NaBloPoMo Day 3

Writing 1667 words a day is pretty tough. I only managed to surpass that number yesterday, and just by about 70 words, and the day before I was over 400 words shy of the daily goal. Like I said before, I don't want these posts to be all fluff and filler, I want them to actually be worth reading. I want at least part of each post to be about knitting. That desire is making it harder to write enough words to hit the quota. I check my word count obsessively. After every few sentences, I copy and paste the entire post into an online word count tool, and cross my fingers that I have made a significant dent. I try to keep myself from doing it so often, but I am just impatient, I guess. I think I might also feel like the words will somehow reproduce between the two pages, and add to my total. I don't know, I could just be crazy.

I woke up fairly early, for me anyway, this morning. Most days I'm in bed until 10:30, and today I was up just after 9:00. It's strange, how I sleep. It seems the later I stay up (I was up till about 2:00 when I'm usually in bed by 12:30) the earlier I can wake up. I don't understand at all. I'm going to try going to bed late again tonight to see if I can wake up at a reasonable hour. If that works, I'll be staying up late every night! I started my day off right with some scrambled eggs with mushrooms and shredded cheese on small tortillas. A nice filling breakfast that got me going. I don't often make a real breakfast, especially the past few weeks. I usually just settle for cereal and almond/soy/rice/hemp milk, if anything at all. I used to be so good at eating breakfast every day. I would make oatmeal or quinoa or toast with peanut butter, and honey or bananas.

I've been plugging away at the YarnYarnYarnYarn blog for a while today. It's easy work, just repetitive. Because I use Tumblr as a blogging platform, I can add tons of items to a queue, and have them post as frequently as I choose. I have it set so there are 11 new posts a day, which I think is a good amount. Lots of new stuff, but not so many that followers miss out on some of them. I have about two weeks worth of posts ready to go, and another month and a half worth that are saved as drafts to be posted at much later dates. It's going really well overall, I just want to find more yarn related Etsy shops to share, as well as cool patterns on Ravelry. Those seem to be the most popular posts so far. That's most of what I have been posting, but I have shared photos from Instagram, blogs, and Facebook pages. I went through some tumblrs that follow Y4, and reblogged a few photos from some of them. I also have some ad space through PassionFruit Ads available. It would be awesome if I could fill some of those, but I'm not holding my breath for it. I need to build up the audience before the sponsors come, that I already know. Once I've been posting for a month or more, I will be able to improve the ad description with the number of visitors and followers and what not.

I spent most of the time working on the Y4 blog knitting as well. I continued the teal shawl I posted yesterday, and got almost to the end of the first skein. I kind of got tired of the plain worsted weight, so I switched it up. I put in quite a few rows on a purple and white vertically striped shawl. Both yarns are from the huge stash I purchased from the older lady last winter. They're a sport weight 70/15/15 blend of acrylic, wool and mohair. Super soft, and slightly fuzzy. I really like the way this one is turning out. It's a looser knit than the other shawls I've done like this, but I'm sure it will still be cozy and warm due to the wool/mohair content.

If you've been eyeing something in my Etsy shop, now is the time to buy! You can get 25% off your entire purchase with the code Blog25. I want to get some older stock cleared out this season, so that in the spring and summer, I can really go at it, and knit lots of new things. Some of my stock has been floating around for a couple years, and that's what I really want to sell. Of course, selling anything would be great, but the older stuff is definitely higher on the priority list.
I'm going to be honest, and say that I haven't had any sales in a while. I don't want to complain on here, but it's getting discouraging that I can't seem to sell anything. I promote quite a bit, I have a mailing list, I do giveaways, I have a Facebook page, I comment on other blogs with a link to my shop, I have lots of "hearts" on Etsy, I just can't seem to get people to put stuff in their shopping cart! Do you have any suggestions for what else to do? I'll do just about anything!

Yesterday, I mentioned the Made In Windsor Show. It's coming up in just two short weeks, and I wish it could come sooner! There are going to be over 30 amazing vendors, some of whom have dome a MiW event before, and some that have not. It is a show that is 100% handmade, there is not ONE vendor who is a "consultant" or whatever for a big national company. I love this about these shows. It's a true craft show, and not a vendor market, which is often, in my experience anyway, synonymous with yard sale. If Facebook is any indication on how good this show will be, it's going to be great. There are already about 250 confirmed as going, and another 100 saying maybe. I know this won't necessarily be accurate, but it will hopefully be close. There will certainly be other people who haven't confirmed on Facebook who are out and about for the Walkerville Holiday Walk. This is an annual event where most of the businesses in the Walkerville BIA team together and have fun things going on for all the customers/visitors to the area. The craft show itself is going to be in Walkerville Brewery, and I can't wait to check out that place. It's going to be awesome! I've had a sample of one of their beers recently, and I liked it. I have a feeling I'll be spending some of my profit there! You can see a quick recap of last years show Here. I'll try to get more, and better, pictures this year.

My 365 photo for the day is just a simple close up of a Ferrero Rocher chocolate. These have always been one of my favourite types of chocolate, or really any sweet in general. I got quite a few a little while back, so I've been stashing them away and having one every now and again. I had a couple this afternoon when I was writing this post.

I haven't done much of anything today, other than knit, read blogs, chat on Facebook, and work on this. I'm worried that on the days I have to work eight hours, I'll come up short for words. I'll just have to get into a rhythm for writing, and then  hopefully the words will come more easily. I was also thinking about trying some of the word/theme prompts every few days, and write some sort of anecdote relating to it. Maybe I'll take suggestions for themes or answer questions you guys have. There are lots of options for stuff to write about, just nothing that can help me in the present moment.

I didn't really think this NaBloPoMo thing through very well. Normally, I try to at least plan out a little bit in advance. I'm not the most organized person, but I don't usually jump without a safety net. I am absolutely determined to make it to at least 25k words by the 15th. I will count that as a personal victory if I do. If I can actually make the full month, and 50k words I'll probably faint. I can yammer on about just about anything, but to have it be all coherent and organized is a whole other matter. Hopefully, I can make it!

I have a few ideas for the next couple days, but I doubt any of them will translate to 1667 words or more, no matter how overly flowery I get with my adjectives and adverbs. Some of the ideas are: 100 things I like, which would be split into groupings of 10 things posted every day for 10 days, 50 things I dislike (I don't want to do 100, because I don't want to get too negative and complain-y!) 100 facts about me, which would also be split up into groupings of 10 or 20, why I started eating meat again after 8 years of being vegetarian, simple knitting pseudo patterns I have in my head, and of course, more about the knitting projects I currently have on the go.

Now, this is where you folks come in! I want questions, word prompts or topic suggestions, or anything else you would really like to see. Want me to do a tutorial? Post pictures of specific things? Talk about Winston? Knit using a particular colour? Pat my head and rub my stomach at the same time, while whistling twinkle twinkle little star? Okay, I've run out of crazy suggestions. I hope you get the idea. I want YOU to tell ME what you want to see! Just leave a comment on here, send me a message on Facebook, or send me an email with anything you would like to see. If you want to be anonymous, you can send me a message on Tumblr here.

I hope you found something of interest in this post! Please come back tomorrow to see what else I have to say in an overly verbose fashion.

This post has 1716 words.

I am at 4686 total words for this month.

Day Two of NaBloPoMo

Well, here we are on the second day of this NoBloPoMo challenge. I finished yesterday's post pretty late, so not much has happened since then, as of this writing at 11am. I am going to try a pseudo live blogging format today, to see how I like it. I won't actually post this until the end of the day, though. So not really live, I guess just an hour by hour post? I don't know, I'm still sleepy.

11:00 am: I've been up for a couple hours. I had an important phone call just after 9 that I had to deal with. She's going to be calling me back later today to give me all the information. Sorry to be vague about this, but it's concerning some legal matters that I'm just not comfortable sharing here right now. I'm not in trouble or anything, so there's no need to worry about that.

I've knit quite a bit on the one shawl I have on the needles. This is another arrowhead shaped shawl. I had to undo a few rows because I'd dropped a stitch, but I've made it past that point. I'm trying to decide if I want to add yarn overs every few rows to give it some lacy detail, or just live it solid garter stitch. The yarn is slightly thicker than worsted weight, and sort of fuzzy, so I'm not sure if it will look strange being lacy.

12:00 pm: I decided to go without the lace. The other shawls similar to this one don't have the lace, and I want to be able to keep things consistent as far as pattern and price. I'm trying to have a few standard items so I can have prices that make sense. I want to get away from the completely one of a kind items. Those make pricing difficult.

2:00 pm: I got all dressed up, and had somewhere to go! I seriously woke up in the middle of the night last night with my outfit planned in my head. There was only one change, which Rick suggested, and the outfit was pretty much perfect. I loved the way this outfit turned out, and I asked Rick to take a quick picture so I could share it here, and this is the only one where I don't look like a complete ding dong.
Head to toe:
Glasses: Emporio Armani (from a couple years old)
Lips: essence stay with me in 04 trendsetter
Short Sleeved Sweater: Hand knit in Iceland, purchased at Handknitting Association of Iceland (also seen here)
Long Sleeved Shirt: Mark's Work Warehouse (glamorous, I know!) I initially bought this to wear under my fleece vest at work, which I do regularly, but it was perfect for under the sweater. This is the one change made. I was going to wear a grey striped long sleeved shirt. Rick said there was too much going on in the outfit, so I changed to a plain shirt, and this is what came of it!
Shorts: Gap I bought these when we went to the mall the other day, and paid about $15 for two pairs. Love them!
Tights: Zellers, I think. For like $1. I picked up a few pairs when I saw them. I got this same pattern in grey, and a solid grey. I thought I'd grabbed a pair of this pretty eggplant colour in the solid tights, but I guess not. I was a little bummed out when I looked through my drawers and couldn't find them.
Shoes and Purse: Payless. The shoes are sparkly silver, and I LOVE them.
I'm not sure if I will make outfit posts a regular occurrence here. I felt awkward as hell taking the photo in the mall. Maybe we'll just have to find somewhere less public to take photos. And maybe use a real camera, instead of a phone.
We went to H&M so Rick could exchange his coat that he got when we were at the mall on Wednesday. It was a smidgen on the small side, so he got one size larger, and it fits him perfectly. I'll have to get pictures of us in our winter gear, or at least of him, so you can see how handsome he is.
We made a quick pit stop at Mrs Fields/The Pretzelmaker for a yummy pretzel each. We were both super super hungry, and needed something to hold us over until dinner time. I never liked pretzels of any kind growing up, and now I really appreciate soft ones.

5:00 pm: We met up with Rick's parents, two brothers and the one brothers girlfriend to go to the buffet. We have a Caesar's casino in Windsor, and their Market Buffet is pretty stellar. The food, for the most part, was really good. I had breaded shrimp, macaroni carbonara, mac and cheese, Brussels sprouts, mashed sweet and regular potatoes, smoked trout and a bunch of other stuff. I was only disappointed by a couple things. The dessert was great. By that time, I was stuffed, but I needed to get something sweet in me. I had a mini cheese cake, topped with bananas, a tiny vanilla cupcake with buttercream frosting, and a vanilla eclair, which I only finished half of. I was really looking forward to getting a dessert crepe, but I was so full, I just couldn't do it. I hit that uncomfortably full spot that is never fun. As soon as the meal was finished, I was so sleepy.

7:00 pm: We finished dinner and sat for a little while. Afterwards, we went up to the gaming floor where a couple members of our party tried their luck on the slots. I'm not much of a gambler, and money is tight right now, so I just watched. Rick's one brother has awesome luck at the casino, so he pulled the lever and pushed the buttons quite a few times. His parents both played for a little while as well. We ended up leaving around 8:00, so I'm not sure if anyone won anything worth writing home about. I made Rick take a picture with me in the mirror in the elevator. He made his grumpy face, I was looking at the screen on my phone, it's grainy, and we're not even centred, so it's a pretty terrible picture. But, we have very very few together, so I appreciate what I can get. He's also wearing one of his Icelandic sweaters. I love all three of the ones he got, but I think this one is my favourite.

8:00: We made a quick stop on the way home to drop off some coupons for the goody bags that are going to be given out at the craft show I am doing at the beginning of December.  I'm getting really excited for the two shows I have coming up. The Made In Windsor show is in just a couple weeks, and I can't wait for it. I did incredibly well at it last year, and I'm hoping to do just as good, or even better, this year!

9:30: Home sweet home! The drive home was uneventful. When we got back, it was pyjama time. Those cute shorts I wore weren't very comfortable with all the food I had packed inside my belly, so I needed an elastic waistband as quickly as possible. After that, I watched Rick and Winston play for a while. The poor little pup had been cooped up in "his bedroom" (which is the office on the main floor of the house) since we left for Windsor. He had lots of pent up energy that needed to be released before he would be able to settle down for the night. The two of them playing together is hilarious. Rick can get Winston all wound up pretty easily. I'll have to post a video of them playing at some point.

11:30: I've been working on this post off and on since we got home. Writing 1667 words a day is going to be tough. I'm hoping that I can make it through this month and reach my goal. There are definitely going to be posts that are a lot of filler, and for that, I'm going to apologize now. I'm going to really try to have quality posts for as many days out of the month as possible. And by quality, I mean with knitting content, in addition to the day to day stuff that I will also be posting about. This is a knitting blog, after all.

My 365 photo for today is of some of the carpet at the Casino. We had to wait a little while for the rest of our group to join us, so Rick and I sat and people watched for a while. There were some interesting characters coming and going. Most of the crowd was in the over 50 age category, but there were some younger people as well. It was neat to see how some people got all dressed up to go out, others were still in their work uniforms, and others just treated it like any old day. I also watched one of the cleaning ladies dust all the ledges around where we were sitting. She came over by us, and cleaned the window ledge, and told us we should move over, because that part was clean now. She seemed to love her job, and really appeared to be genuinely happy to be there. I said to Rick that I love when people who aren't necessarily working directly with the customers are still so customer service oriented. She was smiling while dusting, and greeting every person that came near her. Now, I'm not sure if this is a job requirement or something, but she was super nice regardless. Every person we encountered while there seemed happy. The servers at the buffet were all really upbeat, and chatted with us while they changed our table arrangement around when we showed up with a much smaller group than what we reserved. Overall, the night was a really great experience, and that's why I chose this photo for the 365 project.

Once again, I really hope you've stuck around this long! If you have any criticism, constructive or not, I would love to hear it! Any and all comments on this or other posts are greatly appreciated. If there is something you would like me to post about, feel free to share!

This post has 1736 words.

I am at 2970 total words for this month.

Awesome Thursday: November 1, 2012, And Some Lofty Goals

It's November! I hope you all had a safe and happy Halloween. Didn't do much of anything here to celebrate, we just relaxed at home, and ate some candy.
Every Thursday, I post about the awesome things that have been happening in my life. It's nice to look back when I'm having a bad day and see that life isn't always so rough. There have also been studies done that have concluded that people showing gratitude can lead healthier lives with less depression and anxiety, sounder sleep and a better attitude towards others. I'm not one to argue with science, so on with the gratitude! Here is just a few of the awesome things that have gone on in the past week.

• I knit a really nice red and grey shawl, which I blogged about earlier this week. I'm going to make many more of these shawls. They're super simple, and really pretty.
• I started my new blog YarnYarnYarnYarn. I've been getting pretty decent traffic, which is super great. I am also slowly gaining followers. I have loads of pictures ready to be posted. It's pretty crazy how excited I am about this project. I think I might like it more than my I Love Etsy tumblr.
• I got a head start on my holiday shopping. I picked up a couple gifts for family members, and they're stashed away in my closet right now. I don't have to buy too many gifts this year, which is nice. I know the recipients of these ones will really like what I've gotten them so far.
• I started playing the newest, most addictive iPhone game I have ever played. Letterpress is friggen awesome. If you haven't played it, you really need to download it and give it a try. It's kind of like Boggle, meets Risk and they both run into Scrabble. It's way too much fun.
• My boss brought mini Tootsie Pops into work. They're supposed to be for all the kids that come in, but my coworkers and I have been eating them like crazy. It's so nice having a boss that makes work as much fun as he does. I truly love my job.
• I tidied up our fridge and realized I have quite the beer collection. I was up to 15 different types of beer. I'm currently drinking a Mill Street Lemon Tea beer, so I'm down to just 14, but I'm sure I could fix that with a quick run to the LCBO. It's nice having all these options when I want to crack open a cold one.
• I learned that "snafu" was originally a military term. It made me feel smarter, haha. In case you were wondering, it stands for "situation normal, all effed up".
• I went to work the night that Sandy hit our area. It was super quiet, as expected, so I danced with the mop as I cleaned the floors. Like I said before, I love my job.
• Rick and I went to Windsor yesterday and got stuff done! We went for all you can eat sushi for lunch, which was great. We definitely ate all we could.
• Also in Windsor, I picked up some jeans and some shorts. I've been looking for shorts for a while, and I finally found them at the Gap for stupidly cheap. I ended up with two pairs. I was so excited.
• I brought stock into a store in Windsor. This one is called Poppy Paperie and Gifts, and is located in Walkerville. I have some triangle shawls, and some flower earrings available there. It's a super cute store, and if you're in the Windsor area, you should definitely check it out.
• I worked during the day today, which was a nice switch. I usually work afternoons. Anyway, it was super super quiet most of the day, that allowed us to kick back and relax after we got all our work done.
• I got my hair cut after work. It was the same girl that did it last time. I wasn't planning on doing this, but I'm glad I did. Choppy layers and a bang trim are just what I needed. I'm planning on growing my hair long again, and this will be a good cut to let grow for a while without too much up keep.

Overall, life is pretty grand. I have this whole weekend off, with nothing planned, and then a pretty solid work schedule next week. Our hours are going to diminish this month, and then pick back up in December, so I am loving the extra hours I'm getting right now.

In other news, I'm going to make a half-assed attempt at NaBloPoMo/NaBloWriMo/whatever you want to call it. This is the first post of what will hopefully (but probably not) be 30 days of posts that are an average of 1667 words. It's a spin off of NaNoWriMo, which I've always admired. In case you're out of the loop, it's National Novel Writing Month, where loads of people attempt to write a 50 000 word novel in the span of 30 days. It's absolutely incredible, and I applaud anyone making the attempt to write that much. I have a couple friends who are going for it this year, and I am pretty confident that at least one will make it to the minimum number of words required. We'll see how far I get with this. I'm having a rough time just writing out this post, never mind doing it every day for the next month. I'm going to have to plan out some post ideas. At least with the novel writing, you have a story line to follow. With the blog posts, it's like a new story happening everyday. At the end of every post this month, I will include a word count. There will be one with the total of words in that days post, and then the accumulated total.

In other, other news, I'm making yet another attempt at doing something daily. This one is for a year, though, which is a bit intimidating. I'm going to do an Instagram 365 project. I've wanted to do something like this for a while, and I'm just now getting around to it. This project is pretty cool. You basically take one photo a day to document a year of your life. Some people do self portraits, some do pictures of their kids or pets, and some just do a random photo to sum up the day. I'm going for the last one. I was going to wait until the new year, but I was all stoked about it today, so I bumped it up a couple months. (Hard to believe this year will end in just two short months!) You can find my flickr set here. I will likely post any relevant photos on the blog here. I'm new to flickr, do you have any tips for me?

Hopefully, I can make it through these two projects. The days I'm not working will definitely be easier. I might have to do some really wordy posts on those days to fill in for work days. These posts will be in addition to all the knitting I will be doing. Hopefully I'll make some progress there so I have something on topic to share.

I really hope you have stuck around this long! I would love any feedback on this and future overly verbose posts.

This post has 1234 words.

I am at 1234 total words for this month.

Halloweens of Old

Growing up in the city, Halloween meant trick or treating through the subdivision near my house until late at night. When I was really young, it was my Dad bringing my brother and I from house to house, first on the outside of the O-shaped subdivision, then the inside. We always had our pillow cases ready, because these folks were more than generous with their handfuls of candy. It was always a treat looking through our loot at the end of the night. Very few gave out the crappy off-brand candy. It was the real deal, Reeses, Kit Kats, Doritos, the list goes on.
Now that I'm older, trick or treating is a thing of the past. Last year, I worked on halloween, and got in the spirit with my last minute bunny ears and tail. Mini costumes like this are the most work friendly, so I have a set of angel wings and a halo, from when I was about 7, and devil horns and a tail to mix it up. Most people around here go out to the bars in full costume and get pretty tipsy. While I like to drink, I don't enjoy going downtown in my city to the bar strip.
I miss the simplicity of holidays when I was young. I took it for granted then.

A New Blog, and A Finished Item!

It's the start of another work week! My weekend was pretty good, I had yesterday off, so I spent the entire afternoon knitting, reading blogs, and working on my newest blog project.
I love Tumblr. It's an incredibly simple blogging platform, and is easily customizable. I have Several Blogs on there, and I created a new one a couple days ago.

YarnYarnYarnYarn is the newest tumblog added to my arsenal. It's (obviously) about yarn, and yarn related crafts. Knitting, crochet, felting, dying and spinning are some of the themes I share. I worked at it for a few hours on Friday and Saturday, and launched it yesterday. So far, I've gotten a really good response. Many of the artists I've featured have shared it with their followers, which is exactly what I was hoping for. Please follow it and share for some great yarn-y inspiration.

In other exciting news, I finished yet another triangle shawl. I've lost track of how many of these I've made lately, I know it's a lot. This one is made from the red and grey mill ends I bought recently. Grey goes good with anything, but it really makes this Christmas red pop. It's another elongated triangle shape, but different than the ones I've made before. It's knit side to side, rather than top to bottom. I love the way the vertical stripes look. I'm toying with the idea of putting a mixed red and grey tassel on each point. What do you think?

Awesome Thursday: October 25, 2012

The work week is almost done for many of you, and mine is pretty much just starting. I work all weekend, and had a few days off this week. Every Thursday, I post about the awesome things that have happened in my life the week prior. It helps show me that my life isn't always crap, which it seems to be quite often.

• I had my craft show. Which was crap. But! I did hand out a lot of business cards, which will hopefully get me some business later on.
• I met a few awesome people at the craft show, which was super nice.
• Some long time friends came to the the craft show, so I got to briefly catch up with them.
• I used my Square reader for real for the first time at the show, which was super super awesome. (I used it myself before to make sure I knew how to use it, but this time, I actually made money from it) It's really easy to use, I highly recommend you get it if you do craft shows.
• Rick spent the day with me at the show on Sunday. It's been a while since he stayed the whole time at a show, and it was nice spending a day with him.
• I managed to pay off a small chunk of my credit card. This is my current financial goal. It's been pretty close tot he limit for far too long, and I need to get it down.
• Rick and I went to The Main Grill again. Pulled pork poutine, chicken crepe and tomato soup for me, pretty good overall.
• We talked about our future business endeavours. Rick has lots of great ideas, and a couple of them he is going to act on. It's nice talking about our future together, and not just the day to day bull shit that goes on.
• I basically decided that I am going to make a Beekeeper's Quilt. I've been thinking about it for a while, but just sort of said "Yes, now is the time" a couple days ago. I need to order the needles and a couple skeins of yarn to get me started. I will make it out of sock/fingering yarn. I have quite a bit of the right weight already, but that doesn't mean I won't buy more!
• I finished knitting Rick's mom's birthday shawl. Her birthday was yesterday, and the cream alpaca shawl I've been working on for the last little while was for her. The photo at the top of this post was a photo from a little while back before I blocked it.
• I watched a couple episodes of my new favourite show, Duck Dynasty. Seriously, this show is hilarious. So many quotable lines, it's great.
• I started knitting a pretty nice red and grey shawl. I love this colour combination, and the shawl is coming along nicely.

What sorts of awesome things are going on in your lives?

Kingsville Migration Festival Craft Show Recap

Saturday and Sunday, I did a craft show at Kingsville High School. I did the same show last year, and said I wouldn't do it again. I really should have stuck to that, as this year was pretty terrible. There weren't nearly as many people coming through, and the ones that were seemed to just be there to look, and not buy. I had a lot of people stopping by my booth, take a quick glance, and walk away. I barely had time to say hello before they took off. Many of the ones that did stick around weren't the most polite people, either. I had a couple ladies pick up some of my more complex knitting, and inspect it, as if to figure out how I made it. I even had one gutsy lady ask me what pattern I used for one of my shawls. I said I don't use patterns, and she asked for instructions how to make it, so she could make her own. Nice try lady. My items are my own pattern, and I don't want to share, especially not when you ask me rudely.

I did sell a few pairs of earrings on the Saturday, and a scarf and hat on Sunday. I barely covered the cost of my booth. In the end, I lost money. Not to mention, I could have spent less time at work, those two days, and made way more money.

I'm definitely not doing this show again next year. Please hold me to it.

Really hoping my next two shows go better.

What do you do to recover from a failed craft show? I'm pretty bummed out.

Halloween Link Up Party!

Join us on October 29th through November 4th to link up all of your Halloween related posts! Share your recipes, costumes, home decor and whatever else it is you're doing to celebrate this Halloween! Then stop by some of the other blogs that linked up for the holiday fun and get some ideas on how to celebrate Halloween next year (or even this year if you're behind on planning!)

Want to help us promote the link-up? We'd love to have you! Grab the coding below for the button and post it in your sidebar through November 4th to encourage even more bloggers to link-up and spread the holiday fun!

<a href="http://www.afterninetofive.net/holiday-link-up/"><img src="http://i1120.photobucket.com/albums/l484/AfterNineToFive/HalloweenLinkUp.png" alt="" /></a> Be sure to check out the hosts for the link-up : After Nine To Five //And Here's To You, Mrs. Robinson Polkadot Pretties // Krystal's Kitsch // Pretty Living PDX  Whispering Sweet Nothings // The March Owl // Whit Speaks Squishy Cheeks & Cupcakes // Sabje's Blog // Knit, Nicole, Knit

The Newest Shawl Off The Needles

Last night, in my Awesome Thursday post I mentioned a shawl that recently came off the needles. It's a basic garter stitch shawl, but I really like it. It's a nice light grey, super soft synthetic yarn (I think all acrylic, but I'm not sure) that is just the right size to wrap around your neck and have the tails hang in front. I've been doing a lot of shawls with this wider triangle shape, because it is easier to wear than the right angle triangle that I used to make all the time. I have a couple very similar shawls made, and I will probably make some more the same way.
What do you think? Do you like the triangle shawl shape? What colour would you like to see?

Awesome Thursday: October 18, 2012

I don't think this will get posted by midnight, but let's call it Thursday anyway, okay? These are the awesome things that have gone on in my life over the past week:

• I listed a few new items in the Etsy Shop. Took a break from doing this, because I have the craft show this upcoming weekend.
• We had Vietnamese for lunch one day. One of our favourite meals together. The picture is one Rick took of his shrimp rolls. They're so light and fresh tasting, we both love them. In fact, we've made them ourselves at home several times. Not quite as good as the restaurant, but totally hits the spot, not to mention, way cheaper
• Rick and I got panzerotti from a local pizza joint. Super super yummy.
• We went to see Looper. Super awesome. I really enjoyed it.
• We went to Starbucks and Indigo after the movie. Rick got a couple magazines, and I got a pumpkin spice frappucino. So tasty!!
• I watched the first episode of the new season of The Walking Dead. I actually really liked it. I'm going to either borrow DVDs of the other 2 seasons, or download them. Either way, I want to watch it all!
• I got a really nice shawl finished. It's super basic, but I absolutely love it. I'll make a quick post about this tomorrow.
• I used my Square reader for the first time! It was a $1 transaction from my own credit card, but hey, I had to learn how to use it somehow! I was really excited about how easy it was. Seriously, if you do craft shows, you NEED one of these.
• Rick's mom, Cindy, mage sausage soup for dinner tonight. Rick has mentioned this before, but I never thought anything of it. I had it for the first time tonight, and sweet mother of all that is holy, it is phenomenal. I went up and had a second bowl not too long ago.
• I had a pretty solid work week. Nothing too crazy happened, which is nice.

What sorts of awesome things are going on in your lives?