An Award! *gasp*

I just received a blog award!


Valerie at I Should Be Writing gave me the Over The Top Award!

Rules: Answer the following questions with Single Word answers then pass this along to 5 other bloggers. Make sure you let them know about it though.

Your Cell Phone? texy
Your Hair? medium
Your Mother? Dramatic
Your Father? Engineer
Your Favourite Food? Thai
Your Dream Last Night? terrifying
Your Favourite Drink? Tea
Your Dream/Goal? February!
What Room Are You In? living
Your Hobby? Felting
Your Fear? Failure
Where Do You See Yourself In Six Years? Home
Where Were You Last Night? Couch
Something That You Aren't? begrudging
Muffins? mmm
Wish List Item? time!
Where Did You Grow Up? internationally
Last Thing You Did? sew
What Are You Wearing? scarf
Your TV? Off
Your Pets? dead
Friends? always
Your Life? creative
Your Mood? rushed
Missing Someone? no
Vehicle? practical
Something You Aren't Wearing? tiara
Your Favourite Store? Bookstore
Your Favourite Colour? blue
When Was The Last Time You Laughed? today
Last Time You Cried? recently
Your Best Friend? somewhere
One Place You Go To Over And Over Again? dreamland
Facebook? forgotten
Favourite Place To Eat? table

5 Blogs I'm Giving The Over The Top Award To:

...I will do this later. My battery is about to die b/c hubby took my adapter to work!

Another scarf

I did a wee bit of writing today, but not much. I didn't sleep well last night, and had a hard time focusing. I did, however, make another scarf. This one is still wet, and hanging in the sunlight to dry.

I used two different types of roving for this one, just to test it out. The teal is 70/30 merino/silk, and the purplish is 100% merino. The yarn is wool-covered nylon.

I tried to make it gauzy, but it was only that way in a few places. Next time, I need to space out the roving a bit further.

Felting

Bear with me here, as Henry is up and I'm distracting him from my computer by letting him play with my camera (probably a bad move).

To celebrate writing 3,000 words this morning (and 15K so far this month!), I spent his naptime working on art projects. There is a bit of history to this...for Christmas this past year, I received a wet-felted purse from my sister, who's friend made it in Ukraine (my sister lives and works in Ukraine). I fell in LOVE with both it an the art form, and immersed myself into researching the craft. I ordered wool roving (unspun carded wool, not yarn) and some kits. Then I began.

Here is the purse I received:

My first project was a basic 2D rectangle...with which I have no idea what to do. But here it is.

Then I branched out (hah hah) into making "bamboo" and coiled rope:

And then, my first artfelted 3D object, a bowl:

Mittens, of which I learned a valuable lesson (don't let them shrink too small for a 3 y.o.):

And then, for myself, a scarf of merino wool (I'm wearing right now):
See the thinness of it? There is negative space, sort of like rough lace or lattice. I absolutely love this scarf. I had fun with the leftovers, too (the spirals).

And then, because I told her I would, I made Elizabeth a scarf. This is what I did today during Henry's nap, while listening to Little Women. I'm quite proud of it. It's incredibly soft, thin, and nearly transparent. And yet it's super strong, too. It's merino wool, as well, with a bit of yarn thrown in for decoration. I think that next time I make something like this, I'll leave out less wool and let more of the yarn peep through. It only peeped through at one end, as seen in the second picture.

I love wool. I love sheep. I love getting my hands working with fibers and having a tactile creative experience--something I do not get while writing. I truly believe a writer needs other creative outlets, such as music, painting, or dancing, to build other channels through which to reach his or her muse.

(Henry is now in his high chair, snacking on cheerios. The camera was a bad idea, after all, and I had to save it. Hmm... He's watching Teletubbies for the first time and seems to like it.)

Now, I need to order more merino wool. The stuff I have left is too stiff for scarves, and I'm a bit afraid of making a purse just yet. Artfelting is much easier than wetfelting, and requires less energy and time. It also makes just beautiful, soft items.

Maybe, if I'm lucky, I'll get good enough at this and set up an Etsy or Artfire site.

But not until my book is finished. I have a deadline: Feb 28th. That is when my child care funds run dry.

Beware of Illustrators

You must watch this video from Candy Gourlay's blog. It is the cutest! This boy is definitely going to be published some day. He's way ahead of where most of us were at age nine (well, at least me).

Character Pics

Do you find real photos of what you imagine your characters to look like? I do. It helps tremendously in making me feel like these people are real.

Most of you know I'm writing a book about a jinn. Her name is Nashwa, and in my mind, she looks like this:

Isn't she beautiful? In real life, this woman really is named Nashwa. She's an actress. The Nashwa of my novel is 17 and grew up in an underworld cavern next to the Lake of Fire.

Nashwa's life changes when she is assigned to this human:

That's Kamal, son of the Qaliph of Baghdad. (Ok, in reality, this photo is of Ahmed, "Mr. Bahrain.") Iblis, Jinn Lord of the Underworld, has decided that Kamal will help him in his war against humanity...with Nashwa's help.

Of course, Nashwa has some issues with Iblis' commands when she meets Kamal.

Hopefully, I'll be done with this soon. Gah! Finding time has been harder than usual lately. My son has been sick and I had a wisdom tooth pulled, but I am finally getting back to it.

In other news, Jim and I finished watching BBC Drama's North and South last night. Swoon. It was incredible. Now I really want to read the book. Right now, though, I'm reading Ice.

Happy Writing!

Where have I been?!

It's January 11th. So much has happened since I last blogged. It is actually overwhelming.

First, I sold a book.

No. JUST KIDDING. Sheesh, you'd think I'd wait to post something like that?

I did, however, pass into another decade. I am now out of my twenties and am...relieved. My twenties were harsh. I did a lot, made many, many mistakes. I found true love, went to Iraq, married my love in an awesome Buddhist temple in Japan, had two babies, and wrote my first novel. By the end of my twenties, I'd seen and done enough to give the other play-date moms plenty to gossip about.

And now that I'm thirty, I am ready. I am looking forward to a decade of accomplishments. I hope.

For starters, I hope to finish this awesome jinni book. But what should it be called? I think JINN is just a boring title. Any ideas? Maybe when I'm done and ready to send it to my most awesome agent, I'll have a mini contest and let one of my readers (the two of you) pick/suggest the perfect title. :-) What do you think?

Today my daughter went back to preschool, which means my days will be more productive. At least my son takes naps during which I can write. (Or blog. Today, I got totally distracted by Suzanne Young's THE NAUGHTY LIST---my first-ever ARC! It is so strawberry smoothie!)

Ok. Enough! Must get to work...