No frills just yet, but soon.

Very soon.

I'd give an evil laugh, but I might cough myself out, so. Imagine one here.

Anyway, here's where I am on the shawl:

For them as what's keeping score at home, that's the point where I'm going to put the ruffle on. I've picked up stitches along the top of the shawl and put the base stitch markers in and am ready to count stitches and figure out where the ruffles go.

Since I'm pantsing this particular ruffle, it's going to get interesting from here on in.

In other news, however, I have some super cool stitch markers:

Despite the fact that I detest them, I have donut stitch markers. I detest donuts, that is, not the stitch markers in question. I'm rather fond of them. They got given me by a member of The Coven, who was apparently feeling her clay-molding skillz one day. I've got a regular donut with chocolate icing and sprinkles and a strawberry donut with pink icing and sprinkles. They're adorable.

And that's all the knitting news fit to blog, really. It took me a blue age getting those last few rows done. Everyone and their brother told me, 'oh, those last few rows really eat the yarn', but for me they didn't. It felt like it took forever to get to the end of that second skein. Then I tied on (yes, I made knots in my yarn; sue me, it's Lion Brand, I think it can handle it) the third skein and it did, at that point, seem to suck yarn. But not until then, and I didn't tie on the new skein until I did the bottom eyelet row (my shawl has eyelets across the top where you do YOs to add stitches so I did a row of eyelets to make the bottom two edges match).

Still, don't care. I've got some free time tomorrow -- not much, but some -- so I'm going to count stitches and plan out ruffles. And take a nap. I read an article that said that taking naps 2-5 times per week is associated with an up to 30% lower risk of heart disease.

For a woman who, a mere four years ago, had cholesterol that was ticking slowly upward (it's started going down again, never fear), this is a not-inconsiderable thing.

So I'm going to take more naps next month, through the NaNoWriMo phases, and take my other cardiovascular tonics:

red wine and dark chocolate.

Sigh. It's soooo hard looking out for my health. But I will do it!

Ok, so, not so difficult.

I guess I overestimated how tough it would be to pick the next project to work on, because I was knitting on this:

before the fluffy scarf was even dry. It's my modified Milk Run Shawl, in process. I'm not doing too badly, actually. I'm almost at the end of the second skein, which is the point at which I (arbitrarily) decided to start on the ruffle. I've got two skeins for the bottom ruffle and one for the top ruffle.

Of course, I might also just do the ruffle in the round. Three skeins for one super long ruffle. That might actually work best.

I am also prepping for this year's NaNoWriMo. I do this every year (save last) and each year I feel worse about myself for not finishing. But this year I have a secret weapon: The nanowriter forums on Ravelry. I don't have to feel bad for not hanging out on the NaNo boards (which are clunky and uncomfortable, after the warm internet bath that is Ravelry). I hate guilt.

And maybe having people to whine to about word counts, lack of caffeine (because I gave it up for my palpitation reasons) and how the plot has gone all wonky will help. I really want to make it to 50,000 words this year. Even crap words, frankly, I just want to make it.

To prep, I think I need to a) plot out my story a little more than I typically do and b) choose my "music to write to". Thanks to the episode of CSI that's on television right now, I'm thinking...Bach's cello concertos.

Thanks, CSI. Thanks a lot. I use those albums to get to sleep at night, now I'm going to have to multi-task it!

Finally! It's done!

Done, dusted and drying:

The sister in law scarf is done. I've even put the little dangly-bobs on the bottom:

for a little of the old razzle-dazzle. Actually the pattern calls for them, so.....

But the colors coordinate nicely, don't you think?

It's hanging on a hanger on my closet door to dry. My blocking pads are occupied elsewhere (I need to get more, frankly) so I had to just use the hanger to dry it.

I suppose that, technically, I didn't need to wet and dry it, but I wanted to wash any incidental lunch crumbs out of the fluff before I gave it to her. As well as get rid of the major loose fun fur particles. Trimming the tassels at the bottom of the curly bits (below the beads; you can't really see them) was an exercise in making glitter. All over my suede chair.

You don't want to know what I had to go through to make my chair stop shimmering like a vampire in full-on PNW sunlight.

I'm very glad I'm done, to tell truth. Now I get to go through my project bag and pull out something for myself again. Not sure what I want to work on next, to be honest, but I'm sure going to have fun choosing.

It's not done, but the secret's out anyway

So I can unveil the latest thing on my needles:

Yes, it's another Phoenix Tears Scarf from Charmed Knits.  If you'll recall, back in the dark ages of this blog, I made one for the Nieceling. When she was very short and adorable, unlike now when she's tall and beautiful. Ah, youth.

I typically don't repeat myself with patterns, and beyond that I prefer not to knit for others, but my sister in law actually requested a scarf like Nieceling's. As in, asked politely, offered to buy the yarn (although I got the yarn as her birthday gift) and even said please.

Shockingly rare, according to my siblings in the Selfish Knitters group on Ravelry, to get a polite request. I wouldn't know from personal experience, because people rarely assume I'm nice enough to request I make something for them in rude fashion. Apparently, I'm really scary when I knit in public. Or maybe just all the time.

Anyway, here's a close-up shot of the "flames": 

It's the Hobby Lobby version of fun fur.

And a close up of the "feathers":

Yes, more Hobby Lobby yarn. Kitten soft and supremely smooshable, but a pain in the ass to knit. I've seriously remembered why I hated knitting the first one. The fur-type yarns are beautiful and easy to wear (being as they are filthy soft), but seeing the center strand to get your needles through? Yeah, not easy. I've been reduced to knitting on this only during daylight hours and for only a few rows at a time. It's taken quite a while to get this far (2/3 of the way through), and it's just a narrow garter stitch scarf.

Sigh. She asked. And she asked politely. It's hard to say no.

Until I get this thing done and dusted (hopefully tomorrow) it is my only project. The fifty gabillion other baggies in my work bag do not exist at all.

Which is very sad, as everything else in my knitting work bag is destined for me, me, and only me. I want a new knit thing, too!

Pouty face.

Stuff I can't show you (yet)

Yes, I've spent a lot of time alone with my caramel, chocolate and Avengers blu-ray. I'm a single woman, do you blame me for any of it?

Seriously, why did they market that movie to men? There were 6+ totally hot guys in lycra with asses you could bounce quarters on and ONE hot chick that got any sort of screen time at all. And this is a dude movie?

Yeah. Sorta like 300 was totally hetero, too. Hey, I don't judge, if a guy wants to ogle the buttocks of another guy, say, Chris Evans, I'm totally there with him. Boy works out, and work that hard (or merely squeezably firm and taut) deserves to be ogled and admired. But don't pretend to me you paid $10 to see just Scarlett Johansson and maybe the other chick, Cobie Whatserface (sorry, Cobie, I can't remember your name just now) because I'm not sure I believe you. And I know women aren't the only ones who go to movies for a little side dish of eye-candy with their 'splody-explosions.  

Just sayin'.

Anywho, I've got a new project on the needles I can't show you because it's a birthday gift for someone. It's pretty, but I'm remembering very quickly why I don't knit with novelty yarns. Eyelash yarn is fun to wear and soft as kittens, but a total beyatch to work with. I don't knit with mohair for much the same reason -- I guess I don't like yarn that floofs out like that. But the colors are beautiful, and this is a thing that someone actually asked me to make for them, so I will power on.

I'll show pictures later, once it's been given.

In other knitting news, progress remains slow on the projects currently on the needles. I've got cast-on-fever and not enough episodes of Criminal Minds on my DVR to power through everything I've started lately. And serious guilt about working on my newest writing project, which just...popped up one day. You'll note I'm here, writing on my blog right now instead of the next chapter of the project. I will, however, blame my extreme Chocolate Time-ness -- the story is a comedy, and I noticed the last two chapters got really dark. They will need to be rewritten, but I haven't got the comedy juice to write with today, either. So I'm saving myself re-write time later and working on the birthday gift and reading a book I found today that strikes the light tone I'm trying to get into my story.

Hopefully tomorrow I will be in better writing mood.