Tiger Tiger

$\"TigerTiger72web\"$ When you grab a tiger by the tail, sometimes he bites back.

Veterinary trauma surgeon and animal empath Sasha Soskoff has found everything he ever wanted with his new partners Neal, Steve and Carlos. Life feels as safe and secure as it can be among a group of ex-Marine tiger shifters. Until a homeless man is found, gruesomely mauled and murdered, near Neal’s BDSM club.

When it’s determined a rogue tiger did the deed, the jaguars’ accusing eyes turn toward Sasha’s lovers. The precarious balance of peace tips dangerously toward war.

Neal knows damned well none of his tigers committed the crime. Someone must be in Chicago without his knowledge or permission, and they’d better find him fast before uncertainty and conflict rip the tight-knit band apart from the inside.

As Sasha struggles to heal the stress fractures forming among his tiger family, he begins to wonder if his dreams of a home, and love, were too good to be true. And it’s precisely that moment the killer strikes at the heart of the tiger clan—Sasha himself.

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February 27, 2015

Burning Bright

$\"BurningBright72web\"$ Curiosity never killed this cat, but love could have deadly consequences.

Sasha Soskoff has two reasons for moving to Chicago: secure a tenured position in veterinary research medicine, and widen his horizons. After a night at the city’s hottest new club, though, a wrong turn down a dark alley narrows his focus to surviving three muggers. As consciousness fades, he catches a glimpse of his rescuer, whose mere appearance is enough to chase the attackers off.

Neal Harrison doesn’t often have to call on his skills as an ex-Marine to maintain control at his club. But with Sasha, he can’t seem to keep his hands to himself. Yet there’s danger in allowing any close relationships, particularly with a naïve young newcomer. The safety of his business depends on the iron-clad secret he and his ex-Marine buddies all hide.

While Neal seems happy to satisfy Sasha’s insatiable curiosity about the erotic scenes played out in the club’s private rooms, Sasha senses his new lover is holding something back.

When the truth claws its way out amid a night of tribal blood and violence, Neal discovers his lover has a secret of his own. And that the forces arrayed against them all could make a mugging look like a walk in the park…

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February 27, 2015

Lines of Lights – A Poem

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Lines of Lights

Moving at speed past the window, reverse parallax.

Facing backward on the train, the lights receded.

Facing backward on the train is a title.

A good title for a memory, even.

Metaphoric.

Like Benjamin Button, living backwards to get forwards.

When everyone is walking in the other direction, sit down and get still.

Follow the still, small voice insight and listen.

What does it say?

I don’t know, I’m still listening.

What about now?

Shh. You can hear it too.

Listen.

Rhythm.

February 24, 2015

Manic Monday – Startcher Engines!

It\’s Monday! I feel like I should say something uber-motivating, that makes us all jump out of our chairs and make something massively awesome.

Feel motivated yet? 🙂

We\’re almost ready to go live on the new site. I\’m so excited. It\’ll have a home for my blog (i.e. this one) and my Knoontime Knitting blog, as well as a section for books and promo stuff and bio and everything. I feel like such a little kid.

Every iteration of my online presence has brought new things to learn and new fun stuff to play with. This time, it means I\’ll be leaving my beloved Blogger platform behind and migrating to WordPress. The coolness of the website functionality overwhelmed the familiarity and ease-of-use of Blogger, so that\’s ultimately what made the decision easy. You won\’t notice much of a difference in terms of what you can do on the blog, meaning you\’ll still be able to comment and share stuff, but on the back-end it makes it much easier for me and my webmistress.

I have some neat newsy items for you today, as well:

First, my workshop \”Unleashing the Creator Within\” is in full swing over at Coffee Time Romance.

While it started on the 1st, you\’re very welcome even now, at the mid-point. We\’re having a lot of fun with some non-traditional tools like music and word art.

Second, the BDSM-a-palooza is from Feb 17th to the 19th at the Smutketeers! I\’m participating with 50 other fabulous authors and the amazing ladies of the Smutketeers – there will be daily prizes, a grand prize with gifts from all of us, and more fun than you can shake a whip at.

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Third, the Nice Girls Writing Naughty will be hosting a very special event – Fantasy Date Night with the Nice Girls and their friends, Feb 21st, on our Facebook group from 6:00p to 11:00p Eastern Standard Time. I\’ll be teaching at that time, so I can\’t join you, but I know you\’ll have a ton of fun without me – just save me some chocolates and a date, and we\’ll be fine. ~grin~

Happy Monday!

February 16, 2015

Make Something Monday – The Emerald Keep Scarf

Now that I\’ve sorted out the design and simplified it, the Emerald Keep Scarf is coming along very nicely. Last week, I talked about the difficulties I was having with it and how the design process was coming – or, as it turns out, not coming. This weekend I got almost 18 inches done. At this rate, I\’ll be done by the end of next weekend or the middle of the week following, well in advance of the start of the Keepsake Book Tour.

The stitch is a simple pattern from Barbara Walker\’s A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns called Two-Color Star Stitch. I find her books invaluable in designing projects because she puts the knitter in the driver\’s seat. Through teaching how the fabric works inherently, to how geometric designs are created by the yearn, a knitter can go from a basic student of the subject to a designer in very short order. I have a long way to go before I\’m a master knitter, but I am a lot closer to the goal because of her books. I highly recommend them.

I\’ve made this stitch pattern a couple times before, and I like its simple beauty. This time, I selected an emerald green dark tone for the main color and a light mint for the accent.

The more I work with this pattern, I find that I like the reverse of the fabric just as much as the front. It ends up looking almost beaded in texture, with neat edges on each side.

I cast on 30 stitches, since it\’s multiples of 3; on size 7 needles the fabric is quite wide. There\’s a lot of horizontal stretch to it and it will curl (which is why I had such difficulty with edging it). I don\’t mind the curl in the finished design, it has its own beauty; I\’ll still play around with some possibilities for edgings in future projects but since I needed this done for the book tour, I didn\’t have the time.

I did have an interesting breakthrough as I was working it. It finally it me that the colors are tied to the stitch order; meaning that row 2 is always Color A and row 4 is Color B. I don\’t need to keep track of the row count because I know which pattern row to work based on the color on the needle. All wrong side rows are purled, so it\’s an easy pattern to memorize – even for me, with the difficulty I have with 2D to 3D translation.

Keep your eyes peeled for the Keepsake Tour; it starts March 8th. Emerald Keep is out on April 8th.

What are you making this Monday? Please tell me in the comments; I\’d love to know.

February 16, 2015

Stash Sunday

I am working on the Emerald Keep scarf for the Keepsake Tour, which of course means that I instantly want to play with something from my stash. Doesn\’t that always happen?

So here\’s what\’s on my desk right now, that\’s not the Keepsake scarf:

Top left is my character binder for the novels currently in progress, (Sealed by Duty and Sapphire Dream, in case you\’re curious). Under that is my Franklin Planner. On its side is some pretty Caron Simply Soft Paints yarn, which I bought when I bought the yarn for the Emerald Keep scarf but am not using in it.

Which begs the question, what shall I make with it? ~rubs hands together~

Next is my keys. This is important. Hard to get into the house without them.

Don\’t ask me how I know that. I don\’t want to talk about it.

Moving right along, we come to the Caron ball band for the light green yarn in the Emerald Keep scarf. The glue failed and it fell off, so I brought it in here to make sure I have it up on Ravelry before I discard it.

The grey is for a possible pair of Quill\’s Socks, which were featured in Emerald Fire and remarked upon by every editor who worked on it as well as several fans. Yes, Teeka finished the socks, yes, Quill liked them, and yes, I\’ll feature a pattern for them when the website redesign goes live – and I might even make a pair of them to give away at some point. Though, in all honesty, I probably won\’t have time to make them for this Keepsake Tour.

Next is the yarn I bought to make Rachel a pair of fingerless mitts she can use in the hot climate of the Nevada desert. I\’ll use some kind of lace pattern on them, probably but right now I\’m just sketching with it.

I realized I caught the edge of my little post-it note with Rule #11 from NCIS: \”When the job is done, walk away.\”

On the right of my desk, I have two needlework kits that I\’m looking forward to starting. One is a ladybug which is in honor of the fictiious Ladybug Bed and Breakfast. The other is a lovely peacock I bought while visiting Rachel last month – I adore peacocks.

What\’s in your stash?

February 15, 2015

Work In Progress Wednesday

Attempt the First

It\’s Wednesday. I figured I\’d share what I\’ve been crafting around with.

My first item to share is the Emerald Keep Scarf, which will be a giveaway in the forthcoming Keepsake Tour starting March 8th, to celebrate the release of Book 2 in the Persis Chronicles, Emerald Keep.

It didn\’t work.

I mean, yeah, it\’s fabric, and it\’s knitted. But that\’s about it. For one thing, the stitch said WS (wrong side) for both pieces, but either I misread it or it\’s a typo because clearly, it\’s incorrect – the edge stitches clearly are backward from the main lace stitches.

Attempt the First, Backside

This is a view where you can see the edge stitches are right-side up, while the lace is wrong side.

Grr.

Attempt the Second, Front and Frustration Both Start with F.
So does my favorite swear word.
Jus\’ sayin\’.

Started over.

And… I don\’t like my idea of the border. You can\’t really see it well in this shot, but the edges pull in too much and make it look sloppy. The reason I wanted a border to begin with is that this stitch has quite a bit of bias curl; however, the edging I picked (mistake-stitch rib) isn\’t working.

I think either I\’ll throw an extra yarn over in to create a sort of gutter, or eliminate the edges entirely.

Mancooking.
Why move stuff outta the way when you can stand over it?

I mentioned to a friend that we made candles last weekend and realized I neglected to take photos. I planned to take pics of the cold pots, but we have to cook in our kitchen so they had to come off the stove.

And, apparently, my kid thinks it\’s no big deal to stand over them rather than move them out of the way. He\’s cooking a very lovely taco salad at the moment, (well, cooking the sausage that will go in the taco salad). Yum.

Soap! Curing!

Our batch of soap that we made a couple weeks ago is curing very well. It\’s a lovely creamy ivory color now. We cut it this weekend to allow each of the bars exposure to air, so they can continue the curing process.

In case you\’re wondering, curing is letting the chemical reaction between the fat and lye to finish.

This is raw soap and not milled soap, so it\’s not made in a mold. You can use it as is, once it\’s cured, or mill it again and then pour it into pretty molds for a nice appearance.

Candles, Dipped 2015

I only made a half-dozen this year so far; I may fire up the pots once more before I put everything away. I like the way these came out; they are nice and uniform. They\’re also really long, which is my favorite (I have four different heights I can make).

Basket-o-Candles, Bad Lighting.

This isn\’t a very good shot, but it\’s of my candle stock. I\’ll see if I can get a better one for you one of these days – but for now, it\’s off to eat dinnah.

Yum.

What are you making?

February 12, 2015

Sealed by Fire

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Vanya is a sorcerer’s apprentice who finally achieves his goal, initiation as a sorcerer–only to find that he, himself, is the intended sacrifice in their ritual. When the ritual goes wrong, his master flees and he is left with the creature that his master summons.

Stranded on this side of the portal, Nash is a powerful being with only one desire–find the sorcerer who stranded him and wreak his revenge. Vanya agrees to help, and in the process, he and Nash find more than they ever bargained for: love, friendship, and belonging.

Can they protect themselves against the sorcerer’s growing power, or will he destroy all that they hold dear?

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January 30, 2015

Yarn

January 29, 2015

A. Catherine Noon

Explore the Worlds of A. Catherine Noon

January 27, 2015

Make Something Monday – Bryce Canyon Hat I

Bryce Canyon Hat, all done!

I finished the hat late Sunday night. I used a sewing needle bind off so that the edge is nice and loose. It\’s very warm; reflects heat back against my head.

Top View

I love the way the top came out with swirls. One thought I had is to continue the swirls down the body of the hat using decreases after each yarn over.

Bryce Canyon Hat, Almost There

Here\’s a shot of the rib stitch. My next one, I want to do something more interesting on the body of the hat. The ribbing is boring; I\’d like to try something more fun – maybe even patterned.