It's a Conspiracy

The universe (or my internal editor, or fear of failure, or...) is throwing obstacles in the path of my novel-writing escapade. I have a quilt that I need to finish for a friend/customer. I've had this quilt (hereafter known as the purple beast) since June - it's a Christmas present. Other projects with more immediate deadlines kept cropping up, then school started, then I noticed a big mistake and had to rip out my quilting. I thought I had fixed the problem so that I could quilt like crazy this weekend and start my novel on November 1st with the other insane NaNoWriMo folks around the world. NOPE. The purple beast reared it's ugly head, and the only solution I could see was to rip out every stitch and start over. Ripping out quilting is a huge job. Which means the few hours of free time that I had intended to use for writing over the next month, are now usurped by the purple beast. But I refuse to give in without a fight, so I will give up some precious sleep, and write anyway. Take that Universe and purple beast - I'm not quitting!

How do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.

NaNoWriMo is code for National Novel Writing Month. I "win" if I write 50,000 words that somehow resemble a coherent story.

Yes, I know this is just more evidence that I am certifiably crazy. But, I need to stop dreaming and start doing. I was about 8 years old when I first got the idea to write a book. Then, in 6th grade, in a class for advanced students doing independent projects, I wrote a story and bound it between cardboard covers. My bookshelves are full of writers-how-to titles. Now it's time to get back in touch with my younger self who was able to put pencil to paper and end up with a finished story. That is my goal in November.

Phase 1 complete

I finished knitting the last of the mitered squares - Hallelujah! Phase 2 is the seaming. After I get the squares sewn in groups of three, I will lay them out to check on color placement and size (remember, the crazy plan is to have this fit my queen size bed). Then comes the border.

It's probably insane to think I could have this done by Christmas, but with cooler evening temperatures there is an incentive! And it was so fun to cast on a pair of socks after almost six months of stockinette stitch.

Here is Kendra, all ready for a sleepover at Grandma's. Everything is packed in her Disney princess backpack.
My latest quilt project was a log cabin charity quilt. I did some meandering leaves on the dark half of the log cabin, and a spiky ferny thing on the light side.Happy Stitching!