My Life in Stitches: My Life in Stitches 2011 Review

I had an interesting fiber year in 2011. When my husband left to serve his one-year deployment, I thought sure I would read a ton of books, but that wasn’t the case. It seems that most of my leisure time went to into knitting. At the beginning of 2011, I only had four completed projects on my Ravelry page. I started and completed 29 projects in 2011.  Yay, me.

Here is my official My Year in Stitches review, the good, the bad and the ugly style.

The Good

Most Helpful Technique Learned: LIFELINES!!!!!

Hindsight is twenty-twenty. One of my knitting friends, Jill, told me about lifelines at the beginning of the year.  The technique is when you run dental floss through a row of your stitches as you knit it. It’s helpful because if you make a mistake, you can rip the work back to the lifeline and all the stiches are on the floss and easier to pick up. Jill told me, but I must admit I was a little slow in putting it into practice. Like several projects slow. But when the above-mentioned Milky Way started kicking my butt, I did a lifeline…and kicked myself for not trying it earlier. Would have saved me a lot of heartache.

Favorite Project: [Three-way tie] Milky Way (Sheryl Thies, Nature's Wrapture), Daybreak (Stephen West) and Fetching (Cheryl Niamath, Knitty, Summer 2006)

Milky Way

This is my favorite project to wear. The color makes it versatile to wear with multiple outfits. And the fiber, (cotton, rayon and silk) is the perfect balance of dressy and casual. And it’s uber warm!

I love Daybreak for two reasons, the colors and that it’s a simple pattern with dramatic results. I made two Daybreaks this year and loved them both.

Daybreak #2

Fetching makes my favorites list because it was instant gratification. I started one day while I was sick in bed. It barely took me 12 hours to finish it. And again, it’s one of those projects that’s really easy but produces dramatic results.

The Bad

Most Frustrating Project: Milky Way Scarf (Sheryl Thies, Nature's Wrapture)

I thought I was going to lose my mind on this one. This is not a social knitting project! I had a complete meltdown at a knitting group meeting because the twisted stitches in this pattern. It wasn’t a hard stitch, it was just one I had to pay attention to…which often I wasn’t and had to go back a rip out huge chunks at a time. The pattern is so defined that it wasn’t one you could fudge you way through your mistakes. This project drove me to the brink of sanity.

Project with the Biggest Design Feature (aka mistake): Ginkgo Shoulderette Shawl (Southern Selkie)

It’s a good sign that something has gone wrong with a project when you have an entire skein of yarn left over when you’re done… and you weren’t supposed to have it. I bought the yarn for this shawl while in Indianapolis during the ACFW annual writers conference.  I loved the color and it was on clearance. Win-win, right? I’d added the Ginkgo pattern to my favorites before I left, so it was a match made in heaven…

Until I finished the shawl and couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t used the amount of yarn the pattern called for. It was a big problem with a simple solution: READ! I was supposed to go up two needle sizes when I got to the lace section of the shawl! Of course, the shawl turned out way smaller than it was supposed to and I hardly ever wear it because it’s so small. I kept threatening to rip it out and redo the lace on the correct size needles. Maybe that will be on my 2012 knitting year in review.

The Ugly

Project with the Worse Fit: (Two-way Tie): Swirl (Andrea Weinrick) and Ellen's Knit Hat (Ellen Harpin).

Swirl was my first pair of socks ever. I made them for myself so my feet wouldn’t get cold while I was praying. I was very proud of myself for conquering my fear of socks. I started before my husband came home before for R&R in July. I was so excited to show it to him, but I didn’t bank on his reaction. He didn’t say anything at first, but his face (my husband has very telling facial expressions) told me that he didn’t like the sock. After a few minutes of examining the sock, he asked, “Is this for a reindeer?”

The sock on the right is for the reindeer.

Needless to say, my feelings were hurt, but I pressed on and finished the second sock. But in finishing the second one correctly, I realized how bad the first one was. All I could do was laugh. The only way to save it is to rip it out and do it over. Maybe I’ll only rip out the first reindeer sock.

As for the Ellen’s Knit Hat, my husband was the victim of the bad fit. I was knitting hats for my church’s clothes closet and my husband told me he wanted a black hat with a green stripe. Of course, I decided that I would give him the hat for Christmas.

I put a very generous green stripe on it. Unfortunately, the top of the hat was about four inches longer than the top of his head. Thankfully, it will be easier to repair than the socks. 

Tea & Read: Wolfsbane

Title: Wolfsbane

Author: Ronie Kendig

Rating: Spend the Day Sleepy

What a way to start off a new year of book reviews! Wolfsbane is definitely a book worth spending the day sleepy but it will not put you to sleep. Wolfsbane is the third book in the Discarded Heroes series. 

Blurb:

Demolitions expert Danielle Roark has been left behind in hostile territory during a mission with Nightshade. Former Green Beret and medic Canyon Metcalfe, beset with memories of another mission gone bad, vows to rescue her, sacrificing everything. As secrets unravel, will Canyon and Dani find healing, closure, and each other?

Kendig pulls no punches in this one. As a matter of fact, the story began so intense that I didn’t think I could finish it. But since Kendig’s stories end with hope and redemption, I pressed on knowing the plot would get better… and it did. The intensity didn’t die down. It kept me clicking the next page button on my Kindle to the end.

The characters, one of Kendig’s strong points, were very engaging. Even though they had extraordinary jobs and heartbreaking experiences, I found myself relating to Dani and Canyon. Kendig makes them realistic enough that when they face a challenge, one not often faced in Christian fiction, it is an interesting, almost pleasant surprise, but not unbelievable. Yes, this is a little cryptic, but I don’t want to spoil the plot.

As with her other books, Wolfsbane sails through the plot. No skimming at all. I found myself wishing I could read faster! Kendig’s military research is spot on and she creates a world that a girl can get lost in.

This is a great book and I expect great things from Kendig in the furture.

Tea & Read: Fear No Evil

Title: Fear No Evil

Author: Robin Caroll

Rating: One Cup of Tea

This book introduced me to Robin Caroll books, even though she has authored more than twelve books. Fear No Evil is the second book in Caroll’s Evil series.

Synopsis:

With his father in a nursing home and his mother needing support, former Great Smoky Mountains park ranger Lincoln Vailes moves to the bayou town of Eternal Springs, Louisiana, to become a police officer. Recent college graduate and eager social worker Jade Laurent has also moved there to try and right the wrongs of an abusive past. But someone is running her car off the road and pointing guns in her direction. As Lincoln investigates her case, he uncovers ties to big-city gang warfare up north that appears to be making its evil way down south.

Books like this are hard to review. It was neither great nor horrible. It had equal parts of things I like and things I didn’t. I liked Lincoln and Jade’s characters. Even thought Lincoln was a little bit stereotypical with is good cop demeanor and his view on God, I have a big soft spot in my heart for law enforcement. I also enjoyed Jade’s quirky habits. I also loved the effect she had on the other characters in the book.

The biggest problem I had with this book was the plot. With the characters as likable as they were, they didn’t seem to fit the storyline. Like something else should be happening to them. At a few places I had to will myself to suspend my disbelief and accept them in their setting. I had a difficult time keeping myself engaged in the events of the plot. There were a couple of places of interesting head-hopping (POV changes) that left me confused.

Another issue I had with this book is the antagonist. I had figured out who it was before I’d read half of the book. Once I figured out who the villain was, all the suspense was gone. Certain points of the plot were very predictable and at times cliché, which was a shame because I liked the characters.

I would read another one of Caroll’s books (I’m not sure but I think I already own Deliver Us From Evil).  Fear No Evil  wasn’t bad enough to keep my from reading another one of her books.

WIP-itis, Part Deux and Personal Best

Sometimes you’re words come back to haunt you.

So I’m participating in NaNoWriMo this year. I participated in 2007-2009 and took 2010 off. I plotted my novel last month and started writing first thing in the morning on November 1^st. But by the 10^th, my drive had fizzled. The story wasn’t interesting to me, and knew that was a big problem. If my novel doesn’t interest me, then I know it won’t interest anyone else.

I knew the story was dragging, but I didn’t want to give up on it. I’d put a month’s worth of research into this thing. My heart, however, wasn’t in it. There were days were I didn’t write at all. My novel was the Titanic and going down.

Then something happened. I got an idea just as I was falling asleep one night. It was just a flash of a scene. It was not an idea to fix my current novel, but a fresh new idea. Now, every writer knows that new ideas will come while you’re working on your current WIP, but you’re supposed to take notes on it and finish the one you’re working on.

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t let the new idea go. And each day, more and more of the pieces fell into place. The lead character was so intriguing and funny to me that I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I still wasn’t willing to start all over.

Then one day I was talking to my friend Linda about my dilemma. Linda is my ideal “audience” and has been reading and editing my work for years. She is the exact target demographic for my writing. I told her about the new story idea and lamented that I didn’t love the one I was working. I told her that I didn’t know what to do.

 

She said, “I think you already have your answer. WIP-itis.”

Talk about a sucker punch.

You see my “target audience” Linda reads my blog. And she read my previous blog post about the cure for WIP-itis in my knitting. The cure is to love the project I’m working on. She used my words against me…but that so like Linda. So I chucked the previous novel and started over. Well, not completely over. I used the same setting and time period as the previous one, so at least all my research wasn’t a waste.

I started over. I spent several hours pouring out the scenes that already filled my head. And guess what? I hit a personal best record for number of words in one day. I wrote 10,364 words! I could have written more by my shoulder and thumb started to ache and I had to quit.

So I can testify that the cure to WIP-itis is love. I love the new storyline and hope to put down another 5,000 words today (I got them in my head. I just have to write them down). And it doesn’t even matter if anybody else ever reads this story. I am enjoying writing it.