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I haven't been feeling very chatty at all lately. It's not that nothing has been happening - it's more that everything feels like sludge. It doesn't help that we've had -30C windchill for several days in a row! But, well. Anyway.

+ I finished sorting out all of my yarn today. I put together a big spreadsheet, and I catalogued everything on Ravelry, with photos. Hopefully now I'll be able to keep track of everything. I discovered a few kits that I had purchased and never started, so that was interesting. Will get to those in good time.

Also found an abandoned project that, at the time, I'd been very pessimistic about, but I feel differently now - I think I might try to finish it. Maybe. (I'd been working from a pattern in a language I don't speak, and had to restart it several times, and was frustrated. But when I look at it now, I actually did a pretty good job; worth picking up again at some point.)

I'd been wanting to knit something for Tik, and now I'll be able to do that, now that I know what I have. It was hard to decide on a project when I had no clue what was available for me to work with.

+ The local library has the Sailor Moon manga. I picked it up on a whim, and I've been enjoying it quite a bit. When I was a kid, I loved the dubbed anime, and revisiting the series in the manga form is pretty interesting, because there's familiarity and nostalgia, but the pace is different and so on.

Previously, my only exposure to the manga was a volume I borrowed from an art club acquaintance in high school; I remember having a hard time getting into it at the time, partly because Usagi's name was translated to "Bunny" and it bugged me in a way that was trivial but impossible to ignore. I'm glad the new translation just calls her Usagi.

...Anyway, yeah, this is fun. I'm going to keep reading it until I run out of volumes, I think. I kind of want to revisit the anime, too, because the library also has that, but I'm not sure how it would hold up. :Va

+ An acquaintance recently sent me a volume of Olav H. Hauge's poetry. It's a Norwegian collection of his work, no translations. This brings me great joy - I love this guy's work, so it's nice to have it in the original. Plus, while I do like my facing translation editions, reading his work på norsk in this book will require me to actually read it - without cheating by glancing at the English.

It's very challenging, partially because of the dialect and partially because it's poetry, and I expect I'll be reaching for a NO->EN dictionary a lot (and probably also combing wiktionary for help with the very dialect-y bits) but that's fine. I've been kind of neglecting Norwegian for Polish as of late, so it's been nice to pick something up and realize that I can still read it.

+ Stumbled across newyearcntdown, which is a prompt fest for December. It sounds fun! I haven't decided whether to sign up, though - I've been feeling very creatively quiet lately, probably because I have so much going on. But maybe I'll give it a go anyway. :V (Who knows.)

+ Counted the bottles of wine in my pantry. Guys, I have 14 bottles. That's way more than one person needs. Anybody want to come over and help me drink all this? ;V Most of it wasn't even purchased; my mom makes wine as a hobby, and gives me a bottle every time she finishes a batch. It's pretty good stuff, too! But I don't drink often. Maybe I should look up some recipes that use it? orz

+ Discovered a huge amount of bluish-grey yarn in my stash. I must have had a plan for this stuff, because I wouldn't order something in this quantity without intending to do something specific with it, but for the life of me I can't remember what. It's 10 balls of River City Epic, a tough wool yarn in worsted weight that I've used before and really like. That's enough to make a blanket, so... that's probably what I'll do with it! (After I finish my current project.) Maybe something by Fifty Four Ten; I really like their patterns. Anyway, this has convinced me that I really need to get into the habit of writing down what I intend to do with my yarn; put a sticky note on the label or something. 'Cause, geeze.

(Reading through instructions for socks)

"Divide yarn into two equal balls".... Wha -- Okay.

You know, I never actually thought about it, but yeah, you would have to do that. Except for cases where you're working with really short skeins. It makes perfect sense! Never occurred to me, though!

Looks like I'm going to have to buy one of those kitchen scale things. Which I've been meaning to do anyway, but dragging my feet, as usual.

Now that I think of it, none of the mittens I've made had instructions calling for dividing up the yarn like this. Which - you'd think they would. Then again, I haven't made many pairs of those, so I'm working with limited data here. Aaaanyway....

Aha. Finally got to the point where I can bind off this blanket I've been knitting as a wedding present! Took me almost a year, but I'm nearly done!

Still need to weave all these loose ends in, though. Ugh. Least favourite part! Just when you think you're done, you realize that there are all these tails hanging out everywhere. Terrible. ;p

(The pattern is All These Places by Fifty Four Ten, by the way. Love it, simple but very fun to work with, would recommend.)

I'm so looking forward to being done with this thing. And for the wedding in general to be over, I'll be honest. Just a few more weeks... :V

☆ Today was a provincial stat, so I got to stay home and relax rather than hauling my ass out of bed at Ridiculous O'Clock. Wonderful. <3

☆ Finished the cowl I was working on. Pattern was Muchness. Won't get around to blocking it until the weather is warmer, but I'm pretty happy with it, even if connecting the ends involved me doing the sloppiest kitchener stich the world's ever seen. (Nobody's going to be looking that closely, shhhh.) Must say, I really like this pattern - it's pretty mindless, excellent for TV knitting. The yarn was Socknado by Ancient Arts (they're located in my province, wahey!) which has such nice colours, and the yarn itself is really nice to work with, pleasantly squishy. Definitely would use it again.

☆ Today's success: worked through a whole lot of Boring Yet Important things that I really would rather not have spent time on but nevertheless needed to be done. Gold star for me!

☆ Started reading Red, White, and Royal Blue. Came to the conclusion that it's probably not a Hetalia fanfic with the numbers filed off, but it does have a very fanficcy vibe. It's fun and light, though, which is what I'm looking for right now. ;)

☆ Gave in and started working on another NO/RO story. I've been thinking about this particular one for ages, so... nice to get it on paper. It's already taking on a slightly different shape than predicted, though, which is not unexpected, but still kind of annoying. Aaaand I realized that I'm going to need to put some stuff in the middle if I want to get the pacing right! Hate it when that happens. Well, I'll think of something. ;V (Okay, okay, I could skip over the other stuff, but if I did that, it wouldn't be the fic of my dreams, because I need cozy fluff first as a lead-up to sexy nonsense, obviously.)

☆ Speaking of which, realizing once again: It's so damn nice to live alone. I can leave my handwritten fic drafts out on the kitchen table without even the slightest worry! Amazing.

☆ It was only -20C when I went out for a walk this afternoon. Looks like our period of extreme cold is tapering off. What a relief. <3

Man! If I'd known that knitting cables would be this easy, I'd have tried it a long time ago.

(The hat is going very well so far.)

I have the same kind of feeling that I get when I unlock a new level or something in a video game. ;)

Related: I'm so glad for the existence of video tutorials. I originally had to teach myself how to knit from still diagrams, and while that turned out okay, it was a bit of a challenge and probably took a lot longer than I would have if I could actually see how things are done. Things are so much easier now, and it makes me very happy.

Things I did in the last two days -

Yesterday:

+ Work! I do that occasionally.

+ Walked the dogs. Our street is deserted even at normal times, and it was no different today.

+ Watched Wagner's Das Rheingold via the Vienna State Opera's free streaming. It was okay; not one that will be a favourite. I would classify it as "interesting" rather than "enjoyable", if you know what I mean.

+ If anyone's curious, the total of operas I've seen up to this point are: Pirates of Penzance, The Mikado, The Magic Flute, Tosca (1976 film version), and now Das Rheingold and La Boheme via streaming.

+ Did a whole lot of knitting. I've started a new project; Susan Ashcroft's Little Waffles scarf, using some cream-coloured DROPS Air yarn. It's very soft and cuddly and squishy! And the "waffle" texture shows up really well. I really love S Ashcroft's patterns; they're written in a very clear and easy-to-understand style.

+ Finished reading Richard Wagamese's Ragged Company. This was an excellent book. I've enjoyed his work before, but I think this might be my new top favourite of his stuff. He builds up these wonderful characters and weaves their stories together in a lovely, incredible way.

Today:

+ Work :V

+ More knitting!

+ More dog-walking! The little one was being a complete brat, so I had to take him outside to stop him from constantly barking.

+ Watched one episode of Rise of Phoenixes. I'm almost finished this series... 5 more eps to go, I think. (FINALLY.)

+ Watched Puccini's La Boheme via the Met Opera's free streaming. Oh, this was lovely! I really enjoyed the singing, the costuming, the sets, everything. I think my favourite of the singers was Ramón Vargas - since I haven't heard any other productions of this opera, I don't have anything to compare it to, but I found his Rodolfo very heartfelt and expressive, and he has such a lovely voice!

Also, it was very interesting to see the inspiration for Rent, which I was a big fan of back in high school. (Or rather, I was a fan of the Rent soundtrack - there was actually a big in-person fandom for that at my school, even though none of us had ever actually seen the musical. Ditto Phantom of the Opera.)

+ Worked a little bit on an FTH fic. I've written hardly anything this month and the previous, so it felt good to put something down, especially for a project that does have a due date. It's not entirely because of current events; I have had a case of the blahs since around mid-February, and it just happened to coincide with... well... you know. But I think if I keep moving words around, something might happen. ;p

And that's that. I expect the next few days will be more of the same.

Well, I sure had to scrape the frost off my car windows this morning. It's that time again.

With that in mind, I finished some knitting recently, and I'm pleased with it. :D

I made a Marshmallow Fluff* cowl and a Perky Hat*, and they turned out really well. I used some Malabrigo Rasta yarn, which I've been dying to try because it looks so damn squishy and warm. Turns out, it's just as squishy and warm as it looks. ;) Tried to get photos, though they didn't turn out that well - if you have a Ravelry account you can see it here.

There were a lot of adjustments to the hat pattern, and at this point it takes some significant departures from it... I was using an altered version, and then altered that further. But the result is super thick and warm, and it'll probably stand up to -25C no problem.

Next project is going to be another Rosewater shawl*. In black this time. I made one earlier in the year that was a truly hideous colour (speckled multicolour confetti... looked great on the skein, looks ridiculous once you knit up, never buying something like that again). Mom liked the design, so this one will be for her, probably.

I've managed to get pretty good at knitting while watching TV, and the lace part isn't so bad if you take care with it, so... maybe I'll be able to finish watching Rise of Phoenixes while I work on this thing. ;) Yes, I'm still not finished with that series.

Man, one of these days I would love to make myself some produce bags. Those little plastic ones at the grocery store drive me nuts.

I think there might be some knitters/crocheters on my flist who've done it before... Which patterns did you use? I don't know crochet, but this seems the kind of project that might be good for it. (I could learn?)

Though I did find a knitted one that looks good - Weightless produce bag 2.0. I don't currently have any suitable material for it right now (and I have a whole lot of other projects on the go), so it'll have to wait a while, but 's a possibility.

☆ I finished the lacy shawl I was working on! It knitted up a lot more easily than I expected it to. I suppose the fact that the lace is not necessarily overly complicated helps. I'm still glad that I did a 'test' of it with a particular yarn that I didn't care about, though. Anyway, not going to block it until the weather is warmer. In the meantime, I'm going to start a linen weave boomerang scarf in grey and black.

☆ Today was so busy, wow. And yet... I managed to do everything I'd intended - including a ton of chores in the morning, and then out the door by ten, so I could do errands. I'm really, really pleased with myself. It's amazing what a good night's sleep can do. ;V

☆ I've started reading A Conspiracy of Kings. And once I'm finished this one... there will only be one more left in the Queen's Thief series, until the next book is released. Oh no. Terrible. :'| I'm trying to ration them as best I can. xD

☆ Speaking of reading, I have three books to get through before I leave for Victoria on the 5th. Will I manage? We will see. ;V Maybe now that the knitting is done, I'll be able to direct my attention in this direction.

☆ Fics for multifandomdrabble will reveal in a few days, and I'm very excited. I might try to write one or two more... we'll see. :)

☆ Multifandom Poetry Fest is open for prompting/filling! Probably going to sit this one out because I'm low on time, but I'm glad that it's running again.