New Yarn & Creative Writing No. 7

Thank you for your input on a color for our front door! Red and blue seem to be the top two suggestions, and at the moment, I'm leaning toward a cranberry/raspberry that would look good with the hall when the door is open. I promise to get some paint swatches soon to share with you.

The early knitter gets the yarn.

On Saturday, I got up early and drove the distance to Creative Fibers for their summer sale.  The night before, I did my homework, gathering up some patterns to take with me to match with yarn. Right inside the door was Louisa Harding's Impression yarn, in a lovely shade of blue-green, enough to make Sophie, or Beatrix. Swoon! I also bought two skeins of her ribbon yarn because they were pretty, and an extra skein of the Nashua June for the Lace Ribbon Scarf I hope to do. Mrs. SDC met me at the sale and we had fun doing something just for us -- usually we are at the bike races together in support of our misters.

 

Sophie. I love that these are fall sweaters, but don't look like fall sweaters!

 

Beatrix needs Glisten yarn for the trim, which no one seems to sell anymore.

The third session of my writing class started last Wednesday. As a writing prompt, we had to make a list of five interesting settings, as general or specific as we liked. Try it! List five places you enjoy reading about, or visiting, that you think would be interesting settings for stories. I'll share two of mine: an all-night diner, and a small village in France.

We talked about the process from idea to outlining; the latter will be covered next week. Brainstorming and listmaking is a great first step, then gathering, where you sort out the ideas you think will actually work. Finally, you can use post-its, one idea per post-it, and sort them out on a table or wallboard to start to organize your story. Class ended with a fairy-tale; taking a story and writing a list of alternate endings. Our homework is to pick one of those endings and brainstorm it. This is helping to remove a lot of the mystery from the process of idea to page (or screen).

As to knitting, I've had to work on one sleeve at a time for Breton Girl, because I only have one ball of the white yarn left. I'm not sure it's enough, but a very sweet Raveler in the UK has offered to send me some of her yarn if I need it. I am going to finish this sweater by Labor Day or else!!

Comments

[Julie]

Both Sophie and Beatrix are beautiful sweaters.

Keeping my fingers crossed that you have enough yarn to finish Breton Girl!

[Chris]

Those are gorgeous sweaters! Like Julie, I'll have my fingers crossed that the yarn fairies are good to you...

So are you taking the classes for fun, or to help you write the great American short story/novel? :)

[Karen]

I have to say, that Sophie pattern is gorgeous. And I'm not just saying that because it was my (knitting) grandmother's name. ;)

[Sydney]

Both of those sweaters are gorgeous. I love the yarn you bought too.

Hope you end up with enough white yarn for Breton Girl

[Sarah]

or else?! I need to give myself an "or else," because my current unfinished project is getting so old... and your beautiful new yarn purchases make me want to start something new!!! :)

[Sonya]

I love the idea of a cranberry door! I have a friend who's door is really bright lime green. She wanted it to pop. It does. I can't even tell you what color the rest of her house is because all I can see is lime green.

Sophie and Beatrix are so pretty. Hard to choose between them!

[Sheepish Annie]

I agree with you on those sweaters. They look so light and pretty! It might make the arrival of winter seem bearable if I had one of those...

[Rebecca]

I love the contract trim on Beatrix--I wonder if another yarn would work instead of glisten?