November Wrap-up

Lots has happened in November, mainly writing, but between the writing lots of other things have happened to.

I’m going to start with the writing because it took up the main part of my month.

I did Nano. And I went past all my expectations (which you can see here but what it boiled down to was 20k) and I actually won. That’s right folks, I managed to write 50,000 words in one month. I would have actually written a lot more if I hadn’t been struck down by migraine like headaches everyday from about week 3. Apparently staring at a screen writing everyday isn’t good for my eyes. And even looking at anything light became unbearably painful for the last ten days. I wore sunglasses everyday, inside, during winter. And I managed about an hour a day after that. But I also gave up a few days early as I’d reached 50k and finished the chapter I was on. Just think of the thousands of words I missed out on. I’d have liked to write one more chapter as that would have been a really great place to leave off but alas, pain interfered. I’m still mega proud of my first Nano and hopefully this will help me up my writing to two chapters a month every month instead of the one a month I managed this year.

Moving on but entirely related to nano is all the crafting I got done this month. I was actually being really good about screen time and stuff not that it stopped my eyes from having a hissy fit but I took breaks, long breaks and in those breaks….crafts got done. Now this next bit will be equal parts annoying and hopefully good. Because a lot of things I’m mentioning I can’t show you, or even really talk about because Christmas is coming and gifts have been made.

Starting with something I can show you:

I’m nearly finished my mums lap blanket. It will be a Christmas present but she’s seen me making it so I can share. I think there’s probably a dozen rows left. I didn’t run out of yarn! I may keep going until I use it up though because there really isn’t much of it left.

Crochet thing number two I can’t show you. But I’m really excited about because I’ve been wanting to make this pattern for ages and I finally got around to it. It’s in the Tunisian crochet geoblin stitch (which is my favourite crochet stitch ever. I’ve already made a cowl and two thirds of a scarf using it and trust me when I say I’ll be using it more) and I got to use some lovely bright yarn. I did have to use a slightly thicker yarn and a slightly larger hook than the pattern called for though so I’m hoping it works up to the right size for what I want.

I’ve also finished my Christmas cards. The ones I can show you are up in my shop but there are some super special awesome ones (if I do say so myself) that I’ve made up for people I’m sending cards to that I wish I could share with you but that’ll have to wait. I’ve also started wrapping presents, just a few and mainly the ones going abroad, but that means I’ve also been able to use some of my Christmas tags which go really well with my wrapping paper.

(Incidently, there’s still a couple of days to enter my giveaway by leaving me a question for my Q&A here. You can win any of my christmas cards and tags or anything else you would want from my etsy shop. My Q&A post will be going up on friday so answers to all the questions you asked will be there.)

Lastly (and if your still with me you’re doing great!), sewing. I’m making pretty good use of my sewing machine. I only started using it in October and I showed you all the bag I made for a friends birthday. Well I’ve been making more things, two of which are finished but I can’t show you because they’re presents. But I attempted to make some Christmas baubles out of some fabric I bought. Unfortunately, I don’t really like them so won’t be making any more.

I’ve also started making some Christmas table mats that I’m going to quilt as my first foray into quilting. I’ve cut everything up and my sandwich is ready. Only the actual quilting to go. I don’t have a walking foot or a free motion foot yet (I’ll be getting them for Christmas) so I’m hoping that I’ll be able to do it just using my normal set up. I’ve bought some quilting pins to hold them all together. I’d much prefer to use spray basting but I cant find anywhere that will send it to Guernsey as apparently that’s illegal or something. I’ll send my parents out to the craft store at some point to check if they have any but I doubt it as they didn’t even have a quilting ruler.

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