Just so you don’t think I’ve left my knitting behind. This hat is ready for the crown decrease.
Today’s walk looks the same but we went the opposite way. It was barely raining. We could almost walk between the drops.
I think there were less steps because we didn’t take the dog. But better time. Worrying that the lightning might start made us walk a little faster. Glad we got home before the wind started.
Made progress on the rewrites of book two. I was supposed to get another 6k this month but may have to be happy with what I will have on the 31st.
CampNano starts April 1st. This time I’m thinking of making it an autobiography. My cousin has sent me a tape recorder and tapes to start recording family memories. I thought writing it all down might help with recording and vice versa.
I’ll probably finish these by Sunday. I really need to learn to pull the sock off the loom and onto circular needles as I feel I’m faster doing the rib cuff that way. Actually, learning to needle knit two at a time socks is still a huge goal. But for now, there might be someone out there who needs these socks. I have a bag of things to take to our charity. I can’t wait!
More progress on the dragon. I’m loving the ruler for straighter lines.
I spent about 3 1/2 hours. I’m so addicted to the meditative energy that even when hurting I keep dotting the diamonds.
I brushed on the frame for the sunset. Not sure I like it. Maybe I’ll try to get a regular frame. Or see if I can make it nicer.
All is not lost. More paint or actual frame. I kind of like the wood feeling up near the top. But not happy with the inconsistency.
My editing seems stalled. But maybe if I plant myself at the laptop right now, I can find my way to words–good ones, I hope.
Sometimes in a person’s life they need more ‘atta girl’s. Not always. Sometimes just everyday keeps us going. But I have found that when I feel least alive and I can’t find motivation for even breathing, I need to stop and take stock of my day, week, life. While it is nice when others congratulate me. I find my own boost in saying, “Look at that! Look what you survived, created, loved!”
This blog has been that for me. Day-to-day can be dull. Downright angsty. Especially these last two years. So I am learning to see small accomplishments. Not earth-shattering wins. But things that make me smile and feel alive.
Today’s win is I ran out of Haven 2 to edit. There were 52,053 words altogether. There was no ‘the end’ and quite a few undeveloped characters, scenes, and plot bunnies to work on. I have a better working title: Haven, Above, Beneath, Beyond. My next step is to work toward 60k a full story, minus stuff that needs to be deleted.
My passion this week has been my reading, first edit of Haven Above and Beyond. Or until I choose a better title, Haven book 2. My goal when I started February was 25,000 words read/edited to yWriter7. I have ended February with 45,190. Nearly 50k! I’m more than pleased. And I’m excited about the project. I can’t wait to dig in and rewrite, elaborate or kill parts of the story to make it better.
The heels are done on the socks. It won’t be long now!
My body hasn’t cooperated to finish the last bits of the Diamond Painting. Maybe tomorrow.
I have started working with the Trapp recorder book as it is for the English/Baroque. Then I review what works from the other book. I’m starting it over sadly. I had finished that book.
Now I need to go finish a library book that is due tomorrow.
With the backlight, you can see how my poor eyesight and eye/hand coordination wrought. When I get done I’ll straighten it all up. My purpose for sharing, though, is those white squares have symbols to let the Diamond Artist know what color tile to pop in. Maybe you can see why I get cross-eyed by the end of a session. And yet, I LOVE IT!Nearly finished.New socks started. A bit of yarn-chicken as I wonder if I’ll have enough of this white for a whole pair of socks.Yeah, I’m back to playing my recorders. I thought I had German recorders. But the sound was off sometimes sharp or flat. I figured with practice my breath and fingers would get better. Nope. Now I find out I have Baroque recorders. Different fingering to learn. From the bottom double hole go up to one above the first single hole. That next hole up is smaller. That is the key that shows the type of recorder you have. So back to the drawing board so to speak.
Just so you see there is still editing progress. I’m feeling positive I’ll hit my goal before the end of the month.
Quick weather report. We got a dusting of snow. And it’s cold!
This was a fun hat. The colors remind me of candy corn. The brim is what I think is called Homespun. It’s polyester and rather bumpy. Because of that I was restricted. It is soft but sometimes hard to work with.
The yellow, and rust yarns were mohair of sorts. It is extremely soft. Again, I was rather restricting. No fancy cable stitches or the like will show up.
I don’t believe these yarns would be itchy in any way. I showed the ways the hat can be worn. The inside of the hat (the purl side) is soft like a kitten. And it looks as furry.
Okay, now the detailed bit. I used 80 pegs (40 links) of the KB Flexee fine-gauge loom. Drawstring cast on. After 4″ of flat-knit stitches I pulled the cast on back on the loom forming a folded brim.
The rest of the body of the hat was a simple flat knit stitch.
Finally, I found better instructions for a nice crown decrease. Here is the YouTube I followed.
Other finished things aren’t so much.
Half a sunset on a beach is better than none.
My editing continues. 8,199 words put into yWriter7.
Busy, busy, busy! I’m having fun. For the most part, except for
See the marker? Yeah. Somehow that bit of squiggly yarn escaped being knitted in. So. Tinking. Unknitting. Unmaking. Poor hat was making great progress. 😢
Finally, we put the TARDIS on the wall.
I hope the Command Strips hold. We put Duct Tape on the back to give a more nonporous surface. If not, I know a Dollar General that has actual frames!
My Beach Sunset is coming along. Here is how I protect between the sessions.
I couldn’t find my picture of my setup so here it is again. Just a quickie to show how it works. The quick-release paper that came on this picture is off as I am getting ready to work as soon as I publish this. And yes, I store other hobbies under the table.
Here is the protection between work times and progress to date.
Quick release paper protects the sticky surface pre-diamonds.
Nearly finished with right side of picture. This is the position for working.
Orientation of actual picture.
For #Movie/Television Monday I just finished Sweet Magnolias. A great show for background.
It’s okay
I enjoyed Raising Dion.
I already miss it!
A quick update of editing. I’ve added to my new project 4,748. I can’t remember if I shared that. This was my second NaNo written probably 2002. Yikes! 20 years ago! And it’s easy to see what a pantser I was way back then. Lots of rewrites ahead.
Okay. My Diamond Painting is shouting to me. See ya soon! What are you making/watching?
NaNoWriMo is doing another group push. It’s called Now What 2022. It helps to have these things to try to kick me in the butt to get my editing and more writing done. So for my own accountability, I’m keeping track of words as I add my second Haven book back into the newest version of Writer. I wrote this and Haven back when the program was newish. yWriter5. We are now to yWriter7. I am nothing but redundant in my saving my WIP. So I consistently save the day’s writing in that program to RTF. Now decades later, I am glad I did that.
In this case, I can find my book, Haven Above and Beyond, open it in Word, and then use Grammarly to help me weed through and make a better version, if not rewrite the whole thing to make more sense. And as I enter it into a new yWriter7 project, I can count the word as I paste the worked-out bit in. I set my goal to 25,000 words. I have a few of my other books set up with the same goal because I might feel like moving around. I am not good at editing. I love the adventure of imagining a new story. But jumping into the mess and fixing what already played out as a movie in my mind, I miss a lot, and fixing things just doesn’t come easily. So the word count to date is 2,949. There are two scenes within that that are entirely yellow highlighted as I hate how it reads and will have to totally rewrite them. That’s okay. I’m glad I can see the awful within that movie.
So between editing, Diamond Painting, making a new charity hat while watching Sweet Magnolias, Duolingo, finding the moments to walk or play the recorder, and having a high need dog, I can get pretty turned around. I am grateful to be retired, with nothing but time. But there is never enough even without a job hogging it up.
Oh! Did I mention that in our tiny little community that had one gas station/convenience store and a tiny grocery store, both of which are charging twice as much as they used to, and even then, they were high? We just got a Dollar General. My son and brother went the other day. They came home and told me that it was a TARDIS of a shop, bigger on the inside. My husband and I plan to check it out tomorrow. Who knew, back in my big city days that I would be this excited to go into a Dollar General?
Wow! Can you believe we are back to January in a year that can look like this Y2K22? Beginning Just Jot it January, again, a prompt to write on everyday. Today’s blends with the Stream of Consciousness Saturday with the word prompt appropriate for the day, resolve.
Resolve according to Dar’s silly dictionary is to repeatedly solve. Which is how we all continue an insanity every year. Resolutions have been proven unsuccessful most of the time.
My friend and I choose to sit and write out possibilities. Last year I saw a possibility of getting healthier. It took the whole year adjusting eating habits losing over 30 pounds. And Intermittent Fasting has been the best, easiest method of my life.
This year will mean a possibility of more movement. More music making. More art enjoyments. Of course more knitting. But I’m determined to knit socks on circular needles, flippies or whatever they call those bendy short ones, and I want to learn to use double pointed needles. Right now, loom knitting is fast and I don’t lose stitches. But I am determined to be able to use any of these methods.
I see myself writing more letters and cards. And speaking of writing, I see those many books edited and finding readers.
I see people being kinder to each other. So let’s see if we can make this and more come true!
This has been such a busy day that I can’t believe it is already over. Where did the hours go? I did finish a sock. Oh, I had my NaNo project, Crystal, open all day and I was actually working on the character developments I needed. And Check☑ I got one out of 8 done. And I copied the story from yWriter to WriteItNow. But during all that I was watching season 4 of Dawson’s Creek. It’s so sad to watch the kids all go off to college. It’s called Dawson’s Creek and yet nobody but empty-nesting parents are at the creek. This show so reminds me of times with my teenage daughter, yikes, 20 years ago! And I never watched these last couple seasons as we all moved and my own empty-nest happened. But enough strolling down memory lane, that sock mate won’t knit itself. By the way, this is my last week of being 71. Yikes! It’s all above ground and healthy. Can’t complain, right?
Working on my series: Haven.
Doodler (zendoodle.com)
Music major: voice and piano
Mom of four great adults
Reiki II practitioner
I have been on disability/retired for 10 years now from depression, anxiety and fibromyalgia.
How does a free blog site work when everything is tied to dollars? How do you create content without using proprietary themes when it seems even the colors and fonts are tied to upgrades for usage? Is it even possible? I hope to find out.
Darswords 
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