Dye Jobs (and a cat)

 As part of my "stop the burnout" summer*, I've been dyeing, and experimenting with how the colors play together. I'm using Greener Shades acid dyes, with fairly imprecise measurements (I don't have a dedicated dye powder scale, so I just scoop and eyeball it).  These are all on Knit Picks Bare Hawthorne skeins. No handspun in this lot.

"Rabid Peony" 

I dyed this before seeing Barbie, or it might have survived. Instead, I tried an overdye with my trusty Amethyst at 2% and a shot of Ruby, and got "Mixed Berry." I think it's an improvement.

"Mixed Berry"

Trust River Blue and Amethyst, for the win. 

"Be Cool"

This is the same hank from two sides. I was trying to see if blue and red dye made purple easily. I know my color wheel, red and blue make purple, but in practice--in acrylic paints, at least--that theory does not translate well. The interwebz assured me that the dyes mixed well and true, and they do! I was trying to achieve a version of one of those rocket red-white-blue popsicles you see around in ice cream trucks or wherever. The purple is faint, but this gives me hope that should I mix the last of my Ruby and my River Blue, I will get an interesting colorway in actual purples.

"Rocket Pop" 

"Rocket Pop"

And if you've gotten this far: one melted Patchwork Terror. It hasn't been that hot here (we've been lucky!), but it has been humid, and despite shedding another cat every time he touches carpet or upholstery, he's still wearing a fur coat.

I'm melting...

* I've been writing, too. 80K and climbing.

The Patchwork Terror Turns Four

We acquired PT because Murdercat was becoming too much for poor Tinycat. He wanted to play. She did not. He wanted to jump on her. She did not want that. And he is twice her size, there was not much she could do. We saw a post on the neighborhood list-serve for a kitten...twice...because the first home would not keep his rowdy little self and no one wanted him.

He needed us, Murdercat needed a kitten (this was my pitch: we're getting a kitten for the cat!) and so he arrived in October of 2019, sassy and fearless and very interested in when dinner was happening. 

He remains sassy, opinionated, assertive, and social without being a cuddler or a lap cat in anyway. He's Murdercat's bane and best friend, and he actually respects Tinycat's authority and space. 

 He wants your butter. Or your whipped cream. Maybe both.

His usual hangout. 

BFFs. Though now they cannot both fit on a single cushion.

Look at that little face. 

Where Did June Go?

Hi, my name is Kat, and I'm a workaholic. 

WIP is around 50K now. I'm trying to a) not stress about daily wordcount and b) not write every single day. You know. Take breaks. I realized that since I started it April, I'd been either working on it, or on The Day Job, 7 days a week. I am trying to persuade myself that in summer, I can work on it 4-5 days a week, and that's fine because I'm not under contract or deadline. 

I should be writing now, but it's been A Day and also blogs count as writing. Because I said.

As proof that I Did Things other than write in June, I present:

"His Golden Lair", done in Miss Babs' "Biker Chick" colorway in her Killington wool/silk (which one cannot buy at the moment? Alas). The pattern is inspired by Smaug, and I think was intended to be done monochrome to show off the stitches. It's all cables and lacework and then some serious blocking. 

I don't mind cables. I do not like lacework, and I hate fussy blocking. But it's for dragon wings, so. 

It's big, y'all. Like, 62" tip to tip. About 18" down the spine. The lower image is from its blocking phase, when I had it pinned to the wall (under a LOTR print, as it happens). You can see the lace scales a little more clearly here. I confess I'd hoped for a more intense color from the Miss Babs--punch your face orange, rather than smouldering--but I like the effect. (My intent had been to use some homespun orange wool-silk-blend, but I ran out...10 rows from the end. 10 long rows, but still. I might've said some swears.) Now I have a bunch of the Biker Chick and 350 yds of fiery homespun that match fairly closely in color and texture and what will they become. 

And now that May Grey has become June Gloom has given way to July and we're seeing the sun... I've gotten back to dyeing. 

I actually mixed the dyes back in February, because the more humid and wet and even rainy it is outside when I do this, the less powder gets all over. Anyway. The dye is called "Ruby" and I was imagining a red. Maybe a dark, jewel-tone red. You know. From the name. But just in case, I made a 2% solution and I aimed for a dark dye job. And I got...

Pink. Rabid peony. Now, I do love me some hot pink, but that is a lot. It's on Knit Picks Bare Hawthorne, so it's destined to be socks, but it was supposed to be red socks. Jury's out on whether I'm going to overdye with purple or the other red I've got made up (called "Flame". I anticipate orange rather than pink) or just leave it alone. 

And finally we have TinyCat, who has nothing to do with yarn or fiber arts whatsoever. According to the chart at the vet's she is now geriatric. She prefers the term senior, please and thank you.  She continues to shrink despite eating well, so perhaps there is a black hole of spite where her heart used to be. 

back at it

 I'm writing again. I'd forgotten the sensation of feeling my way through the plot with only the vaguest idea of what's coming. I mean, there's a general plot in mind. A plan, if you will. An intention.

It's not that I can't think more than a chapter ahead in detail, it's that I don't want to. The kind of granular detail I want in a Google map I absolutely do not want in my storytelling process. I know the preferred terms are plotter and panster, but I think it's less about being carried along by the plot than it is about discovering it. Like...like a dungeon crawl. Or unlocking the map on a new level of a video game. What's over here? What's that? What does this do? If I know, then... eh? Why am I doing this?

(Then there's the debacle of Windscar's first draft, that I wrote to an outline and then trashed. Maybe I'm just crap at plotting.)

But let's stick with the dungeon-crawl metaphor. I think the close focus I keep on where I am putting my next literary foot is definitely reflected in the kinds of stories I tell. Generally short duration in-world, tightly focused, totally up in a character's head. That style makes it harder to do big sweeping epics. I think Rory worked--not as an epic, exactly, but the story spanned years--because I had an omniscient narrator. 

Someday I will try to write a single POV novel. Maybe even a first-person. And someday I may try out some of that postmodern fluidity of time and linearity. 

This, however, will not be that novel. 

 

In Translation (also, baking)

So, Nightwatch on the Hinterlands got picked up for Turkish foreign rights, and lo, this arrived in my mailbox this week. 

I love the cover art. It's kind of strange/cool to see your story in words you can't read, except for the proper names. While this isn't my first foreign rights sale, it is the first time I've gotten a copy. Pretty cool.

I would love to have more to report, but it is February. It's not even an especially dark month here (it should be raining. It isn't. That will change at the end of the week.), but it's a drag on the spirit. Nothing major, just many littles coming together to make a much. 

Thank the gods for steady D&D games and the friends that make them possible. 

And because I am (not so) low-key D&D obsessed, I took yesterday, Presidents' Day, to spend mostly in the kitchen, making D&D associated recipies. I've made Lord Eshteross's Maple Ginger Cookies with Turmeric (from Exquisite Exandria: The Official Cookbook of Critical Role) before, and they turned out splendidly this time as well. I don't actually own that cookbook yet, mind, so I can't speak to the rest. 

I do own Heroes' Feast, the official D&D cookbook (Shan, who is not Icelandic in any way, practices the Icelandic tradition of giving books as gifts on Christmas Eve. She figures cookbook and gaming is just doubling up on the awesome, and she is not wrong.) I did a test run of the vedbread (the D&D name in the book, and I have no idea what its real name might be).  It's a sort of savory not-at-all-cinnamon roll, where the dough is instead rolled around a combination of mushrooms, shallots, and cheese, and the dough itself has a fair bit of cheese worked into it as well. Tasty. A little more substantial  than "bread that accompanies soup" and more like "light lunch." They seem like a thing that may come with me to events where someone says "bring something savory, not a main dish, not a salad."  

And because I spent the day making dishes for my long-suffering husband to wash up, I feel better about the multiverse today. Also, I have tasty things to eat for lunches and snacks. 

And February is almost over.

ENEMY on sale this month

So it's 2023. Happy New Year!

Are you looking for story about conjurors and outlaws, ghosts and gods, and a good old dose of blood and fire? Then may I suggest ENEMY, on special for 2.99 in Kindle for the month.

Ashland Public Library Event!

 I was fortunate enough to participate in a virtual panel about women in SciFi with Julie Czerneda, Lena Nguyen, and Mur Lafferty, hosted by the Ashland Public Library. You can watch it here. 

Those of you who make a DC 10 perception check may note yours truly held up Nightwatch on the Hinterlands instead of Nightwatch Over Windscar and utterly failed to, like, describe the books. Let us attribute this to end of quarter brain. Yes. 

And instead, please enjoy this beautiful animation of the most recent book, Nightwatch Over Windscar, which follows templar Iari and the Five Tribes vakari ambassador Gaer as they try to figure out wtf is going on in Windscar, where the separatists are hiding, and wait, what is that noise...?