Have you ever wanted to run away?

I'm having one of those lifetimes, right now.

I know wherever you go, there you are, but sometimes I think a major change in scenery would do me a world of good, if only by keeping my mind occupied with new sights and sounds and smells.

My Christmas knitting proceeds apace (maybe that's part of my problem -- I've made so many of those little curliques I'm going around the bend myself?) and I've found an adorable pattern for my tree topper, the Hurricane Angel.

I'm going to have a very fibery tree, if I can ever get around to finishing my garland (and on the up-side, I've figured out how I'm going to attach them together, when I get to that stage.) And I've got a ton of sparkly beads to decorate the ones that are ornaments.

Now I've just got to get around to doing it all!

Well, that hasn't happened since...ever.

The time change must have impacted me in a strange way, because after work this morning I went home and took the world's strangest nap. Well, it would be more accurate to say that I fell into a temporary coma today. I haven't slept that hard in...ages. Since I was a little kid, really. I literally laid down, closed my eyes, opened them, poof! Two hours gone. Closed my eyes, opened them, poof! Another hour gone.

If it weren't for the fact that I felt moons and satellites better afterward, I'd have thought I hadn't slept at all.

Aside from my bizarre neurology making me lose hours in the middle of the day, I've started a new knitting project. Because I need another one of those like I need another hole in my head.

Actually, the way my sinuses have been acting lately, a little trepanning might not be a bad thing right now.

I'm making Christmas tree decorations!

I got a packet of Lion Brand BonBons Yarn -- they're little skeins, 39 yards a piece, of the various flavors of Lion Brand yarn. You can get them in acrylic, cotton and the sort I got -- metallic. There's two sets of the metallic colors, Celebrate and Party. Here's a picture of my bunch, in the set of colors called Celebrate:

Yes, that's a knitting needle in the bag there. I've already knit up the purple into little sparkly spirals:

And eventually I will sew them together to make a garland for my little Christmas tree. I have the crocheted ornaments that I got given by my Coven mate, and a hand-made ornament or two from other sources, but this will be the first thing for my tree that I've made myself.



I'm a little proud of myself, thanks.

I get four little twizzles out of each bonbon skein, so I'll get 32 total out of the packet I bought last week. They're between 2 and 3 inches long (provided I don't stretch them out like heck and darn), so I'll probably get a 5-8 foot long garland out of one bag. Although I might want the other color set, Party, for the gold and bronze skeins. I could always do two whole bags, mix them all up and have a garland for the tree and one for general decor. Or do one garland and then use the other twizzles as hanging ornaments. Maybe even put some beads on the yarn tails for each one. They're pretty enough.

Sigh. Decisions.

Broke my cable.

The past week has sucked beyond all reason.

Hormones. Just...hormones. They suck.

I participated in a large scavenger hunt, and feel full of fail because of that little boondoggle. I suppose I'm not full of fail, but still. 

The yarn on my shawl is apparently super heavy, because I popped the end of my cable out of the cap that screws on to the needle tip the other day. Sigh.

I had car drama. I always seem to be having car drama, don't I?

I've also had too much drama today and am ready for it to be tomorrow already, please. Or maybe I just need to snarf the chocolate that's sitting on my desk.

Oh, well. Tomorrow I get to try to catch up on my NaNo word count, which is going to be not fun because I'm already 2,000 words behind (and will be almost 4,000 short if I don't get on the ball tomorrow). And then...gah.

I'm half tempted to crack into this well before the 50,000 word mark:

But no. I need a motivation to keep writing.

I don't even know if I like prosecco. Maybe I should have chosen a more reliable reward?

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.