anotherusedpage

On the one hand, it is sort of obvious why I've decided I want to have another go at working out how Continental knitting works for a project that involves reversible cables and ribbing on DPNs.

On the OTHER, this feels like a bit of a trial-by-fire given that my problem has historically been tension...

kaberett

Celebrating. A's birthday!

Reading. ( Rogerson, Rundell, McGuire, Clarke, Duncan, Scalzi, Hermé )

I also: remain up to date with Dreamwidth; worked through a brief pain management course for Youth, as background reading.

Writing. The Document continues to be expanded a little every day. It is now over 4000 words.

Playing. A bit of The Bridge, "a 2D logic puzzle game that forces the player to reevaluate their preconceptions of physics and perspective", which sounded like it might be about the right speed for me given that we'd just enjoyed playing through the Monument Valley series, and which instead for the most part does not seem to fit into my brain terribly neatly and is also weirdly evocative/reminiscent of Braid (lonely dude in a suit) while also being kinda... gay? possibly? I can't tell yet? Anyway we've played through I think the first four levels and might or might not continue.

We have also engaged in some Spirits -- mostly A playing and me watching, because I am not feeling up to timing problems and having to keep pressing Esc also feels overwhelming, but I have been Providing Commentary and enjoying watching the process of TURNING MUSHROOMS INTO CLOUDS to HELP THE LEAVES GET HOME.

We have also been playing (independently) sudoku, & grousing about each other's incomprehensible approaches to solving things, and then I nerdsniped A with a specific puzzle & they went to look up Theory And Strategy Of Sudoku, and I may yet get around to uh actually looking up the approach named "jellyfish"...

Elsenet vass has introduced me to Squardle.

Cooking. One spice mix, and subsequently one recipe from East featuring a vegetable I think I have not previously consciously eaten (Jerusalem artichokes). Another batch of medlar sticky toffee pudding as A's birthday cake; I think that in fact one cannot tell the difference between medlar that has not been jellied and medlar residue from jellying, at least in this setting. Also, turns out you can successfully add beetroot to the red cabbage and cauliflower udon noodles thing. Oh, and pineapple fried rice, which A had somehow never previously encountered???

Eating. We were both, on Friday, quite tired and sad. The internet brought us Pizza Express. It was good.

Making & mending. I FINISHED A GLOVE. I WOVE IN THE ENDS. Now to cast on glove #2 of that pair...

Growing. Both orchids seem to be putting forth flower stems! And I have sown lemongrass, pineapple physalis, and (not expecting any of these to actually germinate) some lithops I was sent as a gift a while ago...

raven

Here's a bit of admin I didn't manage to do while I was away. For yuletide this year, I got the following story from

ryfkah:

More A Comment Than A Question (2285 words) by ryfkah
Fandom: The Day Before the Revolution - Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin
Characters: Laia Asieo Odo, Sadik (The Dispossessed)

Odo!

“I’m Laia.” If the voice wanted her father, she thought, crossly, it could go and get him; why was it bothering her?

Oh. The voice sounded startled. You’re too small. I got it wrong. Then, hopefully: Do you have any thoughts yet about anarchism and the necessity of constant revolution?

I was caught right in the maelstrom of the day 1 de-anonning - as in, had opened the tab with the author's name on it and then went back to the laptop every few minutes for an hour to look at the recipe in the next tab - and learned later that I had been an unwitting part of a greater scheme of deception! But honestly I was thrilled at the news Becca was writing me regardless, she is the best and this story is wonderful: does such a good job at catching on to the themes of the original, and does this via a funny little time travel scenario that fits brilliantly into the original. I highly recommend it.

I wrote the following stories:

Flowering (4850 words) by raven
Fandom: The Chronicles of Chrestomanci - Diana Wynne Jones
Relationships: Cat Chant & Christopher Chant
Characters: Cat Chant, Christopher Chant, Millie Chant
Additional Tags: Coming of Age, Queer Themes
Summary:

“Keep the home fires burning, Cat, will you,” Chrestomanci says lazily, and Millie blows Cat a kiss before the portal shuts.

My assigned story, and a couple of people can attest how much I hated it, hated writing it, and how much I wanted to burn it to the ground. I'm in a phase right now where writing fiction is just beyond my ken. It's too hard and it makes my soul ache. But I had been on a podcast, Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones, on an episode about The Lives of Christopher Chant, so I thought I was feeling Chrestomanci sufficiently much to write it. I was not and I could not. But then I missed the deadline for no-fault default, and felt masochistic enough to continue somehow. I eventually resolved to orphan the story once yuletide was over - I have not done this. Quite a lot of people liked it and I'm grateful to them for saying so! But I learned my lesson here about giving up when I'm ahead.

promises made to be broken, made to last (1988 words) by raven
Fandom: Shetland (TV)
Relationships: Ruth Calder/Alison McIntosh
Characters: Ruth Calder, Alison McIntosh
Additional Tags: New Year's Eve, Romance, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft
Summary:

Ruth's not much of a witch, not really. Kneeling beside a corpse on the year’s turn is something any woman can do.

Here's one that was different! I've seen some of this show, I've been to the islands, but hadn't been particularly inspired to write for it. But then

walkthegale was having a bad time just before Christmas, and I'd been promising her something for nearly a year, and, and. On the morning of 24 December I texted her lovely wife with a neverending slew of canon questions and scribbled and scribbled. I got this written finally an hour before the deadline and it was all worth it because C loved her gift and guessed it was me even before the de-anon. I was really pleased this whole thing came off.

ashes, ashes (2099 words) by raven
Fandom: The Incandescent - Emily Tesh
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Sapphire “Saffy” Walden/Laura Kenning
Characters: Sapphire “Saffy” Walden, Laura Kenning
Additional Tags: Aftermath, Recovery, Yuletide Treat
Summary:

It was time to go, and Laura said, “Saffy, you could come with me”—and Saffy said maybe, and it meant something but neither of them knew yet what.

I don't know that I have much to say about this one! I wrote it a few months ago, before the creative void, so it was nice to have a story in the archive that I definitely liked that wasn't written in a mad hurry. The recipient didn't show up, but we can't have everything.

kaberett

I HAVE FINISHED A GLOVE. Even I wove the ends in! So A now has one (1) glove, only... however long it's been since the 19^th of March 2025... since I cast it on, and hey, maybe I'll even get the second one done inside the year. Maybe.
I have contacted a potential therapist. (I am very annoyed about the therapist who looked extremely promising until I visited their actual website, rather than just their listing on the directory, and discovered the weight loss hypnotherapy offerings. The person I've contacted instead is explicit about HAES.)
In partial reward for same, I have asked Oxfam to send me more books. Most of them are about food; one of them is about pain. (Probably Philosophy Of Pain, rather than my area of interest, and definitely Old, but it was A Landmark In The Field and it was £3.99, so.)
SEEDS arrived, by which I mean oca. V glad I ordered a specific bag of the variety I was most interested in as well as the Mixed Bag, because the variety I was most interested in is not represented in said Mixed Bag. Which is fine, the difference is Largely Colouration Anyway, but oca generally do well for me and they're tasty and they're also very low effort.
I am having a bad brain week, but this evening we got the internet to bring us pizza and we spent a bit of time curled up on the sofa playing two different games, except my brain wasn't really cooperating so mostly A played them and I watched, and between the food and the shared activity and the knitting it's a bit quieter in here now, for which I am very grateful.

kaberett

Reading. ... I think I genuinely have mostly just been stubbornly catching up with Dreamwidth (at time of writing I am UP TO DATE). No, wait, I did also (via oursin) end up reading several articles about the contents of Oliver Sacks' papers and personal archive, most of which was not hugely surprising given the results of some of my previous digging, but which has resulted in me reaching the firm decision that I shan't be citing any of his examples that can't be extremely independently verified. (Thoughts about case histories for public consumption continue.) And finished one of the Periodicals I'd had sitting around, and gleefully dumped it in the recycling!

I acquired a new book (passingbuzzards flagged up that Craft Wars #2 Dead Hand Rule came out recently; apparently I've been hiding so comprehensively from my e-mail that I presumably have a Max Gladstone Newsletter languishing somewhere in there) but it is not yet on the ereader. (And downloaded a Toby Daye short from Patreon, but that's not going onto the ereader until I have stitched it into the giant whole-series single ebook). I now also have two books sitting around in Libby. So! Next up Vespertine, then Rooftoppers, then maybe I settle down with Index, A History of the and actually finish it? Since I am no longer focussing primarily on pain reading? Because...

Writing. ... the document is over 3000 words long. At the moment most of what I'm writing falls into one of two categories: structure/scaffolding, and Words I Will Definitely Be Deleting because they're currently extremely note-to-self and will require significant expansion. But there are paragraphs! And I've written a little every day so far this year (except today, which I will rectify before I put the laptop down)! (The bar for Tick This Off My List is a single word.)

Playing. As of a little earlier this evening I have All The Inkulinati Steam Achievements, admittedly by Alt+F4ing my way through the Master run (i.e. flouncing most times I was about to lose a fight) ABOUT WHICH I FEEL BAD but probably not bad enough to go back through and do it Properly.

We have also finished Monument Valley 3, we think, in that we have All The Achievements... but we were a bit confused by the way it just sort of... trailed off after completing the Hall of Memories. I am sort of anticipating a further expansion, I think?

Cooking. This evening I decided I was Sad and that we were going to have Pineapple Fried Rice. A had not previously experienced this, and was... perplexed. Also mulled apple juice, starting with apple-and-ginger and eventually adding apple-and-pear to the problem.

Eating. Highlight: Lebkuchen and mulled apple juice from a flask (well, insulated mug) at the obelisk near the square water. Have also been Greatly Indulged with avocados, and enjoying them enormously.

Exploring. Visited the square water! Which was frozen, at least at the surface! There were excellent frost patterns on moss and also shelf fungi! Several of the trees had been decorated! Excellent stonk, v pleased. Earlier in the week we did a shorter stonk (... it now occurs to me that this is probably a family-specific usage...) around some of the back roads and enjoyed Ongoing Illuminations.

Making & mending. I have fixed Adam's glove????????? I have now made approximately nine tenths of a glove for Adam?????????? I need to actually do the thumb, but after giving up on the mitten flap in disgust after winding up ripping it back Multiple Times, this time around I ripped it back even further and then Grimly and Obsessively Counted, and... it worked??? (Promptly had to frog the bind-off as well, though, having forgotten a key instruction; I checked my notebook and was dismayed to find no notes on the obvious solution there, until I triple-checked the pattern and discovered that that would be because the obvious solution is literally a part of said written pattern...) Maybe I'll get the other one done in time for April (and before they've spent a year on the needles). Maybe.

Growing. CAN CONFIRM: MYSTERIOUS YELLOW HABANERO IS TRINIDAD PERFUME. Curry leaf cutting not dead yet. Have utterly failed to get any seeds sown this week despite Best Intentions but I have at least made the propagator more approachable, and ordered minimal Bonus Seeds (and indeed opted out of bonus bonus seeds altogether, good job me).

Observing. Robins, on my bike and at the square water. Corvids misc. Several excellent sunsets! And the almost-full moon framed perfectly in the not-exactly-an-alley the building front door disgorges into the middle of, which I made A go back outside to take a look at when they got home from work on Friday.

kaberett

This afternoon I have, I think (I hope I have my fingers crossed) got unstuck on the pair of mittens I'm making for A, having frogged the palm yet again; I have been having inordinate difficulty with successfully picking up slipped stitch columns consistently so as to wind up with the flap not at a ridiculous slope. I don't know why I've been finding this so hard (it was fine on the previous pair!), and I am not super thrilled with the neatness (or otherwise) of how the picking up has gone, but I'm now most of the way to done with this one, please the gods may it continue thus.

A meanwhile spent the afternoon cleaning fountain pens, and was willing to do one of mine while I was at it, so the dip-fill that got done when the nib was reground has now been cleaned out and TOMORROW I can fill it with Its Intended Ink and THEN I will... get to see how much I hate the intended combination of colours, heh. (I am contemplating doing some inline journalling, with slightly different colours of ink for todo lists vs Recountings Of Feelings About Day.)

I am also pretty much caught up with Dreamwidth, by which I mean "I haven't finished reading all of today's posts, and I'm probably not going to before I sleep, but I am, like, at one day behind now", which is a joy. Along the way I have discovered that a new Craft Wars book got published while I was hiding from my many (many) e-mails; been baffled that uk.bookshop.org just... doesn't sell English-language Max Gladstone ebooks, as far as I can tell; and made slow progress on remembering that commenting is a good thing now, actually. (I've been leery of it while Significantly Behind in case Things Had Gone Bad in the interim, but I've been significantly behind since April, so I have some relearning to do.)

What else what else? Snow, a smattering thereof, or possibly just Very Enthusiastic Frost; finally managed to point out the octopus topper on one of the localish post boxes in such a fashion that A was able to observe it; there is a fresh batch of yoghurt to go in the fridge overnight and then get decanted in the morning; I have not today managed to sow the various grow-on-indoors seeds I want to get started in the propagator before it's time for Everything Else (pineapple physalis, lemongrass, ... oh no what's the third thing) but, hey, Perhaps Tomorrow. Many things. For now: rest.