Have you read Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal? What are you waiting for?

This is a delightful read, a gentle story that manages simultaneously to be a page-turner. Exquisite language, and gorgeous character development, too (especially of the suitors–I was so delighted!) The library is demanding that I return the copy I just finished, but I’ll be adding this one to my personal bookshelf as soon as I can.

Go buy it now.

I’ve been getting back into knitting lately, and I decided to try my hand at amigurumi–which is the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting tiny creatures. Most patterns you find out there are for crochet amigurumi, but I managed to find this book: Amigurumi Knits by Hansi Singh, a local Seattle author and knitter.

Singh includes patterns for vegetables, insects, sea creatures, and of course mythological critters. I didn’t finish the Loch Ness monster in time to post a photo of it, but here’s my Biketopus:

I haven’t gotten comfortable enough with the techniques to try to create my own critters yet, but for the truly nerdy, there are of course plenty of patterns for Cthulu knits:

A Cthulu holiday ornament (Ravelry – requires registration)

A Cthuluclava (balaclava with Cthulu tentacles) (Ravelry)

Looking for inspiration? For a good gallery of nerdy amigurumi (mostly crochet), check out this collection from Flickr Hive Mind.

As promised, here’s a tutorial for my Flare skirt made out of the “Marty Goes to Mars” fabric from Camelot Cottons. It’s a fairly simple skirt, with basically one pattern piece that’s easily adjustable to be made in your own size.

The basic piece looks like this. (This jpg is 1/3 of the size of my actual pattern).

(Step 0: You’re using 100% cotton–don’t forget to wash, dry, and iron it before you begin. Yes, I know it’s a pain in the ass, but it’s not as big a pain as when you’ve spent a couple of hours on a beautiful skirt that shrinks on you.)

Step 1: Measure your waist, adding 2″ to the total to allow for fitting the skirt. Add 7.5″ (twelve seam allowances at 5/8″ a piece), then divide that number by 6. That number is the top width of the pattern piece (for me it’s 6.5″).

Step 2: Repeat step 1 with your hips. That number is the width of the pattern piece about 7-8″ down from the waistline (for me it’s 7.5″).

Step 3: Decide on a length. My skirt measures 25″, and falls just below my knees.

Step 4: Decide how much flare you want to add. Here you can get crazy–I like just a bit of flare (I added 5.5″ to my waistline number for a total of 11″ per piece).

Step 5: Use these measurements to sketch out your pattern piece.

• I drew a line of 6.5″ for the waist
• I measured down 8″ to the hipline and drew a parallel line measuring 7.5″
• I measured down from the waist to the hemline (25″ total)
• I measured in about 6″ from the the left edge and drew a line of 11″ parallel to the first two lines
• I sketched in the side seams, curving them to make a pleasing shape

NOTE: This method produced a pattern piece where the right, concave curve, is longer than the left, convex curve. That means when I joined the pieces up, the hemline was jagged (there’s a photo coming up). I dug it, but if you want a smooth hemline, then measure your curves and adjust the tilt of the hemline to make the two sides exact.

Step 6: Cut out your six pattern pieces. Be sure to cut them all facing the same direction. Don’t do like I did a few years back and just fold your fabric in half to cut three. It will make you cry. Or make you come up with a different sort of skirt, like I eventually did.

Step 7: Finish the lower edge. Or don’t. I like the raw look, so I opted just to serge my lower hem with white thread.

Step 8: Hunt all over your sewing room for the fourth cone of white serger thread. Vow to be more organized in the future. Make tea. Look some more. Give up and set up your serger with a normal spool of thread. Immediately find the cone on the windowsill, right where it should be. Swear. Continue with step 9.

Step 9: Attach all 6 panels, leaving back seam open. Iron all seams toward the curve of the seam.

Step 10: Stitch the back seam, leaving 6″ at the top open.

Step 11: Try the skirt on, safety-pinning the back seam fully closed. At this point I needed to add a few darts to make it fit correctly.

• While wearing the dress, I first pinned the darts where it seemed like they should go, one in each of the two back side panels.
• I took the skirt off and measured the darts to make them even
• I turned the darts to the inside of the skirt, measured them, marked them, and stitched them.
• Press the back seam, and press both darts toward the center back.

Step 12: Finish the top hem. Be fancy and do a facing if you like, or just make a simple folded hem if you’re impatient like me.

Step 13: Attach your zipper, snaps, buttons, or however else you intend to close your skirt.

Step 14: Congratulations, you’re now the proud owner of a skirt made out of martians. Bet your friends can’t say that. Enjoy!

I’m starting a new series (ha! I will blog, I will!) called Nerd Craft Friday. I craft, I sew, and quite often my projects are on the nerdy side.

My current side project is making massive quantities of baby clothing which I sell to friends and coworkers in order to support my fabric-buying habit. It’s a bit less expensive than a cocaine habit. I’d recommend it.

There are hundreds of cute girl fabric prints out there for every adorable boy print, so when I discovered Camelot Cotton’s Marty Goes to Mars line, I just had to get some. (I could never get Camelot’s website to load, so this link is to Creative Quilt Kits (.com). I actually bought my fabric from Fabric.com, but they’re nearly out of this fabric line.)

I bought a couple yards each of Orbits (gold), Martian Landscape, Interactions (blue), and Trees (blue, not pictured).

I’m planning on making little button-up shirts out of it, but not before I make a skirt for myself. Check back next week for a tutorial on and pattern for my very own Tulip Flare skirt, done up nerdy with martian fabric.

Maybe it’s not that people are reading my mind, maybe it’s just simply the principle of observance that states: You’ll notice the things you’re already thinking about. Like when you learn a new word you’ve never seen before, and then it suddenly seems as though every book you read contains that word.

I’ve recently been starting to think of my writing time as an apprenticeship. Yes, I hope I sell each short story I write, and yes, it’s crushing to let go of a novel I’ve spent three years on, but that’s just the way of apprenticeship. Your first attempts simply aren’t that good, but slogging through them is the best way to learn.

Since I’ve started looking at things that way, I’ve heard this advice echoed by other writers. Just this week I’ve begun working on novel number four, though I’ve been debating over whether that’s a better choice than continuing to rewrite novel number three into a bloody pulp. If I think of myself as an apprentice, however, the choice is simple: Write hard, write often, and practice by producing new work.

Jay Lake made a comment this week on the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chat that really hit home for me. (You can find the transcript here):

And write new stuff. Don’t spend years laboring over your Great Work. Trust me, it’s not that great. Go write another one. #sffwrtcht

Right? OK, then.

And this morning I came across this post at Writer Unboxed about not giving up if you hate your writing.

The first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good. It’s not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambitions, but it’s not that good. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, your taste is still killer. Your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you. You can tell that it’s still sort of crappy. A lot of people never get past that phase.

This is what it means to be an apprentice. To look at the master’s work and think, It’s so marvelous, so effortless. How will I ever be able to compare to that!

And then you sit back down at the computer and do it again. And again. And again.

(Update: I realize now that a lot of the advice on pushing through your “bad work” years is echoed in (sources from?) a series of videos that Ira Glass did on storytelling a while back. I first saw them here. Good stuff, check it out.)