On the Needles 1: Things I Made This Week

I'm trying something new to get myself to blog more often. The plan is for Monday and Wednesday posts to be essays or poetry. Readers can suggest topics in comments, or on Twitter or Mastodon.

Friday posts will be crafting updates. So here's what I've been working on in the last week.

Knitting

I am still plugging away at an asymmetric striped shawl I started in December as part of the Mastodon Knit-Along. I only have a few more rows left in this last striped section, and then I move on to the final section, which is seed stitch in the light gray. I'm not a fan of seed stitch, for a number of reasons that I'll explain next week, so I'm looking for an alternative that looks nice.

The pink things are needle end caps to keep the yarn from
sliding off when I'm not working on it.

I also started this year's Desert Bus for Hope craftalong project this week. My submission to the craftalong will be a Desert Bus-themed wrestling championship belt, and I will request that the member of the Desert Bus team who always begins his shift with a pro-wrestler-style grand entrance wear it during this year's grand entrance.

Writing

Aside from this unusually productive week of blogging, which I plan to make usual, I've been working on some Magic: the Gathering fanfiction, with the wishful thought that I can use it to apply for a writing job at Wizards of the Coast. I've drafted two chapters and posted them on Tumblr (1, 2), and have plans to move it to Archive of our Own; more on that as it develops.

Drawing

I don't think I've mentioned my daily drawing challenge on here before. In November 2016 I decided to become good at drawing by sketching one Pokemon every day in numerical order and posting them on Tumblr. Today is day 432. 

Deckbuilding (Magic: the Gathering)

I might not do this section very often. I do go to the weekly Lady Planeswalker Society events fairly regularly, and those usually involve building decks. Let me know if you want to see them.

Anyway, this week I added a bunch of cards to my new dinosaur tribal Commander deck. I've still got about five dinosaurs I'd like to add, but I'm at the card limit and don't know what to take out. If you are knowledgeable about MtG deckbuilding, I would appreciate advice.