The thing is, I’m not following a pattern per se. I’m improvising. I’m no artist, by any means, but I have a love of color. And so this entire process has been months in the making, months in the planning and a few days ago I started working. Two arms. Two ears. And a head, and I found myself stuck at the eyes. I had only one style of acrylic eyes in the correct size. Well, I guess this little bunny is getting amber colored eyes. I found myself back on CR’s Crafts looking up doll eyes again. The last time I found myself on that site, I had just purchased Elizabeth Doherty‘s book Amigurumi!: Super Happy Crochet Cute and really wanted to make one of the dolls. Not just the cute other stuff that is in the beginning of the book. I wanted to bypass all of the smaller projects and jump right into the big elaborate dolls.

I found my eyes, and this time I found more eyes in the size for the dolls I want to make (and a few extra, just in case).

I find myself buying a lot of little things here and there. I stopped at Michael’s the other day ready to find exactly what I needed because I had a plan!! Except my plan backfired on me and I wasted the money from a Xmas gift card. Ah well, it was a lesson learned.

Does it mean I’m stealing? Using bits that I like from each ami designer? Deciding on the clothes I want to make… having nothing to do with any of the other designers and authors? I have a hard time understanding at what point it becomes “mine” instead of a copy of theirs. I guess when the time comes I’ll figure it all out.

Back to the doll… I’m at a point where I need to make decisions about colors. What color to make the undies. What color to make the sweater. What color to make the shirt, the underskirt, the shoes, etc. And while I can imagine all of these colors in my head, so far nothing is going quite how I expected it to. I had other plans for the sweater… AND the shirt. If there’s a way for a person who can’t draw to be at a drawing board, I’m that person. I now need to try to figure out how to get this all worked out. Design clothing, too. I don’t design clothes! Not only am I going to have to figure out how to design clothing, but I need to do it on a much smaller scale!

So here I am. Wondering what to do next. *heavy sigh*

My knitting is finally getting better and I’m getting faster. I’m still pretty terrible at actually doing purl stitches in continental, but I love knitting socks because it’s all knit stitches!

I fell in love with this pattern the first time I saw it in Wendy Johnson‘s Socks from the Toe Up. I had tried to work Riding on the Metro with a different yarn that was self-striping and it just didn’t look quite right. I ended up making a different sock from the purple, black and gray yarn (also from Wendy’s book, go figure!). I decided to work these socks two-at-a-time, though I don’t like working top-down, like the book has you work. So I worked each toe on double points and then transferred the stitches onto the circular.

Here are both of my pasty white legs wearing my new pair of socks. These were knit up in Cascade Heritage Sock Solid in the Colorway Anis.

I ran into some issues when it came to the heel. Probably because of the way that Wendy has you work on the heels from the toe up. I’m not entirely sure how the heels are worked when they’re worked cuff down. The book shows photos of what looks like making a flap for the heel, but I prefer the way Wendy does it.

I love the way these socks feel and I love this pattern even more. I’m super excited to have a pair of socks that are already done and made, since I made both of them at the same time, but man oh man did it seem to take an awful long time!

Next project?? I think I’m going to work on a shawlette (also by Wendy), and some fair entries… Amigurumi dolls. I’m still working on the details of exactly what I’m going to make.

I had an idea. It was a pretty good idea, if you must know. I was mostly excited about my idea. It just happened to be a fail idea, though. Works well in the movies-ish type of way, but no way could it coherently be told in story form. Not to mention that I haven’t actually read a good book in so long that I feared I might resort to using sparkling and beautiful ad nauseam until I hit the 50k word mark. I suppose it is a possibility.

In the end, I was putting off things like hanging out with the boyfriend, or going out at all, to pretend like I was going to do some writing. I wasn’t writing. I was catching up on Greek (on Hulu.com) and knitting. Watching Greek and knitting was way more fun than trying to figure out how to move a story along that was so obviously being forced (which, trust me, is the point of Nanowrimo, but doesn’t mean it has to be that hard).

I debated for a couple of days over whether or not I should keep trying. Just plug along and eventually I would get over the “hump” and the story would flesh out and viola! I’d have another novel on my hands. I just wasn’t feeling it. It just didn’t feel right. I’ve written plenty a nano novel without any plotting, or research, or the like. I’ve also had difficult points where I had to nearly force myself to be bothered to care, let alone to write it out. There are many chapters in my previous nano novels that are “tough” to read (imagine having to be the one to write it!). This year was simply different.

The process of Nanowrimo has changed. What it means to me has changed. It used to be this fun event that I toughed out along with so many of my other friends from across the world. It was a learning and growing experience. It was ridiculous and unnerving. We joked about adding flying ninja monkeys, or killing people off, and it was reasonable. It happened. It wasn’t about the story, it was about the process.

For me, once Nanowrimo became what it is today, people have lost sight of what it used to be like. It used to be about growing as a writer, now it’s about the race to word count. It used to be about telling a story, now it’s only about “having the word count to brag about.” Notice a trend? It’s not a personal journey anymore. It’s definitely not fun anymore. It causes me stress. A large portion of that is because I want to believe myself to be a writer at heart, but really it’s a craft I have yet to perfect (if there is such a thing). Not to mention a craft that I have pushed to the wayside. It’s not something I do all the time. It’s not something I do daily, that’s for sure. So how can I write a novel telling a story about characters I don’t even care about. I don’t even know who my characters are!

I said it before though, I haven’t really been doing much reading either. It’s not that I think I should mirror my writing style towards anyone in particular, but you have to keep your brain primed for the kind of stuff you want to write about. I haven’t read any fiction all the way through in so long I’ve forgotten the last novel I’ve read (within the same year!). I have this pile of books (yes, a large pile) that I’ve picked up over the last couple of years, and they haven’t been shelved appropriately… well, because I don’t want them stashed. I want them where I can see that they’re asking to be read. They’re needing me to look at them and be curious what story is between the covers.

So late Saturday night I grabbed The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs. Not the first on my list of must-reads, but it’s on there. I picked this one mostly because it’s about one of my favorite hobbies… knitting (of course).

Maybe if I can open up the reading repertoire it will also open myself up to the better writing I’d like to do. As easy as it is for me to explain why passive-voice writing is BAD to other people, I’m falling prey to it far too much… and it’s annoying.

So this year nano takes a backseat to other things in my life. Including reading, knitting and going to the gym.

I emailed Jennifer over at Woolgirl.com and she was very kind to take me into her sock club at the very last minute. I paid my dues and waited with anticipation for the first shipment to arrive. I think there have been 4 shipments already received (the October one should be coming soon), and they’ve all been lovely. They have all had the best things for goodies and the yarn has been lovely. I’ve been a lazy bum and have not actually knit a single pair of socks, but lemme tell you, there’ll be a day when I will, and I will enjoy the hell out of it.

** Note: There are these groups on Ravelry where you can sell kits that you didn’t love to someone who didn’t get a chance to join the club, etc. For some reason, this idea has not occurred to me. In any way.

In the last kit I received (The Ladybug kit) I also got a Fibersphere ball. Now, in the past I picked up a Yarntainer on sale from Joann‘s. I loved the idea. I really did. Until I went to use it for an actual project. Then I was frustrated and annoyed with the fact that I either had to finish my project or cut the yarn to get the ball out and use it for another project.

I love the Fibersphere ball. I really do. Except I wish it were just a little bit flat at the bottom so that it wouldn’t roll around when placed on a table. Otherwise… It’s pretty damn awesome and I’m glad Jennifer included it in one of the kits.

In other news, the sweater is coming along (finally!!).

See, I was this way with crochet too. I made one simple thing to get the gist of understanding patterns and then I jumped right into making my own stuff and hard things like making amigurumi dolls and the like. I like the challenge. I like forcing myself to learn things that I didn’t otherwise know. It’s good for me and good for my craft.

This sweater, however, is testing my patience. The different between this pattern and the Girasole pattern was simply a matter of knowledge. I didn’t know a lot of the terminology so it was lost on me. The pattern was clear and once I learned my lesson, it all came together quite nicely (there is still not a photo of this item on the net. Mostly because I’m lazy and can’t be bothered with that camera nonsense… or I’m just lazy).

I’m having issues with the sweater pattern. There are decreases with no explanation on how to do lace decreases. Hell, there’s no explanation to the fact that the repeat lace part, each time you do decrease, your starting stitch moves one. And you lose that permanently. So when you do the lace pattern, it’s now altered. Each time. Over and over again. Oh no, you have to learn this the hard way, because knitter’s are all born with this knowledge innately, and since I’m technically a crocheter, I didn’t get this mental memo.

So then, though I’ve worked with doing lace on the increase, to make decreases I was lost. And the Girasole was carefully graphed and made perfect sense. Don’t get me wrong. This sweater is absolutely beautiful. I know that when it’s done I will love it and wear it with much pride. But the process can be kind of hell. To spare myself a whole lot of other grief, I’ve also decided to work it in the round rather than two halves. This is my fault, sure.

I have still had to frog the thing multiple times. 3 times in the last week to be exact. I’ve finally made some progress and it’s all correct and good. I am, however, going to make it longer than the pattern calls. Mostly because I know how traditional clothes fit on my body and I’d rather have a sweater that actually comes to my hips, rather than a boob cover that cost me a lot of money (and time). I’m hoping to snag a photo of the new progress on the sweater, since I’ve been so tired of starting over that I’ve powerhoused through the majority of the beginning. I’m actually passed the furthest point I’ve ever gotten to.

I’m thinking, as much as I love the feel and weight of sock weight yarn, I might reconsider making another sweater outta this stuff. This is just too much work.