Filmed on Sunday, October 15, 2017

Podcast Stuff

• Blanket MAL 2017 – Make along throughout 2017 for making blankets. Check out the thread on Ravelry for details! I’ll be checking in with a personal project round up later in the podcast.
  • 3Q Prizes
  • Ravelry Pattern up to $10 from HollyDav – Post 95 – KittyFrancois (Cati)
  • Haldecraft Handdyed and Notions Kit – Post 373 – filipamc (Filipa)
  • Dyenamixx Yarns and mini-skeins – Post 16 – RoMillet (Rosalee)
• Rhinebeck – Aiming to be at both pre-Rhinebeck events, Needles Up and Indie Untangled, and I will definitely be at the podcaster meetup on the Saturday of Rhinebeck. I’ll be there the whole weekend so if you want to say hi and you see me, say hi. I might be flustered and not entirely able to pay attention because high-volume social situations tend to eat my energy, but I’m always happy to meet any of you.

 

Life Stuff

• Hands – Slight improvement after this past run of meds, but still getting pain, so next step is the specialist referral, which I will hear more about tomorrow.
• Work – Finally seen the new building where the office will be moving to, but the parking situation is looking not great. There’s nothing definite, so it’s pretty stressful.
• Fun
  • PA Ren Faire – Went down to PA to visit with some friends in their new place and go to the PA Ren Faire, which was fun. The drive down was smooth sailing, which was really nice. The visit was great. The drive home was a little bit teeth grinding because I was driving up along the edge of a tropical storm, which meant that there were traffic accidents in the most inconvenient places. I’m finally starting to get comfortable with the drive to and from PA these days. I wasn’t stressed about the drive before setting out in either direction, so that was good.
  • Halloween Party – Went to my friends’ Halloween party last night, where there was good food and a Stranger Things marathon. It’s always good to hang out with that group. And then of course, I crashed on The Gabbers’ couch because she lives 15 minutes away.

 

FOs

• Gift Quilt!

 

WIPs

• 2017 Western CT Yarn Crawl Sweater Blank – Machine Knitting Sweater Basics by Renée Callahan – variety of DK weight yarns from the 2017 Western CT Yarn Crawl – see the project page on Ravelry for the full list
• Block Weaving – 1st strip scrap yarns (complete), 2nd strip Ella Rae Lace Merino and old handspun (complete), 3rd strip handdyed leftovers and Once Upon a Corgi “Frosted Cranberry” (WIP)
• Halloween Quilt – Strip Your Stash by Nancy Smith – strip quilt, jelly rolls, fat quarters, scraps (cotton)
• Winter Wall Quilt – The Weekend Quilter – scrap clothing and cotton
• Grey Button Down shirt – Simplicity 1544AA

 

Crafting Goals

• Quilting – I have so much fabric and so many quilt ideas that I stall out when making quilts. I think this is the area where I want to have more WIPs, since WIPs in quilting can be very different than WIPs in other crafts. I want to be finishing quilt tops, at the moment, which is the top layer of the quilt with the focus on piecing and patterning. I feel like right now I want to be focused on that and not so much on the actual process of quilting, since the quilting itself is not my primary focus while I build my quilting skills. Right now I want to work on piecing and playing with color, but I get hung up on the work needed to finish the entire quilt.
• Weird Toys – I used to occasionally make weird little art dolls and recently as part of my hand-convalescence, I’ve spent a lot of time browsing etsy and Instagram, stumbling upon art doll and fabric sculpture artists. They sparked that part of my brain again and I’m making a concerted effort to squash that part of my brain that shouts that I’m wasting my time when I make things like that. It’s been a crazy dream of mine for years to be able to do the kind of art dolls that I’ve seen online. I’m going to do a bit of a slideshow here to show you what I’m talking about and their online presence will be linked in the show notes. I have some supplies coming and I’m doing research into fabric doll shapes and techniques to start myself off.
  • The Beast Peddler
  • Gakman Creatures
  • Woodsplitter Lee Cross Handmade Creations
  • Lisa Toms
  • Puzgles Loft
  • Woolboon
  • Melissa Sue Stanley
  • Amanda Louise Spayd
  • Mahlime
  • The Ragged Caravan
  • Yetis and Friends
  • Past Your Porchlight
  • Lunchik
  • Chernyachi

 

Other Stuff

Stuff I’m Playing:

• Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes – ally code 235-686-528

Stuff I’m Listening To:

• Dark Force Rising (The Thrawn Trilogy Bk2) by Timothy Zahn narr by Marc Thompson
• The Last Command (The Thrawn Trilogy Bk3) by Timothy Zahn narr by Mac Thompson
• Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg narr by Pete Cross
• Honestly Ben by Bill Konigsberg narr by Dan Bittner
• P!nk – Beautiful Trauma

Stuff I’m Reading:

• Cartographer’s Craft by copperbadge
  • In the summer after Harry’s sixth year, Harry and Remus uncover a section of the Marauder’s Map which has been hidden for the past twenty years, releasing a carbon copy of sixteen-year-old Sirius Black from its depths. As they prepare for the impending war, Sirius must find a place for himself in this new world, Harry must find a way to destroy Voldemort, and Remus must face his own past while trying to build a tenuous future with Tonks.
• The Guiltless and The Poor of God by kilara25
  • Sixth year AU, written pre HBP. When Harry appears at the Welcoming Feast wearing a glamor only Snape notices, Snape decides to find out what the glamor is hiding. His investigation leads to a number of shocking revelations about both Harry and himself.
    • A really good version of Snape who has tried to keep himself in the habit of looking out for abuse amongst his students and one that kicks himself when he realizes that his animosity for James Potter blinds him to what has been happening to Harry
  • After Snape’s visit to Surrey, Harry writes him a thank you letter that triggers an extended correspondence between the two of them. Sequel to The Guiltless.
    • This sequel is more extensive than the original fic and it focuses on the developing mentor relationship between Harry and Snape, with some bonus Luna! Harry and Luna really get on well in this fic and Snape’s increasing frustration and concern with Harry’s ability to get into the worst situations is really well done.
• Blood by The_Lord_of_Chaos
  • Harry learns that Professor Snape is his bio dad, and if that were all he had to deal with, he’d be all right, but he’s got werewolves, escaped convicts, a stubborn Dark Lord, and his own inner demons to deal with. Starts third year. Rating mostly for violence. Harry’s gay but no relationships. Story deals with mental health, bigotry and child abuse. See more notes inside.
    • This one is still ongoing and I’m really looking forward to how this fic continues. There’s 25 chapters now and it’s a really interesting alternate universe.
    • Snape and Lily went out for a bit at 15 and were not particularly careful when having sex, so Lily found out she was pregnant. She magically halts the pregnancy so little bean Harry is in stasis until she decides to have the baby and when Harry’s 13, he gets a pre-arranged letter from Lily and James about this. Sirius Black was murdered by Fenrir Greyback after Voldie’s fall, so this version of Prisoner of Azkaban features Greyback’s escape and lots of werewolf times in the HP universe.
    • I really love this fic – Harry having to deal with Dursley trauma after being kicked out, trying to sort out whether he should tell Snape that they’re family, and a lot of really great friendship between the trio. They’re all very supportive of each other in this fic, which I love, and a surprising amount of friendly interaction between the trio and other children at the school. There’s also some really great Weasley family stuff because of the events that happen in this version of the third year and the consequences of those events.
• Series by GreenGecko
  • Resonance – Year six and Harry needs rescuing by Dumbledore and Snape. The resulting understanding between Harry and Snape is critical to destroying Voldemort and leads to an offer of adoption. Covers year seven and Auror training.
  • Revolution – Harry continues his Auror training and begins a journey of mastering his unusual and growing powers. Harry, with the help of his adoptive father, is finally making his own way, but fate and prophecy are never completely absent.
  • Resolution – Harry enters his second year as an Auror Apprentice. Snape’s wedding looms, and Harry’s odd new powers mature, creating mayhem, perilous temptations, and opportunities to gain real wisdom.
    • This is a great series. Firstly, Snape and Harry developing a mentoring relationship and a familial relationship as Harry nears adulthood is really amazing and rare.
    • Secondly, the escalation of the madness in Harry’s and Snape’s lives is so very well paced. There’s slow build evil and sudden evil and lots of small, everyday problems that seem like they’re huge problems to Harry because he’s becoming an adult.
    • Thirdly, there are some amazing original characters in this fic, in particular Candide, who’s a wizarding world accountant and a lovely woman who Snape is baffled to find enjoys his company, and Lily’s extended Muggle family (cousins? second-cousins?) that Harry stumbles across while trying to solve a mystery.
    • I’m still working my way through the last one because these are long, but they are absolutely worth digging into. There’s Voldemort shenanigans, magical weirdness, de-aging, dimensional weirdness, and more!

 

 

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