Fiberkitty Returns!

Hi! I’m Miya, known by some as Fiberkitty, and I’ve visited this blog before. At first, I didn’t know if I’d have anything new from my crafts to show off, but then I looked around my dining room, saw the painting work I’ve been doing, and I remembered the projects I’ve finished for other people. Plus, there’s that pesky Firefly messenger bag that goes everywhere with me to give me a project to work on when my hands are free.

I’m a 37 year old work-at-home mom and author in the southeast corner of Wisconsin. I’ve been busier with my kids and dogs, giving me less time to write and craft than I’d like, but I have been up to some fun stuff.  My husband used gift money to buy himself a 3D printer kit a couple years ago, and he’s been printing village pieces for me to paint. My favorite is a blacksmith’s forge and house he picked up the pattern for on a Kickstarter. Painting seems to be my current favorite craft, and the 3D printer makes my project list endless.

I seem to go weeks without crafting to then do nothing but arts and crafts, much to the detriment of my housekeeping skills.  My dining room often looks like an elementary school art classroom has exploded onto every horizontal surface during these times. There are bottles of paint and various objects I’m using as a palette. Plastic lids seem to be my current favorite, plucked from the recycling bin for one last reusing.

Last fall, I knit a bowtie for my publisher. He’s seen pictures, but I haven’t actually gotten around to mailing it to him yet. Double-knit and in fingering weight yarn, this took over 40 hours of knitting, mostly done in the car while waiting for the kids to be dismissed from school each day. He does have the fingerless gloves that were knit from the same yarn.  The glitter of the yarn doesn’t quite show up as clearly in the image as I’d hoped, but you do get an idea.

My current project that goes everywhere with me is a shawl I’m not yet sure if I’m keeping once done. I’m calling it “Heimdall” due to the rainbow and eye-like pattern down the center from the yarn over increases. I fell in love with the yarn when I saw it at my grocery store, on a clearance sale. I picked up two balls—just in case—even though one should be enough.

You’d think for someone who prefers crocheting to knitting, I’d have more active crochet projects. I did crochet myself a cute winter bonnet out of yarn I was given for Yule. My husband is pretty awesome at gift giving.  He knits, too, and is making himself a baalaclava. Yes, that extra A is supposed to be in there. He’s making a goat ski mask for when he’s running in the winter. It’s adorable and terrifying, mostly the latter at the moment so I won’t scare you away with a photo.  He picked up the pattern on Ravelry, and I’m glad that he’s the one knitting it and not me.

Most of my little free time goes into writing these days. In the past few weeks I published a new novella, Claimed, but I’m more excited about seeing The Changeling’s Champion being available again. TCC was initially published in 2010 through TWCS and has been re-edited and released through Exciting Press. It’s the novel that caught my current publisher’s attention and made his top indie books list before he signed me for my Asylum trilogy and Changeling.

A soft chuckle was accompanied with the squeezing of my fingers before he gripped the wheel once more. “Well, all epic love stories begin with ‘Once upon a time,’ do they not?” When I agreed, he reached for my hand and lifted it to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss upon it. “Then, once upon a time, there was a little boy.”

So begins Ari’s story. And as it’s revealed to Holly she will realize her destiny.

Holly was twenty when she lost the one person she thought she could count on. Finding her boyfriend of five years in the arms of another woman, on her birthday no less, set her feet onto a new path. After turning to her studies for a distraction, Holly planned on getting through each day with her head buried beneath her books and living in a fantasy world of half-remembered dreams. She never thought Ari Kent, the new student in her Statistics class, could bring those dreams to light with the gift of a simple pen.

Where their fates collide, a love more powerful than either could imagine will grow.

It’s hard for me to think of it being 7 ½ years since I first dreamt up those characters, ten since I started writing. My life has changed so much since I discovered the writing community that has created some of my dearest friendships. My kids aren’t babies anymore, not like they were when I started writing. My eldest daughter is now 13, and my twins are going to be 10 soon. How did I manage writing when they were only six months old?

It’s amazing watching them grow up and discover the characters I loved as children. The twins finished Harry Potter last week. Now one’s digging into Eragon while another is rereading Harry Potter from the beginning. They check out copies of the book they’re reading at home from the school library so they always have a book with them without having to carry it.

As to what I’m currently reading? Gods. What aren’t I reading? I’m reading Tales From the Special Branch. I’m rereading The Secret History by Donna Tartt for like the 1270^th time. It is my favorite book ever. Currently open on my Kindle, I’m working through some new books by Tia Fielding. Her work likes to make my heart hurt and fill with glittery fluff all at the same time. It’s totally unfair how she can rip my heart out, stomp on it, and then fill it with happy fluffies, just to do it again.

Thank you, Karin, for giving me a reason to play with all my crafts this week!