In spite of good intentions, this blog has been neglected for the past few months. There are a lot of reasons for this, the biggest of which are that I moved to a new city and started a new job back in May, and I’ve been very busy ever since. The good news is that it’s once again November, and I’m giving #CreateNovember another try. Yay, content!

The main gist of #CreateNovember is that I do something creative every day without spending any money on supplies. I’m also supposed to post to this blog every day to chronicle what I’ve been doing, which is the part that got overwhelming when I first tried it last year. With that in mind, I’m modifying the rules a bit this year. A blog post is itself a creative endeavor, so some days (like today), the creative thing that I do may be a blog post. I’m also making the blog post part optional as a daily exercise, though I’ll post at least twice each week, recap style if necessary. Finally, I found out about World Short Story Reading Month (gotta love November) today, during which participants read a new short story every day for the month. I’m giving that a try on top of #CreateNovember, so some of the CN blog posts will be recaps of #WoShoStoReMo readings.

Now that we’re caught up, here’s some of what I’ve been up to creatively during the months I haven’t been posting:

When I was moving and getting settled and unpacked (the latter of which is still ongoing), I did *a lot* of crochet. One of the many reasons I love crochet is that it can easily be picked up and put down, and it’s very portable, which make it a great craft to do on the go. Here’s a sample of the crochet projects I’ve worked on since I moved:

I fell in love with making shawls when I made a South Bay Shawlette for my mom for Mother’s Day (free pattern available from Lion Brand Yarns). Since that one, I’ve made several including the one pictured below. I love this pattern because it’s easy to make without paying close attention to what you’re doing. The pattern repeats for how ever many rows you want it to. You can make it with any weight yarn and with any size hook. It’s comforting to make, and I’ve now made several for gifts including the one in the pictures. Also, my cat really likes when I block them.

I also made one of my jellies with some of the yarn that was left from that shawl.

Keeping with the theme of sea life, I also crocheted a sea anemone from a pattern I made up. The intention was for it to have a glow effect from an RGB LED programmable via an Adafruit Gemma Arduino board, but it turns out that I’ve gotten much better at amigurumi technique than I used to be. Where once there would have been enough space between the stitches for the light from the LED to show through, the light only came through at the bottom. I’m planning to do another one (maybe this month?) with a different yarn that I think will allow for the glow effect that I was going for.

Finally, I’ve been making hats again including the slouchy hat below that’s available for sale on my Etsy store (related: I’ve started up my Etsy store again and will be putting some of the things I make this month up for sale there).