This Is My Secret: The Blog and Website of Writer Kristin Cashore

About a year ago, I finished knitting a blanket that was a gift for someone else and realized I missed its pieces piled up in my lap. I decided it was time to knit a blanket for myself :o). Wanting something cheerful for the cold, dark months, I chose this free pattern at Lion Brand.... and got started.

First I collected my colors.

This blanket is knitted in three parts: the reds and oranges in one big triangular corner; the yellows and greens in a stripe across the center; and the blues and purples in another triangular corner.


The pieces are worked in intarsia colorwork. This means that most of the time, I was actively knitting with more than one color, which I admit can become a bit of a tangled headache. Below, I'm knitting the center stripe in three different greens and one yellow, and I have all four colors attached to my needle at the same time.


When I went to a writing retreat last February, half my suitcase was full of my blanket :o)

Below, I've knitted the red/oran…

This year's Halloween costume involved less preparation than usual. I'll be honest, I'm still recovering from the year I dressed up as a library. My goal this year was something creative yet simple to assemble.
I glitter-striped a unicorn horn and made myself some ears...

Then attached them to a Cruella deVil style black-and-white wig.

I figured a zebra unicorn wears something sparkly and striped, right?

Nothing odd about this dress... *cough*

And this is when things got intense. The plan all along was to study the way stripes sit on a zebra's face, then paint that pattern on my own face to create something magical. But it turned out SO CREEPY!

 Creepy's okay with me, though.

Click on any picture to embiggen/get a more focused view.
Till next year! :o)

The Boston Festival of Independent Games, BostonFIG Fest, is on Saturday, at the Harvard Athletic Complex in Allston.

Local people, if you're interested in the best new indie games, whether tabletop or digital, you should come! And when you do, stop by Kevin's booth to visit Kevin and his indie game, Starcom: Nexus. I'll be there too, being Helpful. Come say hi! :o)

We also saw a lot of animals that were impossible to photograph, in particular, an Arctic fox. The animal sightings were frequent and always special. Most of the time, I tried to take a few pictures, but then I reminded myself to put my camera down and enjoy. Consequently, this is only a hint of what we saw, but I hope it gives a nice sense of things.

If you're coming late to my report from my

Have you seen "I'm Gay," Eugene Lee Yang's music video/dance performance, dedicated to the LGBTQIA+ community? It is stunning.

Trigger warning: it contains representations of violence toward the LGBTQIA+ community.

Dear Susan,

You were one of the caretakers of my life. The moment you saw me, you recognized me as one of yours and brought me under your wing. What a big wing it was—you brought so many people under there. I found some of my best friends under your wing, where you were sheltering them, as you sheltered me. We were all lovers of that “impractical” thing, children's literature. Until I came to Simmons and met you, I didn't know there was a place where people like us could go.

I think—I hope—I told you, before you died, that I have the best job in the world for me. It's not possible to be happier about one's daily work than I am about mine. Do you know who held the lantern and lit my way to this work? I would not be here without you. You changed my life, enormously. Do you have any idea how many women and men are thinking about you right now and saying to themselves, “She changed my life?”

You were so unique. You were a person who could never, ever be mistaken for anyone…

Here are two vids. Watch them in order: Taylor Mali, then Melissa Lozada-Oliva. ♥

This December, I discovered the Etsy shop Ever After Miniatures, which offers DIY printable miniature books. You buy the templates, print them out, then cut, fold, and paste the sweetest little openable books, which have readable pages inside.


This sort of project is made for me.

Most evenings, I would work on a few. I made them as gifts, mostly.

We have a small secret drawer at the end of our dining room table. I kept my project in there when I wasn't working on it.

At a certain point, Kevin pointed out that they would make good tree ornaments. So I started adding strings and ribbons to a few of the covers. :o)

I got a little obsessed with this idea.



Here's one of my favorite pages of Pride and Prejudice.

After they were dry, up they went!

Lovely.
I have loads more Arctic pictures to share, and will do so as time permits. Hope you're all having a nice January! As I type this, it's sleeting in the Boston area, and our temperatures are expected to be close to 0°F tonig…