I WON!

That is right, folks. I finished NaNoWriMo! On the last day. Check out my little icon to the left. :D

In addition, my mystery project (which katherine correctly guessed was wristwarmer-thingies and so is no longer a mystery) is coming aong quite well, despite my having ripped it out at least partway about five times by now. I am nearly done with the first one, and once I have figured out how that goes, the second one will be much faster. When I finish, the pattern shall be posted.

You also may have noticed that my grammar in this post has been somewhat formal-sounding. This is because, for some odd reason, I am unable to use contractions at the moment, due to the fact that the apostrophe key on my keyboard keeps taking me to quick search instead of creating an apostrophe in the window. The same is true for the slash. It is like Firefox does not want to acknowledge that I am typing or something...I do not know. It is most irritating.

EDIT: Apostrophe problem seems to have fixed itself. Now I'll be able to use words like 'I'll' again! :P

New Projects, etc...

So after ripping out my poor Jaywalkers, I first started some comfort knitting, which was a chain link scarf out of some lovely Elsebeth Lavold Angora:



But then we drew names for our (nondenominational!) Secret Snowmen on swim team, and I decided I wanted to knit something for my person. I decided what I wanted to make, and picked a yarn, and then looked through several hundred patterns (mostly on Ravelry), but none worked with the yarn and looked nice. So I decided to design something. I've also decided I like it so far, and will write up the pattern later. But, for whatever reason, I've decided not to tell you what it is. But here are pictures:





And this, unlike the two other patterns I've posted, I plan on this being an actual pattern! Like, a pattern that contains instructions such as 'k6, p2, k3!' You will be very proud of me. I know it. If anybody's actually reading this, care to guess what it is I'm making?

Jaywalkers Frogged!

So, I did notice the other day that they were too small for me. But I figured they would fit someone. However, I tried them on my dear sister today, and we could barely get it on her foot.
















She is a woman's size 5. Quite itsy-bitsy. And we were hoping to sell them, but I don't think anybody would pay enough for kids' socks even to compensate for the yarn. So, farewell, Jaywalkers!





























What's left. And me post-frogging.

I think I'm taking a sock hiatus for a bit...I'll have to figure out something else to bring to school tomorrow...

On the bright side, I passed 45,000 words! NaNoWriMo is eating my life more than I remembered from last year, and it's been fun, but I'll be really happy when it's done.

Edit - I'm starting the chain link scarf, so I will have something to bring to school. And I'm doing it out of some nice, worsted-weight wool/angora. It's comfort knitting at it's finest.

I am laughing hysterically right now.

You will NEVER guess what happened to me.

My English teacher (a slightly creepy old man who looks like a hobo) called me because his wife had an urgent question about knitting! I just think that's hilarious and felt the need to immortalize it bloggily.

Turned out she had taught someone (her son's girlfriend) to knit and wanted to get her yarn to make a scarf but wasn't aware that you can get inexpensive yarn at an actual yarn shop. She was going to go to Michaels'! *gasp* Yes, I am a yarn elitist. I don't like acrylic yarn with no dye lots. Shoot. Me. Now. So I kindly explained to her that if she just went back to the LYS and told them what she needed and what her price range was, they'd help her.

*laughs again* My ENGLISH TEACHER called me about KNITTING! Teehee.

Just goes to show you what happens when you knit in class, I guess...

Ah well...

Well, I vowed to myself that I would try to write 4,000 words today, but as of now (8:24PM) I'm still behind for the day. I'm hoping to write at least 2,000 though and stay ahead of the game. But syzygy's over and we're having fun! I'll have time later...hopefully. We took a lot of pictures of knitted things, so there are many fun pictures up now, such as pictures of the Silky Shrug, the Ruanigan, and my current project, the Jaywalker socks. I think I may get addicted to socks. They'll be good for the sale, anyway.
I particularly like this picture of the shrug:















An 'action photo,' you might say.

Well, back to NaNo. Hopefully.

*sigh of relief*

At long last, I am CAUGHT UP in NaNoWriMo! I've been 6,000+ words behind for a week or so now, and with two monumental days yesterday and today, I am at last on target! For the rest of this break (3 more days), I hope to write at least 3,000 a day and get ahead by a goodly amount since swim meets are coming up, so practices are getting tough and I'll be exhausted. Plus, homework and crap as usual.

Anyways, happy Thanksgiving! We had (you guessed it) turkey, stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes, crescent rolls, and salad for dinner and I made an apple pie which we will be having soon with vanilla ice cream. I salivate just thinking about it.

Tomorrow, syzygy (I don't know if she (or mor likely, her mom) is comfortable with her name being given out online so I will stick to her Ravelry screen name for now) is coming over and she, my mom (duphly) and I are going to have a picture party! We all have multiple unRaveled (as in not posted) projects that need photographing. It should be funfunfun!

Over and out.

Will have INCOME!

I've been teaching a kids' knitting class at a LYS near me - we worked out some sort of percentage agreement for payment that I didn't pay much attention to since I was just thrilled to have a job. I got a bit worried when it turned out only four kids signed up for the class, and my mom started teasing me that I would get $5 for the whole thing or something. Well it turns out that whatever I agreed to comes out to $20 an hour!!! AND she's going to pay me that for the extra class we're adding on to the end even though the parents aren't paying any more for it! I was flabbergasted. How many teens earn that much?? I'm so happy! Plus, she said I could probably do another session of classes and make it an ongoing thing. This is so fantabulous.

I also passed 21k on my NaNo today - I'm actually ahead, for the first time this week! Hurray! Between 500-word spurts, I've been allowing myself to waste time online for a bit - an effective motivational tactic, I've discovered. I've been browsing many online knitting patterns, so check out my Ravelry faves, which have grown quite suddenly yesterday and today. Except now I delude myself into thinking that this blog is any more than a diary currently - I really don't think much of anybody is reading it. Ah well. It's probably the longest diary I've ever kept... :P

On the not-quite-so-happy front, I have swimmer's ear, which means my ears hurt all the time and I have to take these icky ear drops three times a day for a week. Not fun. And I haven't had to swim since it got bad because I didn't have a ride today, so I'm not so much looking forward to swim practice...Oh well.

Another sad thing...my sister's hamster died yesterday. She was hysterical, and I remember when my guinea pig died how hard it was, and I cried with her. He was adorable, too. She's been crying on and off all day today. They have a lifespan of two to three years, but he didn't even live one, so obviously we were all really shocked. And my brother was totally insensitive about it, to the point where I started yelling at him. He's such an idiot sometimes. *sigh*

Back on the bright side again, a 4-day week this week and a 2-day week next week, for Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving, respectively. Huzzah!

I love my neighbors...and cookies!

So after dinner, I was pondering how I really wanted some cookies. Then, I remembered that earlier in the week, my neighbor had called asking for WiFi help. I had told her that with swim team and all, I was really busy during the week, but that I could probably help her over the weekend. So I called her and she said to come on over. I reinstalled the wireless card on her husband's laptop, and they were happy.
Jokingly, he said, "Pay the girl!"
Jokingly, I said, "Pay me in cookies. I've been craving them and was going to make some but we don't have any butter."
Five minutes later, I held in my hand a quart-size zip baggie full of cookies!
See title of post.

On the slightly more normal front, NaNo is going decently; I'm at about 15,000, which is about 1,500 words behind at the moment, but I'll have lots of time over the 3-day weekend, and over Thanksgiving Break next week, so I'm not too worried.

For Ravelers, I finally felted my Lucy Bag, which had been hovering at 95% complete for a few days because I hadn't yet. Then I decided it hadn't felted enough so I felted it more. Now it's done and I'm quite happy with it. So I'm working on some mittens that I got a free kit for at Stitches. Not this year - either last year or the year before, I don't remember. They're very very soft and they make me happy. Also, the kit claims I have enough for 3 pairs, but I have a hunch that I might be able to squeeze four out of it, which would be great for our sale.

Oh yeah, need to explain that - we (my mom and I) have, for the past few years, sold things we have knitted at the Chanukkah Bazaar at our temple and given the profits to a charity (such as the Humane Society or Heifer International), but because most of the things sold there are cheap plastic dreidels or acrylic fun fur scarves shoddily made by Sunday School teachers and we like to think that we are slightly classier, we decided to skip it this year and apply to a local crafts festival and sale for next year, where we can set appropriate prices. So anything on my Ravelry that says it's for sale is for that, not for people to buy from me. ;)

The great things about selling stuff in general are:

1. If we're going to sell it, my mom will buy the yarn since we keep back materials costs at the sale.
2. We can make things that have no specific recipient in mind.
3. We donate the profits to a good cause!

The not-quite-so-great-but-still-tolerable thing is that for our table to not look all hodgepodgey, we're thinking we should have a good number of some things so it's not just 3 hats, 2 pairs of mittens, 2 purses, etc. which would be kind of unprofessional. So we have to make multiple similar things, which can get a bit boring. But that's okay. Also, that's why making a bunch of mittens is good - and I've been a mitten machine these past few days, churning out 1+ per day, relatively painlessly. i.e. without getting bored of it, as yet.

Well, that's my life for now, and now we're watching 2001: A Space Odyssey, so I bid thee farewell.
Farewell.

Odd Happenings

Hi all. So, first off, NaNoWriMo goes well, all though I haven't worked on it at all today and probably should be right now...*sigh* But I'm at about 8,500 words, so still ahead for the time being. However, swim team started today, which means I won't get home until around 7PM each night, and I currently have no free periods (although I will next trimester) so homework is about to get even crazier...
Anyway, WEIRD things happened today. I'll share some of them. For one, I rather enthusiastically smashed my head into the corner of a towel rack. Paintful. There's a big bump now and it huuurts! :(
Another weird thing which occurred shortly thereafter (I underlined the odd part):

Is that not bizarre? I'm really worried, though. What if it stops working before I die??? :O
I'm thinking that this oddity has something to do with when I fell off the next chair at Alethia's house (laptop in tow) and when I turned it back on it decided the date was 629 days earlier...Except this time it's multiplied to 5 million whatever.
We played at a wedding this weekend, which was quite fun. And being us, we found the local knitting shop, which we visited between the ceremony and the reception. And I found a copy of Interweave Felt! Now I can make the Lock Nest Hat which I fell in love with. I saw it, but then forgot where I saw it, then figured it out, then couldn't find the magazine ANYWHERE! So I was really happy when I found it. :)
That is all. Signing off.

NaNoWriMo

It's November, which means NaNoWriMo! National Novel Writing Month, that is. This is my third time doing it, and it's been a psycho-amazing blast each time! Basically, you try to write 50,000 words of fiction during the month of November. This year, I'm doing a series of short stories based on images I find online. I'm up to 2,755 words as we speak, which is ahead of the 1,667 daily requirement to finish right on time. Yay! It should be pretty crazy this year, though, since I've got more homework and all. But if you're from Ravelry, that's why I probably won't be finishing too many things this month...:P

Oh yes, and here is a Halloween picture. :)

Are the antlers not glorious?