S.J. Pajonas's Blog, page 75

Sunday Update – October 14, 2018

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog.

I must be getting older because I feel like the weeks are just slipping by. Weekends are nothing but an eye blink. Where does the time go? I’m not sure. I guess when you’re always busy, it just cruises right on by.

Monday, my kids had a half day for Columbus Day. We didn’t do much in the afternoon. I think we watched some Flash and I did some writing. That was about it.

Tuesday should’ve just been any normal Tuesday but it wasn’t. We went to go pick up our weekly CSA veggie share and almost got killed on the way home. I was driving along minding my own business, when a woman veered into my lane after turning a corner and came at me head-on. I slammed on the horn and swerved out of the way, nearly missing her. She just stared at me with a slack face and drove off. I’m pretty sure she was drunk. Only someone totally impaired could’ve done what she did. My heart was pounding and the kids cried in the backseat because it was seriously scary. Almost met my maker that day.

On Wednesday, thankful to be alive, I handled a bunch of stuff. The cleaning ladies came, groceries were delivered, and I went to the chiropractor and acupuncturist. I was feeling pretty crappy because, on top of the death scare, I feared I was coming down with a sinus infection. My acupuncturist gave me extra immune points and worked on the digestion meridians. I felt better by the time I left and my sinus issues were cleared up by Friday!

On Thursday, it was more pottery! I’m so enjoying pottery. It’s a lot of fun and I’m learning a lot. The women in the class are pretty great too. I told the instructor that I will always be coming to class unless I’m sick or my kids are sick. I wanted him to know that I’m not going to quit, as it seems that many people do quit pottery after a short time when they realize it’s not easy. In the evening, my youngest had a Girl Scout thing to go to and it was raining. But she went and it was fun for her.

On Friday, I went grocery shopping and worked at home during the school day. Then the kids had their pottery and my oldest had a “Social” to go to at school. It was a long day but my husband worked from home and helped out a lot.

Yesterday, we drove out to see family for my nephews’ birthdays. It was great to be there. To eat pizza, enjoy some drinks, and hang out.

Today, I’m getting work done! Blog posts, ads, making apple crisp, and writing!

There’s been a lot of writing going on here. I’m at around 38,000 of a 60,000 word book, so that’s coming along. I’m right on schedule too, according to Scrivener. My current plan is to finish writing this book, edit Book 1 and then this Book 2 in November so they’re done. Then start writing a Miso Cozy Mysteries book so I have something to publish in early 2019. Because I think I’m going to write at least 6 books in this new Flyght Series of mine before I publish anything. Yep. I want the series at least 2/3rds finished before I publish anything. I think that’ll be best for readers and best for my sanity too. I get a lot of time to just live in this world without having to listen to feedback. I think it’s gonna be pretty great. :)

What else happened this week?

She still loves running the maze at the CSA location pickup.

My nephews loved their birthday presents. Lots of trains and recycling trucks.

I had a few nice days of weather this week! The park looked pretty this day.

New pots! I wonder how many wonky pots I’ll have by the end of this class. Lol.

More writing on my Alphasmart Neo.

I’m trying out something new to me, sherry. I quite like it!

And I love it when my kitchen looks nice and clean. Love!

Hope you all have an awesome week!

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Let’s Discuss – Favorite Tropes in Science Fiction

Okay, so one of my favorite bloggers posted a discussion last week about his favorite tropes in sci-fi, and I thought that would be a great post to do here as well. In a few weeks, we’ll discuss favorite tropes in mysteries too, since these are the two main genres I write in now.

Androids/Robots

CAVES OF STEEL, BLADE RUNNER, and DEFY THE STARS

I mean, ROBOTS, am I right? Where can you go wrong with a trope that’s been around since the dawn of science fiction, if not earlier? I love that looking at robots and androids is a chance for people to understand their own humanity. It’s a chance for introspection and advancement. It’s probably my favorite trope, if I’m being honest. It’s why I loved Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation so much.

Downloaded Consciousness

ALTERED CARBON and OLD MAN’S WAR.

This will always be fascinating to me. Will we ever figure out how to store consciousness? What is it? Can it be quantified by ones and zeros? What will it mean for humans to be able to just reboot? I loved both OLD MAN’S WAR and ALTERED CARBON for the questions and possible answers to these questions and more.

Generation Ships

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, STARGLASS, and DAWN

If we never invent jump drives or faster-than-light travel, then our only option to get to another solar system is the generation ship. And just think of the possibilities with this one. Who gets to go? How will they get there? How long will it take? What will happen along the way? I loved both ACROSS THE UNIVERSE and STARGLASS as generation stories. DAWN did a little spin on the generation ships because the aliens had a whole generation ship (it was also a living ship) that they shared with other alien species. It was pretty darned cool.

Portal Gates

CONTACT, DEFY THE STARS, UNEARTHED, Cowboy Bebop, The Wheel of Time, The Expanse, Star Trek, Stargate, etc…

This may be one of the top well-used sci-fi tropes (along with FTL drives). I can think of a ton of books, TV shows, and movies that have used portal gates or wormholes. My favorite, though, is the jump rings in Cowboy Bebop. Those get them around the solar system, and it’s what I use in the Flyght Series, for both long and short distances. But I also love portal gates like in Stargate or DEFY THE STARS that connect many different systems. That makes for fun stories!

Some other well-known tropes…

And then there are the tropes that are so well used that we don’t even see them anymore. Like Faster-Than-Light Travel which includes warp drives, jump drives, hyperspace drives. So many sci-fi books and movies use these that it’s really a part of the fabric of the genre. The Expanse came the closest to not using any of these and then they opened the alien network of portals. Lol.

These are all my favorite tropes in sci-fi and ones I’ve used in all my books too! I use androids in the Hikoboshi Series along with downloaded consciousness. Generation ships are what got people to the systems first in the Hikoboshi Series, then FTL jump ships got them around later. And I’m using portal gates in my new Flyght Series. I’m sure I’ll use even more tropes as I write more in this exciting genre.

What are your favorite science fiction tropes? Share them in the comments!

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A History of Japan Podcast – Podcast Recommendation

I’ve recently been expanding my podcast listening from just writer-related to news, long-form journalism, and educational too. Someday, I’ll go over all the podcasts that I subscribe to, but for now, I wanted to let you know about a great recent find!

If you’re interested in Japan and Japanese history, you need to check out the A History of Japan Podcast, narrated and researched by Isaac Meyer. This is a recent find for me, so I’ve been going back to listen to old episodes. I’m so glad that the vast majority of them are available in the Apple Podcasts feed! This has become my new evening habit of cooking dinner and listening. Can’t beat that. :)

The recent episodes focusing on the history of Tokyo from its inception as Edo to modern day Tokyo has been particularly informative. I knew a bit about how it was formed, but Isaac gets into the nitty gritty details about how it worked, was administrated and governed. When you really think about how much work went into building a city as massive as Tokyo, your head swims!

The topics on the podcast are varied and wide-ranging, which is a good thing. I’ve noticed many podcasts get into ruts where they’re talking about the same thing every other podcast is talking about. So subscribing should give you something new and interesting to listen to every time the podcast is updated. And definitely check out the blog posts associated with each episode. Isaac usually posts some images and photos to help support the information he provides. It’s very thorough!

Check out Isaac’s website and subscribe to the podcast!

I just started supporting him on Patreon too. Hopefully we’ll get many more podcasts from him in the future.

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Featuring EMBRACE THE PASSION: PETS IN SPACE 3 By Carol Van Natta And Other Authors

PETS IN SPACE is a great anthology in its third incarnation that donates proceeds to charity (10% of the first month of profits goes to Hero-Dogs.org). I’ve had a lot of author friends participate in each of the anthologies, and today, I have Carol Van Natta here to talk about her contribution, CATS OF WAR.

I asked Carol, “What’s your favorite part of PETS IN SPACE and CATS OF WAR?”

She replied…

My favorite thing about the Pets in Space anthology series is pets. When we go to the stars, I guarantee we’re taking our pets. And if we find alien life forms, we’ll probably try to make pets of them, too. ;-)

This year’s anthology is EMBRACE THE PASSION: PETS IN SPACE 3, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it. My story in the anthology is CATS OF WAR, which I wrote to mollify my cats. Pet Trade, the story I wrote for last year’s anthology, featured several cats (and dogs, and birds, and weasels, and… you get the picture), but a *dog* was the hero of the story. So CATS OF WAR stars two extraordinary cats.

In my Central Galactic Concordance space opera series, the future genetic designers who created the “cats of war” took features from several species, but mostly felines, to create stealthy spies and thieves, which cats naturally excel at.

I love the creativity of this whole anthology! And it makes sense to take all those stealthy parts of cats and make them come alive.

I asked Carol to also supply an excerpt, so here’s that as well.

The standing white-legged boxes for the container gardens looked bigger than she remembered them from her first-day tour. She skirted around to the left, under the hanging tree branches. Slower, fatter raindrops drummed on her hood.

The closer she got to the corner of the fence, the more she became convinced she had visitors in her mind. Not telepaths, because they used words, and not empaths, because they were all about feelings. The two thought patterns were lost, and cold, and hurt. They’d called and called, and finally found someone to hear them.

Great, now she was dreaming while awake in the middle of a rainstorm.

She aimed the torch for the dark hulk that had to be the repair bot. Sure enough, there were Oran Mòr’s orange stripes.

It turned its head, opened its eyes, and meowed softly.

You came.

Ferra nearly stumbled to her knees. The torch dropped to the ground and winked out.

A creature rose to its feet and shook water everywhere.

Help us.

A picture blossomed in her mind of another dark catlike creature, waiting in the dark beyond the fence, unable to fly over it because of a broken wing.

She lit one of the small hand lights on her wrist. The creature in front of her stood knee-high at the shoulders and had the hint of an orange-striped bat-type wing folded flat along its side.

“You’re real.” It was all she could think to say.

The creature switched its long tail in annoyance.

Yes. Help us. Help him.

Once again, the image of the injured creature flashed in her mind.

She’d never imagined sentient animals, not in her wildest dreams. It was too cold and damp to be a dream. And too cold and dangerous for an injured creature to be stuck outside.

Sentient animals are also something I like in my own books, so this is right up my alley and will be familiar to my readers too!

Pets in Space is back! Join us as we unveil eleven original, never-before-published action-filled romances that will heat your blood and warm your heart! New York Times, USA Today and Award-winning authors S.E. Smith, Anna Hackett, Ruby Lionsdrake, Veronica Scott, Pauline Baird Jones, Carol Van Natta, Tiffany Roberts, Alexis Glynn Latner, E D Walker, JC Hay, and Kyndra Hatch combine their love for Science Fiction Romance and pets to bring readers sexy, action-packed romances while helping our favorite charity.

Proud supporters of Hero-Dogs.org, Pets in Space authors have donated over $4,400 in the past two years to help place specially trained dogs with disabled U.S. veterans and first responders.

Open your heart and grab your limited release copy of Embrace the Passion: Pets in Space 3 today!

Check out EMBRACE THE PASSION: PETS IN SPACE 3 on…
Amazon iBooks Nook Kobo Google Play

Find This Author Online

Want to learn more about Carol Van Natta? You can find her online here…

Anthology website and newsletter signup: https://www.petsinspaceantho.com/

Carol Van Natta’s website: https://author.carolvannatta.com

Carol Van Natta’s Facebook: https://facebook.com/CarolVanNattaAuthor

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Sunday Update – October 7, 2018

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog.

I feel like this was a long week though, of course, it wasn’t any more or less stressful than the week before. My husband did catch a cold, though, and it screwed up his sleep, and mine too. I’m a really light sleeper. Almost anything can wake me up. Whereas when he sleeps, he sleeps like the dead. So for him to get sick means we both suffer no sleep. Lol. Sucks. I had to go back to bed today after only sleeping 4 hours last night. It cut into my productivity time today.

In other random news, this weekend marks my 15 year anniversary of blogging! I started my very first blog 15 years ago around Oct 6/7th. Kinda crazy to think I’ve been doing this for so long.

As for the week, it went by rather fast. Monday, we did my oldest daughter’s annual eye exam. Tuesday was School Picture Day for the youngest. Wednesday was School Picture Day for the oldest.

On Wednesday, I went over my friend Amy’s house to play with some of the puppies she’s been fostering for the local animal shelter. NINE PUPPIES! They were cute and stinky and adorable. I enjoyed my time with them, but I was sure I don’t want a puppy after that. Lol.

Thursday, I had pottery class in the morning, and I’m still really enjoying it. I think it’s going to be a lasting thing for me! Then, I went to Back to School Night for the middle school. By the end of the night, I was exhausted.

Friday, I went for a walk in the morning, went grocery shopping, and then took the kids for their pottery class in the afternoon while I made bread and soup for dinner.

We’ve been at home all weekend because the weather here has been crappy and my husband has been sick. I’m getting writing done, and today I plan to write all my blog posts for the week.

What else happened this week?

First let’s do a little knitting update. This is Corners, Edges, Stripes by Strickmich. I had a doozy of a time starting this one. I didn’t like the way it looked as I carried the yarn up the side for each color change. I casted it on FIVE TIMES before I was happy with it, and still the first color change kept coming out messy, so I ditched it. I plan to mirror this edit on the other end. Anyway, once it got going, it was all good, and I’ve been happy with it since.

Here are some more pots I threw this week. I forgot to put my name in that top one but did it after I took the photo.

The leaves are changing and everything is getting golden.

PUPPIES!!

Hanging out with the other parents at Back to School night.

And just a photo to let you know that I’m still writing. I’m on a 1500-word-per-day diet and I get Sundays off. If I keep it up, I’ll be done with this book by the end of October! And I figure that shouldn’t be too hard now because the book is consuming all my thoughts. I want to write it, which is always a great sign.

Have a great week everyone!

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Memories of Japan, Part 2 – Traveling In Japan 2018 Series

Continuing on with Part 2 of Memories of Japan, here are some more photos from my last trip to Japan in May. This will be the last post in my Traveling In Japan 2018 Series. It was a lot of fun sharing the whole trip with you! If you want more photos of Japan, be sure to follow my Instagram account dedicated to Japan Photos at SJPinJapan. All photos posted to the account are mine and I update on Tues, Thurs, and Sunday.

I spotted this beautiful print in Kanazawa on my way to the Nomura Samurai House.

I love that the concrete jungles of Japan are still very green. People put these potted plants outside their houses and no one steals them!

I love the convenience of vending machines.

While I was there, I stopped by the Young Living Showroom in Shinjuku and made a paper crane from memory.

I did plenty of shopping for my kids and that included a stop to the Pokemon Center.

Mmmm, sake. There are always sake barrels at most of the big shrines in Japan.

This is the fox charm I got at Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto. I keep it in my wallet.

This is one of the reasons why I would want to live long term in Japan. I’m sure I’d eat well there.

I tried Tea Coffee while I was there and I liked it! I had three or four of these on my trip.

The long and quiet passageway around Kanazawa Castle. Ahhhh, peace.

I loved Kanazawa Station! What an amazing entrance!

I always visit graveyards when I’m in Japan. They’re so interesting.

And finally, the way down into Yanaka, Tokyo. I spent a morning here and enjoyed wandering around the old neighborhood.

I hope you enjoyed all of my post on Japan! You can see them all under the Traveling In Japan 2018 tag if you’re interested in going back and seeing them again.

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October 2018 Goals

Ah, I really enjoy September! Usually filled with summer AND autumn weather, kids back in school, new routines. It’s really a great month.

What Happened With September’s Goals?

Start writing Flyght Book 2. I’m at 17,000 words on this book, and the plot is coming together. I wish I was at the halfway point but I’m not. Still, I’m glad I’m somewhere!

Publish MATSURI AND MURDER. Done! This went moderately well, and Amazon eventually told all of my followers more than a week later about my “new book.”

Continue website maintenance. I did more of this but not enough. There are just not enough hours in the day.

Set up evergreen campaigns through October. I did this! Every weekend, I set up a new campaign to go live on that Monday with something from the archives. I even set up a massive, 50-posts, 2-years campaign for REMOVED.

Deal with my paperbacks on Createspace. Done. All of my paperbacks are moved over to KDP Print.

Work on a trailer for the Miso Cozy Mysteries series. Nope. No time. Maybe next month.

Continue to keep away from sweets and keep practicing intermittent fasting. I feel like I did better this month, mainly because I wasn’t at the pool where I couldn’t resist the call of ICE CREAM.

Finish my knitting project! Done! Zorzal is done and it’s gorgeous. Wow, I did get a lot done this month. Huzzah!

More of the same: walking, yoga, reading. I’m doing all of this! And that makes me so happy! There’s been walking. There’s been yoga every week. There’s been a lot of reading. Yay!

A Look Back At September

Business Goals For October

Continue writing Flyght Book 2. I’d like the majority of this to be finished or close to before NaNoWriMo in November. Though, I may not participate this year because we’re going on a family vacation the second week of NaNo.

Continue website maintenance. I’d like to do better with this this month.

Set up evergreen campaigns through November. Again, I’d like a new campaign to go live every Monday.

Set up all the Pinterest images for the Miso Cozy Mysteries Series and the Hikoboshi Series. I’m not sure how many have noticed this, but there are now pinnable images hidden on all the Nogiku Series books, SUMMER HAIKUS and FACE TIME, and on CRASH LAND ON KURAI. I’ve been sharing them to Pinterest via Buffer. Gotta finish off the Hikoboshi Series and Miso Cozy.

Keep up my Pinterest campaign. If you follow me on Pinterest, then you’ve been seeing a lot of me over there. I’m building boards for my new series, The Flyght Series, and slowly working up boards for the books I’ve neglected like the Miso Cozy Series. I’m on there a few days a week, but I’d like to be there more. It’s a fun and inspiring place without much in the way of noise to get me distracted.

Personal Goals For October

Continue to keep away from sweets and keep practicing intermittent fasting. So far, so good. I’m back on track and my blood sugar levels feel stabilized. I hope to keep it up through the end of the year.

Keep knitting! I’d like to get through the first section of this knit I just started.

More of the same: walking, yoga, reading. October is a great month to be out walking and the kids are in school this whole month! Wow! I hope everyone stays healthy. Lol.

Have a great October everybody!

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Sunday Update – September 30, 2018

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog.

This was one of those weeks that sped by and I didn’t get half of what I wanted to get done, including writing. There was one day this week where I opened my Writing WIP and I read it through, made some edits, and outlined it in Evernote. And then I got sidetracked by life again. I’m trying not to get upset about not being able to write all the time when I have a WIP, but the truth of the matter is that I love writing and not being able to write makes me sad. Sigh. I’m hoping this week I’ll be back on track.

Amongst all the things that kept me sidetracked was finishing my knitting project! How exciting to finish something within a few months of starting it! You can read more about my Zorzal shawl on the dedicated post. But what I don’t talk about is all the work that goes into taking the photos, editing them, and getting the online for everyone. Taking the photos costs me at least two hours. Editing the photos is a few hours more. Then writing blog posts and posting the images to Instagram, my blog, and Ravelry costs time too. It’s all worth it in the end, for sure, but that’s less time spent writing or relaxing or doing other things.

Then there was life stuff this week. I was interviewed for a podcast on Wednesday morning. There were Girl Scout meetings for the kids, and tennis lessons, and cleaning ladies, and chiropractor appointments, and guests who came over, and pottery classes, and a day off for the kids, and updating my iPhone. Phew! I’m exhausted just typing it all out. I think I may need a vacation! Lol.

What else happened this week?

When I was taking care of knitting stuff this week, I also sewed up FOUR HOLES in my Color Affection shawl! FOUR! I’m so angry at whatever it was that ate into my shawl. This particular knit was so finicky because of the three balls of yarn used at once. I finished it and I swore I would never do anything like it again. And then to have something eat it? Ugh. I was so, so mad. More mad than anyone should be at knitting. Lol.

So, I had a strong drink out of the new blowfish tiki mug, of course.

I started a new knit and here are all the colors I chose! This one has four sections where you have stripes of two different colors. It goes A-B, B-C, C-D, D-A. It should be really pretty when it’s done. I’ll have to post a progress shot next week.

I also bought more yarn! The four colorful cakes of yarn are for specific projects and then the three skeins of dark blue and dark purple yarn are just to round out my collection. I realized when I was gathering yarn for my newest project that I had hardly any dark blue yarns. So I rectified that.

And of course, there was the finished knit, Zorzal shawl.

Pottery class continues! Not only did we throw some new pots this week (I screwed up two and did well with one), but we learned how to trim the pots we threw last week.

It was so nice out yesterday on my walk that there were EIGHT turtles on the log! I had never seen so many at once before!

It was National Coffee Day on Friday and this cool old bus was parked at my Whole Foods giving out free Allegro coffee. Mmmm. It was delicious!

And finally my park has been really beautiful lately! It’s been a pleasure to go walking.

Have a great week everyone!

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Memories of Japan, Part 1 – Traveling In Japan 2018 Series

I’m winding down my Traveling In Japan 2018 series now since I’ve written about most of my excursions there. For my last two posts in the series, I’m sharing some of the random photos I took while traveling and a quick video I mashed up using the 1 Second Everyday app.

When I was preparing the images for this post, I realized I had a whopping 45 photos I wanted to share with you! Wow. I really tried hard this past trip to take photos of everything. So I’m dividing up this post into two parts. Part 2 will be next Friday.

From my time at the Obubu Tea Farm!

Wide-legged pants are really popular in Japan right now. All the women are wearing them. They’re also really into the pants with long ties around the waist.

I visited Heian Jingu on the day of a huge flea market!

Just happened to catch this shot of these men replacing the roof on a traditional Japanese building.

This is Kitsune Udon. If you don’t eat meat, you can usually ask for this and be satisfied. Kitsune means “fox” and since foxes are the domain of the god, Inari, inari tofu is added to this dish. I know, it’s a circuitous route through Japanese culture and religion to get to fox=tofu.

Love the manhole covers.

This is Tanuki soba. Tanuki are a sort of raccoon dog, super cute, and usually you’ll find statues of them at houses or restaurants. When you order Tanuki soba or udon, you get something similar to Kitsune udon except they sprinkle bits of fried tempura batter on top. YUM. These were green tea soba noodles.

Ummmmm, I ate a lot of ice cream while I was there. I think I only photographed half of it. Lol.

Um, yeah, more ice cream! This was sakura ice cream outside of Kanazawa castle. Super tasty. (I also had matcha green ice cream at Fushimi Inari.)

This samurai gear on display at the Nomura Samurai House was really impressive. I wish I had photographed it from the front.

Me on the train to go exploring! This was right around the time I was wishing I had less hair on top of my head. I got it all cut off when I came back home.

This store that sells katana swords is right around the corner from Ryogoku Kokugikan Sumo Stadium in Tokyo.

My main goal in Japan was to eat a lot of food, and eat it I did. I tried chawanmushi and takoyaki for the first time. I ate at fancy places and I ate from the conveniences stores. I never went hungry and I ate when I wanted to. Such a big difference from being home.

And finally, here is the handsome man who served me pizza and a fine G&T in Kanazawa. When I was done and paid, he saw me all the way to the door and bowed to me as I left to return to my hotel. That is something I miss about Japan, the great customer service.

Today, I’m backing up all the video from Japan on my phone and deleting it to make space. So last night I put together a quick video for you all! I’ll be sure to include it in next week’s Part 2 as well.

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Zorzal Shawl – Knitting FO

I have a new finished object to show off! I’m so proud of myself for finishing this one in less than a year. Lol. *fist pump* It’s not like I have a great track record for polishing off my knitting projects. That monster Neon Beast took me three years!

Anyway, this is a great shawl that was easy to knit and easy to memorize. It’s a lot like the Color Affection shawl. People on Facebook keep mistaking the two. The difference between these two shawls is a few details: the increases along the edges are different, this knit is only done with 2 colors whereas Color Affection is knit with 3, and this one has tassels!

I can’t believe how much this shawl grew upon blocking! It became a monster of a knit. I should’ve known based on how many stitches I had on the needles at the end. It was deceptively small.

Here’s what I wrote on Instagram about the blocking photo above…

Some readers in the past have asked me what the difference is with knits before and after they’ve been blocked. Blocking is the process by which you gently wash your knit with wool wash, press out the water with a towel, and then pin it out to dry. This opens up and relaxes the stitches so the pattern can come to true shape.

The top image is the shawl I just finished before blocking. This is a 2ft (48″) blocking board. The shawl just reaches the edges of the blocking board. The ends curl and the middle is tight and narrow.

See the difference in the After photo? I’ve got it pinned out to its true shape. The middle has relaxed and opened up, and the ends are settling in with less curl. It’s also gotten significantly larger. Now it hangs over the edges of the blocking board.

So there ya have it! Magical blocking! It does a knit good.

Ah, I love blocking!

Zorzal turned out to be a winner! I really enjoyed knitting it. I think I only made one mistake and I can’t even tell where I did it, but I remember it happening at some point. Thanks, crappy memory!

I hope to start a new project today to have on the needles during TV time and audiobook listening time.

Oh, by the way, while I was out taking photos of this knit, I decided to take a new author photo too! It’s making its way around the internet now.

Here are the details!

Zorzal by Lisa Hannes

(View this project on Ravelry)

Needles

US 6 – 4.0 mm

Yarn

Claudia Hand Painted Yarns Fingering (now labelled as Addiction) – Ingrid’s Blues

madelinetosh Tosh Sock – Twig

Started – April 1 2018

Completed – September 23 2018

I used this tutorial for making the tassels.

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