“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” — Margaret Mead

We’re almost to the home stretch — at least for those folks still doing NaNo. I’m moving into a different mode, working on characters, figuring out what’s going on in their heads. Where did my hero get a musket ball in the leg and what was he doing when it happened? I know he’s determined to return to active duty, but what’s the actual prognosis and is he just fooling himself. All things I didn’t answer before I dove into writing and I’m going to stop and answer now so I understand why he’s letting himself be drawn into this insane scheme of the heroine’s. Not that I want to reader to know at first, but I certainly should know.

But despite NaNo being a bust for me for the first time in a number of years, I still have a sense of accomplishment this morning because I finished casting off for my Aeolian Shawl. Took me close to four hours to do almost a thousand stitches. It’s not at its most graceful because it still needs to be blocked, but I’m going to share a first peek here.

That’s about four months worth of work there, on and off. In it’s unblocked shape, it takes of most of my husband’s side of our queen bed. Blocked, it’s going to take up the entire bed. Yes, this is a big project.

Blocking is like revision, in many ways. You get your original as neat as you possible can, and then you use blocking to smooth everything out and get the object to the shape you want. Unlike revisions, where you can cut and paste and do some major surgery, if you discover you need to do that with knitting, it’s back to the beginning. Considering how many beads are on this thing, I’m glad it’s in a good shape and I can move forward. Scheduled debut for this piece? Christmas Eve services, where I think it will be appropriately festive.