Cheklov's Stuff

So it's time once again for me to start screaming, primal, into the void as I figure out what I'm doing for NaNoWriMo. Before I get into that, though, I'm going to point out that NaNo has a new site? It's kinda neat when it works! You can find me here .  It's weird to think I've been doing this since 2004, but here we are. So this year, I'm going to work on the same story I worked on in 2014 and sorta 2018 - sorta because I got basically nothing re-written last year. It's Ghostlight! The idea behind Ghostlight is sometimes I get a bizarre craving for writing a Weird West-ish setting, but I also like Lovecraftian madness and fantasy too much, so I smushed it all together into one messy pile and got the base concept for this novel. Also I love trains? Because there are trains. I think my problem in my two previous attempts were I was humanizing the non-human monster-people too much. Yes there are non-human monster people, each...

Okay, so I know I'm waaaay behind for September, but I continue to be a medical trainwreck so I refuse to feel guilty about it. Same goes for a distinct lack of other crafting and posting. We are getting into writing season, so there is that to be said. Hopefully I'll be picking up the posting schedule through October and into NaNo in November. Anyway, on to the September fiber box...or rather, bag! So, funny story - for some reason my delivery notifications are going into my spam filter, so I'd remembered seeing the shipping notification, but nothing ever came saying 'Hey, it's here!'. But then I saw the ChemKnits unboxing go up, and went, "Wait. Waaaait. I should have mine by now!" and sure enough it was in the delivery bag, and had been there since the previous Saturday. Whoops. So this month, instead of a little white box, we got a glorious golden bag! You betcha I popped that sucker open as soon as found my knife! (Please ignore the f...

No super hype leadup this month, sorry, I've been super sick all through July and I'm just starting to get my enthusiasm back. However it does make the box anticipation all that more tolerable, when it's hardly there. Well, at least until the delivery notification showed up - then I got a little hype. :D That means, however, that I get to go into this month totally blind! No hints, no nuthin! It's nice. This month guest starring my mom's house, her...appropriately themed carpet, and Nacho. First view of the open box! In high school, my design class did an entire stint on the pop art style. That was the first thing that came to mind when I opened this puppy up. Nostalgia??? Info about this month's fibers. Might be a touch hard to read. The "menu" for the month, with my fat finger blocking the exclusive codes. Nacho broke in here, as he needed attention. Gaze upon his sweet orange face, and my mo...

I love cosplay. I really do. Sometimes I hit on just the right character and I can make something that turns out pretty decent.  Sadly, most of the time my procrastination eats my face and things don't turn out the way I'd hoped; see all my incomplete cosplays, alas. I am after all a master of procrastination. However, this year I was originally gonna do one thing, then i was cruising through patterns idly when I saw Simplicity pattern 8971 and I started getting IDEAS. I saw that and wanted to make a Ho-Oh gijinka. BORB. Obviously the pattern as-is is never gonna fit me, and will have to be sized up dramatically to get close, which means it's time to finally make myself a custom dress form out of duct tape, hurrah! So I always build my inital concept off of what the pattern has available - that looked like this: But now I gotta consider what will actually look good with my body, as well as realistic modifications. That involved ...

So I ordered some more mill ends because I ran out. Not quite as many as last time, but still quite a bit - about ten and a half ounces. It'll keep me busy for a little bit longer, which is nice. These mill ends are from GoatsMagosh - they have an etsy , but I found these through Amazon . Stop judging me this is a much better addiction than others I could have. I think between the three packs I got, there is enough for some more of the fire rolags, though obviously not in the same shades. Might be a little low on orange but I have more reds this time. The MVPs of the whole lot are these two dark colored batches - one dark purple, one dark blue - and they are shot through with shimmery other colors. HELLA pretty. There was a surprisingly large amount of pink in this mix, but I do think blue may have won in sheer quantity, though I think red and pink won in shades. Also there is this one crazy blended fiber in there that reminds me of th...

Okay so I started writing this post a little (A LOT) early this month because Paradise Fibers is A HUGE TEASE and I needed SOMEWHERE to flail about my anticipation. First, they posted this in their Ravelry group: That link, for the record, leads here . So that has some PRETTY DANG STRONG IMPLICATIONS. I discuss the box with my coworker, and we were bouncing rainbow? Wizard of Oz? SEEMS LIKELY? Then, on the 28th, a little e-mail caught my attention... Oh my. MOAR HINTS??? OH LAWD ALL THEM HINTS. So. EIGHT dyed fibers and an undyed fiber. My money was on rainbow by this point, but I wouldn't put it past Paradise Fibers to like, mash the two implied concepts together into one GLORIOUS box of goodies - I'm sure it would be easy enough to have Oz-themed rainbow colors; yellow brick road, Emerald City, and that's just me plucking the lowest hanging fruit, there.  But yeah all that aside I'm already plotting potential spins involving rainbows...