished a testknit for next year's Super Sock World Championship - but since it is a testknit there will be no pictures.  I am worried I will have second sock syndrome with this pattern.  It looks cool but it is not an enjoyable knit.  

I will try to post more regularly.  I seem to have my writing mojo back and have spent the last few weeks editting my second novel and hope to have it published by the end of the year.  I am going to spend Nanowrimo November entering my edits and getting the final copy pulled together.  I have to design a title page as well which should be easier since I am in town where the novel is set and should be able to get the perfect cover photo.

I am still 'wild' swimming although it seems a bit too easy at the moment since the Adriatic sea temperature is between 18C and 21C.  A far cry from the 13C-14C I left back home.  

I promise to spend some time in the next few days catching up on the other Yoppers. 

Now I am off to Frog....it is hard, but I won't be happy unless I do.  I'll post progress (or negative progress) next week. 

I wanna see you be brave

 Sara Bareilles song Brave took me by surprise a few weeks ago.  It has now become my anthem of sorts. 

I was sitting at my pharmacy waiting for some stupid mix-up to get sorted and I was crying.  

I should back up to four days before this.  My daughter had called and asked me to go with her back to the country where she had lived for five and a half years.  That was a Thursday morning. By Friday morning I had booked a ticket for the following Monday. I had called my doctor to okay getting two months of my prescriptions filled for a trip that would be anywhere from two to three months.  Alas Friday was a holiday, and the next day, Saturday, was well Saturday.  I knew I wouldn't hear from my doctor until Monday but I alerted the pharmacy that the approval would be coming and to have the prescription ready.  They said they would.  

They didn't. 

My flight was leaving at 6:30pm.  I called the doctor office again at 8:30 Monday morning.  Then again at 11am.  

Nothing. 

I went to the pharmacy.  They, at first, refused to fill the prescription without the doctor's okay. 

It was 1pm.  He still hadn't called.  I was scared and alone and in tears sitting in the stupid chair beside the blood pressure machine.  I was making a scene.  I couldn't help it.  I was texting with my husband, my son, my daughter and they were all telling me it was gonna be okay. 

It didn't feel okay. 

And then?  

Then Sara Bareilles song came on over the store's music station. 

"I wanna see you be brave". 

It made me take a deep breath. I texted my daughter of the syncronicity.  I stopped crying.  The pharmacist decided to fill the prescription without the doctor's okay.  By 2pm I was on my way. 

By 3:00 I was leaving the house for the airport.  

Guess who called?

Yup.  My doctor.  He was just picking up his messages.  He said it was fine that they had filled it.

So I got on the plane (despite my worries about CoVid).  Made the connection (despite an hour delay leaving) and met my daughter at the gate of our connecting flights. 

Here I am with her and my granddaughter for the past three weeks.  Sitting in the sun, swimming in the sea, talking with my daughter, and playing Peppa Pig with my granddaughter. 

Sara, you wanted to see me be brave. 

I am.

Every single day.

Brave

You can be amazing
You can turn a phrase into a weapon or a drug
You can be the outcast
Or be the backlash of somebody's lack of love
Or you can start speaking up

Nothing's gonna hurt you the way that words do
When they settle 'neath your skin
Kept on the inside and no sunlight
Sometimes a shadow wins
But I wonder what would happen if you

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly, I wanna see you be brave
With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly, I wanna see you be brave

I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I wanna see you be brave

I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I wanna see you be brave

Everybody's been there
Everybody's been stared down by the enemy
Fallen for the fear
And done some disappearing
Bow down to the mighty
Don't run, stop holding your tongue

Maybe there's a way out of the cage where you live
Maybe one of these days you can let the light in
Show me how big your brave is

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly, I wanna see you be brave
With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly, I wanna see you be brave

And since your history of silence
Won't do you any good
Did you think it would?
Let your words be anything but empty
Why don't you tell them the truth?

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly, I wanna see you be brave
With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly, I wanna see you be brave

I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I wanna see you be brave

I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
See you be brave

I just wanna see you (yeah)
I just wanna see you (oh o)
I just wanna see you

I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you

Longest Labour Ever - Introducing White Rabbit

Link to Amazon here

She is here.  Out in the world taking her first breaths.

It was conceived as a challenge accepted in November of 2015 - to write a novel of a minimum of 50,000 words.

Then editing.

And putting it away.

And pulling it out. 

And re-editing. 

Finally by the summer of 2018 to start to hand it out to beta readers. 

And to edit again. 

And to put it in the drawer again. 

Finally in the late summer of 2021 to be encouraged to just do it. 

And I did.  

In early September I tackled setting up an account with Kindle Direct Publishing. 

I navigated the forms, the tax implications, the formatting.  Oh, the formatting. 

And editing, Over and over. (Editors deserve our respect is all I can say).

Then on October 6, 2021 with my heart in my throat I phoned my sister. 

All I had to do was press the button. 

She and I held our collective breaths and I pressed PUBLISH.

Then I had to wait a few hours for Amazon to accept my novel...my baby. 

Almost six years from start to finish.  I have read and re-read this novel dozens of times and still there are parts of it that make me cry even though I know how it turns out in the end. 

The premise is fictional, but many of the chapters are my stories to tell, and now I have told them.

If you are interested in purchasing that would be great. 

If not, that is okay too. 

Just be kind.  She is mine and I love her.  I am being brave. Depression lies.  I want the world to know that and if one other person sees themselves in the pages, and finds some solace, or acknowledgement, or recognition or hope then I have succeeded. 

White Rabbit

by Mary-Anne Burton Taylor

published October 2021