Purls and Tails The Chronicles of a Ferret-Owned Knitter

...I just haven't had much to say.

I'm knitting on a variety of projects:

• a shawl I got fed up with a long while back and have finally returned to working on. It's going better this time.
• a pair of socks for Randy in Black Trillium's Heavy Merino Sock -- yum! I'm done with the first sock and working (top-down) on the leg of the second sock.
• I've finally cast-on something for me and by the time it's done, I probably won't need it: a shrug in Lion Brand Homespun. The great room can be quite chilly at times and I'd rather layer.
• a multiple-ditty bag project I'm dreaming up (inventing?) as I go. This one is using leftover sock yarns. So much for that sock yarn blanket I had planned...
• a little something for Valentine's Day. It's done, I just need to get some accessories.grin

I'm still working on my gaming character sheets. At this point, I'm trying to work on two sets at the same time. One is the v3.5e set and the other is a Pathfinder set. Not a whole lot has changed, but the parts that have affect the layouts of a couple of pages. I suspect Wizards might give me a little trouble in Pathfinder. I'm also struggling with creating class-specific pages for classes like Psionics -- classes I've never played. So, I'm talking to my three gaming groups and trying to get feedback on the data that's most critical.

I'd like to work up some spell sheets -- have the entire text of a single spell on the sheet, so the character's prepped spells are readily available. But some spells take so little room that they'd be a wasted of sheet space.

Randy has suggested a sorted list of monsters/creatures by various types. It's easy on the Wizards of the Coast site to do that sort of thing, if you've got their v3.5e Monster's page bookmarked. But what if you want only aquatic creatures? Or only desert creatures? I mean, a wandering monster check can't really give you Dire Sharks (do they exist in d20 SRD?) if you're in the middle of a desert, right? It looks like I'll have to build a database to do it right. Hmm...how do I do that again?

Meanwhile, I'm trying to pick up some JavaScript and PHP to add a Pathfinder template to the RPGProfiler we're using. It's times like this I miss having an office of my own -- less going on around me, less activities to catch my attention and drag me out of my very deep learning curve.

I came across a window cling designed by Jen Delyth of Keltic Designs last week. It's the perfect basis for a circular shawl, so I bought the cling. When I got home, I hunted down a website for her work and promptly sent her a message. Sure, I'd like to do all the work of designing this and turning it into a shawl, but when it's done, I'd really like to be able to sell the finished work. I received her response the other day:

Hmm... Should I still work on a shawl design for this? I'm not sure. I mean, I'm not a professional, so it'll probably take me a year, at least! I've still not completed the design on the shawl for my mom that I promised her. Sigh. Maybe I should finish Mom's shawl first and then work on this new idea?

But, speaking of my own designs, have you seen the little guy down on the right side of the blog lately? As of this writing, there's 39 projects of him and he's in 147 queues. Squee!

Lately, I've been feeling the need to get into something more mentally challenging. I think there's some things in my projects listed above which could fit the bill...I just need to clean my desk and get to it.