Kilt Hose!

They were cast on October 1, 2008.  You saw the first one when it could still stand, here and here.  You saw the first one when it could no longer stand, here.  Apparently, though, I did not show you the first one finished.  Mainly because I didn’t take a picture of that.  I did take a picture of it almost finished.  

(A photo of Kilt Sock 1, almost finished, back at Thanksgiving.  Please also note the very cool crocheted feet my mother-in-law has made for her chairs.)

I wish I could tell you that the construction of the second sock was uneventful, but it wasn’t. Disaster One involved some weirdness at the change between two needles.   

 (A photo of Kilt Sock 2, when I laddered two stitches about twelve rows, to correct two errors.)

Knitters might want to sit down for the next one.  It may turn your stomach.  

As I admired my repair skills after putting the first mess back together, I noticed a new problem.  This one was waaaaaay back near the beginning.

(A photo of Kilt Sock 2 when I laddered [gasp] an entire five-stitch cable eighty-five rows to fix an incorrect twist that had resulted in a palpable knot.  I still get shaky thinking about it.)

I pulled out those eight-five rows and re-knit those columns bit by bit over a few days, redoing not just the knits and purls, but the cable crosses as well.  I wanted a medal for that one. 

But the disasters are over and the Kilt Socks have been conquered.  I sealed up the second toe on January 30, 2009.  After weaving in the ends, I gave them a good bath.

(A photo of Kilt Hose in a tub of sudsy water.)

When they were dry, Partner put them on so we could get a good look at them.  He’s getting good at this sock modeling thing. 

(A poorly-lit photo of two big feet sporting creamy, cabled knee-socks—er, I mean, Kilt Hose.)

I tried to take a picture of them in bright light.  The wind did its best to blow them away, or at least cover them with the towel.  I think the Ugliest Towel in Our House really sets off the creamy cables, don’t you?  

(A photo of a purple towel, embossed with cabbage roses and a pair of cream-colored socks—one featured from the front, one featured in profile.)

I’m so glad they’re finished.  Signed, sealed, and in the mail.  They were certainly an adventure.  I learned a lot and I think they are probably the most beautiful socks I’ve ever made.  But by the end I was so sick of them and now I am so glad they’re gone.  

My first impulse was to tell you that I never want to see them again, but that’s not entirely true.  I do hope to see them on the feet of their intended recipient, accompanied by kilt and all the falderal expected therein.  That would be the picture to complete the gallery.  

On the needles now: the second flame sock (it’s sock-finishing time), a lacy scarf, Mystery Stole 4, and a brown square.  In the queue, Clapotis.  

Looooooonger

From three days ago (it’s been busy, it’s a couple of inches longer now, but does not look substantially different from this)…

Side View:

Front (or back) View:

No, it is no longer able to stand up on its own.  But it did still stand at eleven inches.  I know there is a lewd comment to be made in there, but I can’t seem to put it into words.  You’ll have to fill it in for yourselves.  

Fancypants

Still standing.  Some small Newton has absconded with the ruler, and the blue tape measure refuses to stand up, but I assure you that this sock is measuring up at 10 inches.  I guess that I’ll need six more inches before doing the heel and foot.  

In other news….

NaNoWriMo begins in a week.  I am proud to say that I’ve finished a NaNo all three years that I’ve participated in it.  

2005 Something Knitty, about a knitter who’s yarn starts talking to her

2006 I can’t remember the title, about a normal-seeming couple who come to a very bad end

2007 Amy vs. The Mud Vampires (my personal favorite), about a social studies teacher who realizes she is a witch when mud-vampires start knocking on her door

I’ve taken several approaches to writing each year.  The first year was totally seat of my pants.  I had no outline and no early plan.  Each day I just made it up.  This was hard, and energy-consuming, and led to a NaNo novel that, while it holds some really lovely, weird, and hilarious scenes, is sort of a meandery mish-mash of funny and poignant that is less than coherent.  No, you can’t read that one.  

The second year, I used the ever-loving sticky note.  I put 20 of them on the inside of a cupboard door.  The cupboard was near my computer, and I could open it to see my sticky note “outline” or close it when I wasn’t writing.  Each sticky started as a chapter idea.  In this chapter I will…. “kill the protagonist,”  “talk about the speeding ticket,”  “detail the marriage proposal,”  etc.  I started sometime in October to put details onto each sticky note as they occurred to me.  A new idea was scribbled on what seemed to be the appropriate sticky note as it occurred to me, with no thought for order at first.  If a new chapter idea popped into my head, I added it to a blank sticky, until all 20 were filled.  Then I rearranged them into what seemed to be a reasonable order.  When nano began, I’d take down a sticky note, whichever one moved me, and try to write about whatever was on that note and only that note until I hit 2000 words.  Then I’d stop and take up another note.  The writing on this one went a lot easier in some ways, which I ascribe to the plan (and the familiar subject matter).  The novel was still terrible, mainly due to the familiarity of the subject matter.  That novel was all about exorcising demons though, getting those somewhat “too real” characters out of my head to make way for the fictional characters that I really wanted to write about.  No, no one can read that one either.  Ever.  

Last year, I scribbled in my journal during October.  I wrote down dreams.  I wrote down song titles that I liked.  I would free-write about whatever character or setting or whatever popped into my head.  And from one of those scribbled dreams emerged the mud vampires.  A bit of research and sculpting turned them into golems.  Which led me to witches.  Which inspired the creation of Amy.  A favorite archetypal character of mine who has popped up in short scribblings as a knitting sex-shop owner, a witch, a down-on-her-luck business executive, a high school teacher, and a few combinations of each.  Yes, you could argue that each of those is a different character, sure.  But somehow, in my mind, each of them was Amy.  I did not have a sticky note outline for the mud vampires.  Or a more conventional outline.  I did do some work ahead of time to flesh out characters in a different way than I’d done before, trying to make them fuller and more complex.   Writing this NaNo was super fun.  (I just cracked my gum to go along with that, and you can imagine me bobbing a pony tail if you’d like, since I know that sounded like a weirdly ditzy thing to say).  The words just poured out of me.  I don’t know where they came from, but each day that I wrote, they were there.  Lots of them.  Gushing out of me faster than I could type (and I type pretty fast).  That one will be shared, eventually.  For sure.  

This year, with a week left to go until NaNo 2008, I have no idea what I’m going to write about.  My journal is really rather empty of anything useful.  Though the Soap Stealers keep popping up.  Dreams have been uninspiring lately.  I did take a look back through the Mud Vampire NaNo the other day, though, and I’m sorely tempted to do a sequel.  Amy and her weird family could totally be serialized.  

Maybe.  

In an effort to jump-start the inspirational process, I have started using my favorite idea-maker.  Some people roll dice, or use tarot cards, some people might go use the Plot Machine over at ScriptFrenzy.  I use music.  This idea-maker would work with a favorite radio station, Rhapsody on shuffle, an iPod with an extensive play-list, or, as I tend to use, a big CD player.  I put the music on random, and write down the first ten songs that get played.  If I know the songs well, I don’t even listen to them all the way through, I just write down the titles and skip to the next track.  This is a great tool for developing a character.  Each song might illustrate a nuance or experience or mood of that character.  But when I’m stuck for big ideas, like I am now, I try to make the songs fit together into a pattern or narrative or mood, or something.  

Here’s one list I came up with yesterday. 

“Fire Coming Out of the Monkey’s Head” by Gorillaz (this one might inspire a novel all by itself)

“Allison” by Elvis Costello

“Wishin’ for You” by The Flatlanders

“Searchin’” by Lynyrd Skynyrd

“Hey There, Fancypants” by Ween

“Long Long While” by The Rolling Stones

“Samba Pa Ti” by Santana

“Oh L’Amour (Live in Nashville)” by Erasure

“Baby Can Dance” by the Hoodoo Gurus

“Beautiful” by Smashing Pumpkins

I don’t know what to do with these.  There is some irony to the juxtaposition of artists here.  I’m not sure I would ever every put Erasure and Lynyrd Skynyrd in the same list, but I guess there is some sort of Southern connection in there since the Erasure is live in (of all places) Nashville, Tennessee.  I’ll work on it, but I’m thinking “Hey there, fancypants” might be by new working title.