#I did make a swatch for this current sweater

[bereft-of-frogs]

I will simply not stand for this slander

[bakingmoomins]

Having knitting as a hobby and living in a pretty warm country is so painful sometimes

[olderthannetfic]

Knitting question!

Intellectually I know failure is fine. I'm a beginner! I'm learning! Mistakes are part of the process! But I find it really hard not to be demotivated by projects not turning out how I want

I spent all this time and materials on this and it's just kinda shit?

Did you experience that/have any advice?

--

I definitely experienced that when I first tried knitting. I don't remember, but I suspect it's why I drifted away from the craft for nearly two decades.

I have a couple of semi-failures from my current re-entry into knitting. I intend to frog or partially frog them and re-knit, but there are other projects I care more about that are taking priority so far.

Right now, I love watching youtube videos with little tricks to improve one's knitting or deep dives into technical matters. I find information on fiber fascinating. I think that has helped me avoid many of the problems I experienced the first time around. Even if I run into an issue now, I can probably redo the project to make it how I want.

I think the first thing to figure out is how it's kind of shit. Yes, yes, you're a n00b, but there are lots of reasons projects turn out shitty. Some issues require a lot of practice. Many issues require reading a blog post explaining some technical thing and instantly upgrading your knowledge.

--

For example:

When I first got back into knitting, I got some pretty green yarn and made a Medieval-looking hood. I had no clue how alpaca behaved or that it would be waaaay too flowy for the look the pattern was supposed to have. I was also knitting the pattern with the wrong size of yarn, needle, etc. It turned out way too big for me and a formless blob. It was also itchy.

A year or two later, I threw it in the dryer, and now it's an epic rainy day hood. It's mostly not itchy because the felting stuck down all those hairy ends. It has a lot more body now because it's felt instead of flowy hand-knit alpaca. (And, hey, it's even more Medieval since those hoods were often felt but not often knitted as far as I could tell.)

What went wrong here was mostly that I knew fuckall about fiber. I knew I was making it in some randomass size and didn't really care that it was too big, but I didn't know it would slither off of me due to alpaca's drape. I didn't need practice: I needed someone to tell me how alpaca behaves.

--

Example 2:

I knit that Owls sweater and didn't like how it had no shaping... so I winged it. I ended up with really bizarre shaping because 1. I had no idea what I was doing and 2. I didn't close the underarm holes until the very end, so the sweater appeared to fit when I tried it on.

I could open the underarms back up and knit a separate piece for them, but I realized that I dislike the fabric overall. I knit it on a too-big needle (in my opinion). I thought I liked that looseness in my swatch, but I have changed my mind. I was also worried about running out of yarn (since it's a used yarn that I won't find again), but I had tons left over. I also think I want it more cropped. The yarn has a sort of nasty texture but beautiful color, and I knit quite a tight (and thus scratchy) sweater. I don't think I wet blocked it though, so that might fix the texture.

What I should actually do here, assuming I don't just get rid of the thing in favor of better yarn, is frog it and reknit from the top down, reversing the pattern and not having a phase with the underarms open like that. I should also knit it at a tighter gauge but with a little more positive ease, and I should trust that the stretchiness of wool will make it conform to my body just fine without a lot of shaping. Before any of that, I should wet block it and see how the texture changes.

I don't really consider this a permanent failure. I like the Owls themselves. I can easily just knit this again and get a sweater I want to wear... possibly a cardigan, now that I think about it. The yarn is a relatively robust wool that will be fine being frogged and reused, and knitting it gave me more experience with finishing a whole sweater. My various fuckups taught me things about both knitting and my personal taste.

I guess it could be demotivating because it took a while, but on that bigass needle, it really didn't take that long. I would probably always have knit multiple sweaters from this pattern. I see more than one in my future anyway.

Experience was an issue here, but it wasn't experience with the literal act of knitting. My tension was fine. It was more that I fucked around and found out.

--

Example 3:

I made a self-drafted BTS sweater out of another batch of used yarn that I'll never get more of. I love the body. the sleeves are too tight in the upper arm, and my bizarre-ass design for the top of the body means that the sweater wants to be a boat neck but also fit differently in the sleeves and... gaaaaah. The tight sleeves don't feel bad, but what they do do is make the whole sleeve slide down my arm weirdly because of the fit issues around the boat neck.

Part of why the upper arm area is so tight is that I was worried I'd run out of yarn (which I did) and I wanted a balloon sleeve rather than a straight one. The yarn is so stiff that the balloon part is weird, and the two other purple yarns I added for the lower sleeve look weird. I should have reversed their order because one matches too well, and now it just looks like I ran out and had to add a last inch in a random other yarn. I have most of those two skeins left hanging around and a sweater that fits strangely.

Also... it needs hand washing but is shaped and sized to be worn against bare skin, so it gets stinky after a few hours of wear because I am a sweaty, sweaty person.

In this case, I wouldn't redo the body: this silk blend will look less nice after frogging, and I already roughed it up a lot knitting the damn thing the first time. I knit it starting at the top, so the weird fit across the shoulders is mostly here to stay.

However, I'm pretty sure the bad fit on the sleeves can be fixed by ripping back and adding a bunch of width up top. I can also start with the flowier other two yarns and maybe have bands of this stiffer one that I used in the body. I suspect the weird body fit is fixable by changing what the sleeves are supposed to be doing.

This is another case of fucking around and finding out, so I'm not too disappointed in it. I did wear it to Yoongi's concert too, and it was gorgeous, if too hot.

I do realize now that I hate boat necks, but I think I can put up with this one if the sleeves aren't constantly sliding out of place.

And if fixing the sleeves doesn't rescue this, I might attempt some surgery one of these days, but that's more of a pain in the ass, so that will definitely have to wait.

--

Now, my guess is that your "kind of shit" is not "I freehanded a sweater two seconds after getting back into knitting because I'm a crazy person, and I messed up the shaping".

The more common problems are things like:

Not realizing that you should block or not blocking aggressively enough, so your stitches look way more uneven than they need to, the shape is weird compared to the example pics in the pattern, etc.

Using assy bind-offs so the edge looks amateur instead of polished. (You can go back and fix this.)

Failing to swatch, and now you've knit the wrong size.

Picking a fiber that just cannot do what you want it to—usually seen in people trying to avoid wool and not getting that 99.999999% of trendy patterns are written specifically for wool. I have an ancient sweater from college that looks nothing like the example in the book because all I could afford was big box store acrylic. Never again the plastic horror!

Buying patterns from a size 0 lifestyle blogger aspirational knitwear designer with no boobs and a great photographer, then feeling dumpy when trying the thing on under crappy lighting. This one usually requires a little more self confidence and some bust darts.

Making things in plain stockinette in a light color and smooth yarn like cotton that shows EVERY SINGLE TIME your tension wasn't machinelike. This is unfixable. Don't do this.

--

If you're using mohair or alpaca, frogging may be more trouble than it's worth, but you often can reuse the materials. Granted, you've still sunk that time in, but the materials don't always have to be wasted. That might help it feel more like time you spent practicing and less like a complete disaster.

I'm a very product-focused knitter, so I don't really have practice pieces. I'm knitting to have a Thing and I want to wear that Thing, so I get the disappointment if you don't end up wanting to actually use what you've made.

But that also helps me not get totally demotivated. I still want that Thing and now I have a clearer idea how to make it.

So... what are these "kinda shit" projects anyway? What about them do you not like?

[journeyman-tier-fibercraft]

Stash Organizing Day! I finally got all the furniture into my bedroom after a year of living here (long story) and came to the conclusion that it was time to Stop storing my yarn in trashbags (mostly, I have to get a couple more plastic totes). Photo dump and rambling under the read more.

Here is all my yarn that I don't consider an "active" project (MOSTLY, there's an active project in the pink tote bag (Shawl 13) but I wanted to put up the extra colours I was finished with and it was easier to carry the whole thing in).

The already filled plastic tote has all my wool yarns in it (also in ziplock bags because these totes aren't airtight). I'll eventually organize them better and lay them all out for a photo too but for now they're staying Contained. Instead I dumped all my acrylic yarn out of the trash bag it was in.

Before starting Blanket 10 my acrylic yarn took up about twice as much room as it does now. The big pile on the left is all the scraps from it that I'm undecided as to what to do with them. Other than that mess, along the top is some Lion Brand Jeans yarn I had bought for a striped sweater that I swatched for and never made. Below that is all my fingering weight acrylic, mostly Loops and Threads Woollike. The big cake is one of the 300 gram Lion Brand Mandala cakes.

Also acrylic but kept in the very cute Purple Hawaiian Hello Kitty Tote Bag(TM) is a metric fuck ton of Lion Brand Re-Spun. I knit one strip out of like 9 for a blanket before realizing I wasn't having fun and it hurt my hands and I didn't like it. I don't know if I want to frog it or not or what to do with this yarn so I've just kinda been sitting on it, I might end up with another granny stitch blanket.

For now my acrylics are all staying in the trash bag, I currently only have one other plastic tote and I'm going to use it for my cottons.

By weight the majority of my cotton yarns are Hobbii brand Cotton Kings Sultan. I like knitting with them, they're pretty, I'm using the bottom three as decor in my room. Right now I only have projects set out for two of them (the peachy orange one and the two rainbows (i bought them with the intention of using them together in a huge brioche project and still don't have a pattern picked out lmao)), but it won't be hard for me to find more lace doily patterns to make giant. Most of the scrap (middle bottom) is also from Sultan cakes, and directly above it is some fingering weight cotton also Cotton Kings brand.

On the right bottom is all that's left of my Knit Picks Dishie out of my original purchase of something like a dozen and a half balls. I did give a couple balls of it to my aunt but most of it I used, I really really Really like Dishie. Finally on the right top is my size 10 crochet cotton.

I didn't grab photos of all my bulky yarn bought for suffies because I'm honestly not sure what to do with it and for now most of it is staying in it's cardboard box. Bad Yarn Gets The Box.

There's also the pile of Shame. Some of them are completed projects I don't have a good storage place for, most of them are incomplete projects. There are several projects I need to either frog, finish, give away, or throw out and I just do not want to decide right now. There's also at least one shawl in that pile that I finished while living at my old house and never got to block because of space concerns and simply haven't. Blocked it even tho I have space now.

I Think that is all of my yarn that isn't currently being used for a project. It feels really good to finally get everything organized and out of my actual work area. I still have some things I need to find places for (the shame pile and all my sewing materials mainly) but I got rid of the Yarn Mess by literally hiding it under my bed <3

[lightlyknitted]

Mid Year Goal Update:

It’s June so it’s time for a mid-year update on my knitting. I posted a roundup in March of some goals and current wips so I thought we could do a quick update on where I’m at with that.

My stash busting is not going great. I have purchased a bit more yarn but have slowed down considerably in my knitting and crochet production. So I haven’t used more than I purchased in the last few months. I will be keeping up with trying to shrink my stash but my stash is still controllable.

In the next month or so I plan to start my fiance’s christmas sweater so that it will be finished in time for the holiday season. That will use the yarn I purchased in March and a few from my stash (not completely for the sweater but close). If I have enough left I might make a hat / scarf / mitten set to go with the sweater.

WIPS:

My wedding knit is coming along. I finished the lace filler row I was working on in March but did set it down for a few weeks because I had messed up the next section and needed to rip it out. I completed recently and unknotted the yarn ball I had been using so I have started it back up and changed my pattern.

Because I put it aside for a few weeks I am still on my first 100 grams. I think I can still get that finished by December but I will not be too upset if it doesn’t happen.

I did start knitting a skirt based on a vintage pattern I found in an early 1900’s book. I bought three balls of bamboo pop. I’m on ball number two so hopefully I can finish it up in a month or so.

Another wip I have that is not too high on the priority list is a cardigan. I bought some wool for swatching and testing some ideas I have. There isn’t a set pattern for this, I am making this one up as I go.

FINISHED OBJECTS:

I did finish the campfire cozy shawl. It is currently waiting to be blocked and it turned out good! I am happy with it and can’t wait for it to get cool enough to use.

I also took a week or so to make some golf head covers for a coworker. These were in the colors of the college he graduated from and was a fun project to distract myself with. Ended up making five so he has an extra one in case they get too worn out and fall off.

Other Craft goals:

Another thing I would like to try this year is writing a pattern for a magazine. I have a few ideas but don’t want to share to much information about it at the moment. Fingers crossed it goes well!

I haven’t started the bookbinding properly. I have most of the supplies, I just need to work up the courage to start it. I decided not to make the crepe paper flowers and instead a friend of mine offered me their old tunisian crochet set so I might pick that up since it’s helpful with stash busting.

My fiance and I did purchase a resin 3D printer so we’ve been playing around with that. He helped me make a few bobbins for knitting and it’s kind of fun. We’re planning to use it for wedding stuff but might use it for a few hobby supplies when we get a bit better at it.

[s-gillian-fitzgerald]

I am trying to recreate a cabled cardigan my grandma knit me. She's long gone and I could not find the pattern anywhere in her craft books.

There's one cable I cannot identify. I cannot find it online or in any of the stitch dictionaries my library carries. I work at a yarn store and none of my talented coworkers can identify it.

I am reduced to swatching and making shit up in an attempt to find out what the hell my grandmother did. The current theory is that she made a mistake or modification and liked it so much she did it in all the rest of the matching sweaters she made.

Our grandmothers were fucking talented. Just because styles and techniques have changed, doesn't mean that their work is bad or cringe.

I was helping a friend set up a new laptop today and we started talking knitting and crochet. This is a lady who's about 30 years older than me and has been knitting and crocheting likely for a long as I've been at alive.

She brought out some of the pieces she makes to sell. There were all the traditional granny knits in acrylic yarn: baby blankets, socks, mittens, etc. and every single piece was exquisitely made. Every stitch was perfect, every seam invisible. It was breathtaking.

Anyhow, it makes me think that when someone tries to highlight modern knitting and crochet by throwing older women under the bus with comments like, "not your grandmother's knitting," we need to tell them to STFU. Our grandmothers' knitting was/is steeped in tradition and skill and the rest of us should wish we have even just a portion of the ability they did/do.

[the-crafting-gremlin]

The current sweater is, so far, actually going pretty well. Slow, but well. I learned a lot when I did the sweater for my coworker's little girl ages ago (like using stitch markers to separate pattern repeats; that's already saved me a few times and I'm still on the first chart). And once again, despite my gauge swatch working up to the correct gauge, it's looking like this is going to wind up being a little bigger than it should be, so I think I made a good call going down a size.

I'm not using the yarn the pattern calls for (because I'm not spending that much on more yarn when I'm trying to work through my stash, and also make things I'll actually use. And also I don't even know if the pattern yarn would be soft enough for me to want to wear), but the fact that my swatch was correct and it's still turning out a little big baffles me. It works out, though, because my bust is 48 and a bit, which is exactly what the finished sweater should come out to in the size I'm knitting, so that will give me the ease I like.

There's another sweater I want to knit, and I'm debating if I should go down a size or not. The finished measurements are either 44 and change or 51 and change in the bust. If I knew I could actually get it to work up to the proper measurements (since I'm using a different yarn again, and apparently I suck at matching gauge), I'd go with the larger size. But that's what I did with the cardigan that ended up with an enormous sleeve, so...I don't know. If I go smaller, I'm not sure I'd end up with enough ease for it to be comfortable, but if I go larger, then it would be way too big. I want it a little roomy, but not more than the like...3 inches I'd get from the larger size to begin with.

It is meant to be more fitted, so going with the smaller size might be a better choice. I'm already going to have to lengthen it as I knit because it's not going to be long enough for my taste (the finished length is 26.5 or 27.5, and that's too short for me. My torso isn't even that long, but with my chest...a lot of shirts end up being short enough to show off my belly. And I don't care for that. Perks of making some of my own clothes, though: I can make things as long as I like.) and I may have to make more increases in the sleeves than the pattern calls for because my upper arms are chubby. Well, all of me is chubby. But shirts being tight in the biceps is another issue I run into, and that is a Sensory Nightmare.

But, I have time to think over any changes I'll need to make in the second pattern, since I don't want to start it until I'm done with the sweater I'm working on now. It's slow going at the moment because I have to do the yoke, which is patterned all the way around, but once I get past that, it'll go quicker--then the pattern is just two spots down either side of the torso. I've got 4 and a half rounds to go on this chart, then 27 rows of the second chart to finish the yoke.

Now I just have to convince myself that yes, I really do want to go back to doing 1/1 crosses for another row and a half, and then even more rows of it in the second chart.

(I like doing cables. I do. Can't say I care for the 1/1 cables, though. It looks cool, but it's a pain in the ass.)

[plumbobsnberries]

JOSEPHINE SHIRT

I did recolor this sweater a few months ago but I only had pastel colors, so now I decided to make a "normal" color version PLUS some patterns, since I'm proud that now I can add them! I made 2 versions of this!

Base Game Recolor/Retexture

20 swatches

Properly color-tagged

CUSTOM THUMBNAIL

I didn't touched the LODs

*PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF THERE'S ANY ISSUE*I’M CURRENTLY TRYING TO UPLOAD FREQUENTLY AGAIN.

DOWNLOAD FREE!

[turntechgaysims]

this is basically a "fuck it, i've been putting off posting these for years, i'm just going to give up on waiting until i can make it look nice" post, so sorry about the extremely shitty previews, they're just what i already had on my google drive from when i first made these. also yeah some items will definitely not have one

i'm going to try to rb this at some point with a master list of all my other homestuck sims cc that i didn't make myself + dl links for anything that's been deleted, recommendations for items that aren't necessarily homestuck (ex: a headband that's usable for rose, multicolored lipstick, gills or fins, etc) but are helpful for homestuck sims, and i might end up rbing with other items of mine as i find the files. but in the meantime, have this!

tou:

i honestly barely care, do whatever. though if you find a glitch and fix it or improve an item or anything, sharing it so other people can use it too would be appreciated!

general/i just gave up on sorting

troll blood color blush

page godtier leotard thing

longsleeved undershirt with thumbholes (intended to be used with page godtier, also works separately. will eventually fix current aspect colored swatches so they don't look as much like total shit + add a few more that are more versatile)

grubscars

shirts for a bunch of beta trolls (AA, TA, GA, GC, and TC. i do not feel like fixing my weird decision to use chumhandles atm but you probably know who that means)

tavros and vriska's shirts with the black button up things over them

fingerless gloves that definitely have nepeta and equius swatches, and i THINK a plain black one since there's something intended for dirk

eridan and karkat sweaters: afab frame and amab frame

jadeblood + black lipstick

equius tank top

roxy shirt one (it's like a layered crop top thing)

azdaja's outfit

aradia shirt (iirc this particular one is more of a blouse + has an aradiasprite swatch)

feferi tank top (more of a halter style)

chixie's dress

assorted egbert shirts

jade harley dresses: 3 am dress and iron lass dress

trickster roxy hair (possibly already posted someplace by my sibling but it's almost 4 am + i did actually make it so i don't feel like asking)

sollux eyes

mallek hoodie

kanaya ampora outfit

terezi peixes top

old "march drag" eridan outfit made as a joke, some of the items included in it are nice and good for other use

ardata

extra eye, dress, socks, eyeshadow:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IArNLeGqY-Xv9kNPpCppTCCAPPJPHD4p

vriska

glasses

boots (requires these boots by simlaughlove. also currently glitched and WILL override first swatch of those boots. will eventually fix that, but in the meantime, download/use at your own risk)

tank top

crop top (possibly shiny? idk if i fixed that or not)

vision eightfold

shirt with jacket/button up (also has tavros's)

anchor tattoo

[agoodpersonrose]

You want to WRITE again and I want you to WRITE again so #20 You walk out of a dressing room asking if the outfit suits you, but it’s not your friend waiting outside the room like you thought.

I KNOW this is a meet-cute prompt, but I also knew that there is already an INCREDIBLE fic based on this very concept right here by chthonicheart, and I couldn’t work out a way to write it without stepping on their toes. So, instead, I made it a mini canon divergent fic, I really hope that’s okay!

Patrick is desperate.

He’s really desperate, and he’s terrified. He truly had no idea when he woke up this morning that it would be such a momentous- such a life altering day.

But then, David was making a fuss over a man asking for a gift receipt, and then he was asking Patrick about birthdays, and that could only add up to one thing. It all came tumbling out after that; the invitation to dinner, the suggestion of 8pm (the universal date time), and then of course, the water out of the spray bottle, all over the carrots that Patrick then spent the next ten minutes dabbing anxiously with a piece of tissue, trying not to look too flustered.

But the truth is, Patrick is flustered; he finally did it. He finally asked David Rose out on a date. The same David Rose who has been the sole focus of all his attention; all his affection ever since he wandered into Ray’s house all those months ago.

It’s for this reason that Patrick is desperate to find some way to make this date go well. He needs it to succeed, because if it doesn’t, then he just knows he will always look back on this night as the one where he missed his chance. Where he lost out on the one thing he knows for sure that he really wants.

Except as soon as Patrick gets home, he finds that he has little- no, nothing that he could possibly wear that could live up to his expectations for this evening.

He’s still got five hours, so he tries not to panic. There’s plenty of time to hurry down to the clothing store in Elmdale, although, even if he did do that, there’s no guarantee that he could find something that he would like; something that would be worthy of sitting across from David’s monochrome glory.

He should have thought this through properly.

“Patrick? Are you okay in here? I hope you’re not intending on wearing that shirt soon, it’s going to need some considerably good ironing to get it back to the usual Brewer standards!”

Ray’s voice in his bedroom doorway startles Patrick out of his thoughts, and he looks down to find the one shirt that was in the running crumpled up in a ball in his hands.

“Patrick?” Ray repeats, stepping further into the doorway and looking concerned. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just- I need to choose something. To wear to dinner. Tonight.”

Ray brightens up at the statement, seeming excited just to be involved in this important discussion. “To dinner?” he asks, suddenly turning sly. “I didn’t know you had a dinner planned for tonight. Anyone I know?”

Patrick can feel himself heating up and just laughs brokenly. “Ha, um, well, actually. It’s David’s birthday, so I asked if he wanted to go for a meal?”

“Oh, a meal?”

“Yes, a meal, and--”

Patrick pauses, thinking hard about what he’s about to ask, but eventually he gives in to the impulse.

“What are you doing this afternoon, Ray? I could really do with your help.”

This is how Patrick ends up accompanying his roommate/landlord/former boss on the forty-minute drive to one the only clothing stores in Elmdale.

Ray had agreed almost too quickly, seeming eager to get Patrick ‘out of his comfort zone’ and ‘into some colour’. Patrick is trying very hard not to regret his decision to bring his only friend along on the shopping excursion, though that is getting harder by the minute, as Ray rattles on and on about differing pattern swatches, and fabrics, and “ooh, maybe a little bolo tie!”

They pull up at the only viable store in the area, Ray shooting out of the driver’s seat in a fit of golden-retriever-like frenzy and rushing Patrick in and over to the men’s clothing section.

Surprisingly enough, Ray is conservative with some of his choices. Sure, there is a crocodile patterned vest thrown in, and a sweater with a cow on it which really would cause David to lose any affection he might possibly hold for him at this stage.

“I think these should do for the first round,” Ray says cheerily, bustling them into Patrick’s arms and pushing him in the direction of the changing rooms. “Go and try them on and I’ll be right with you with the next load.”

Patrick goes, unable to argue when Ray is acting this way, and wanders cluelessly past racks of shirts, suits, and jeans.

He smiles politely at the changing room attendant, and slips into one of the empty stalls, immediately letting out a huffed breath and glaring at himself in the mirror. He’s going to find something today. He’s going to look for his date, and he is definitely going to sweep David off his feet tonight.

And he’s going to kiss him.

That one he’s less certain about but he’s working on it.

Patrick slowly unbuttons his blue shirt, one white button at a time, and pulls it off, placing it carefully on a spare hanger while he slips on a bright orange sweater over his under shirt. He looks again in the mirror, wrinkles up his nose at the gaudy pattern, and goes to take it off.

“Patrick?” he hears Ray’s voice, and groans internally as he pulls the curtain back for his opinion. “Oooh, wow, well I think that’s a winner! What do you think?”

Patrick winces and looks down at the sweater, pulling the sleeves over his hands and making an uncertain noise. “I think maybe the colour isn’t quite--”

“Say no more, I’ll be right back with the next selection. Try this next!”

With that, another handful of clothing, this time majority black fabric.

“Ray, what are you--”

“Try them on, Patrick!” Ray calls without turning back, already disappearing behind another clothes rack.

Patrick does as he’s told again, stepping behind the curtain and pulling on a tight black fluffy sweater, leaving his work jeans on. It’s surprisingly, nice; soft fabric and a tight cut, and Patrick finds himself smoothing his hands over his chest several times with a pleased hum.

“I don’t know Ray,” he calls when he hears footsteps heading into the room. “I just don’t think David is going to be that impressed if I show up to our first date looking like his twin.”

There’s a small intake of breath, but Patrick pays it no mind, and instead steps out into the brighter lighting of the corridor, turning towards the large mirror leaning against the far wall.

Patrick whistles air between his teeth. “I’ll tell you what. It’s soft though, it’s pretty touchable,” he says, turning to one side, his hands continuing to skate along his own shoulders and arms. “Maybe too informal, you know? I want to impress him tonight; I just don’t know what he’ll think about this.”

Suddenly, a hushed conversation and some fast footsteps heading out of the changing rooms alert Patrick that something is happening, and he turns to look behind him.

“Oh. David.”

David Rose is standing in the changing room across from him, impeccably dressed and pale with surprise as he stares down Patrick from three doors down.

“Hi--”

“What are you doing here?”

David looks embarrassed all of a sudden, as if he is the person who just admitted in front of his crush that he was trying to impress him. “Well, um, Stevie actually brought me, she thought she might need a new outfit for- for tonight.”

Patrick’s heart drops through his stomach. “You’re going out with Stevie tonight?”

“Well, no, she was kind of under the impression that we all might be going out, um, after dinner. So, she wanted to get an outfit ready to collect some Randoms, not that that means much more than a vile new flannel shirt and jeans off the clearance rack, but you know.”

“Stevie is coming tonight,” Patrick says slowly, and then finally stops his hands where they have continued to brush against his sweater in an almost self-soothing manner. “To our dinner, tonight.”

David winces, looking uncomfortable.

“Okay, Patrick. I have a few more options here for you. Now, I know that blue is perhaps your statement colour, however, have we considered trying something a little more out there that I really think will catch David’s attention.”

Ray appears in the doorway and holds up a sequin covered sweater which changes colour from purple to pink when pushed in the opposite direction.

“Oh, um--”

“I don’t know Ray, I’m really quite enjoying his current get-up, don’t you think?”

Patrick blinks and turns toward David, who seems to have regained his confidence and is smirking at Patrick with his hand perched on his chin as if deep in thought.

“I think it looks touchable,” David continues. “And we all know how important that is for a first date.”

Ray looks between Patrick and David with an expression of pure elation on his face. Before he can open his mouth to say anything else in response, Stevie is suddenly back in the room too.

“Ray, I’m so glad you’re here. Do you think you could give me some advice for a--” she hesitates a minute, clearly coming up with something on the spot. “For a business meeting, that I have.” Ray’s grin grows ever bigger, and he is soon rushed away back to the store, though Patrick doesn’t miss the thumbs up Stevie shoots at David as they round the corner.

As soon as they’re alone, David steps up to Patrick and puts his hands on his shoulders. His touch is tentative and careful, but warm, as he slowly rubs up and down the seam of the black sweater.

“Mm, very touchable,” David hums, “But aren’t you supposed to ‘be yourself’ on a first date?”

“David--”

“I for one, will be wearing my very favourite Neil Barrett sweater. It has a lightning bolt across it, and my tightest pair of jeans.”

Patrick lets out a breath and slowly raises his hands to David’s waist. He’s still in the heart sweater from this morning, and the fabric is soft and warm from his body heat. “Oh, and why’s that?”

“I just think it shows off my best assets.”

Patrick clicks his tongue and leans back, pretending to look behind David for a while. “I don’t know, these seem to be doing the job just fine in my opinion.”

The laugh David lets out in response is miraculous, and his grip tightens on Patrick’s shoulders. “Why didn’t you tell me it was a date?” he asks, dropping his voice slightly. “When you asked me to dinner.”

“I thought I’d made it obvious!” Patrick exclaims, unable to stop himself from feeling embarrassed despite how close David is standing to him. “And I’d hoped that if you didn’t know before, then you would know by the time you got there.”

“Not if Stevie had come and crashed it!”

“Mm, well, that just sounds like poor planning on your part.”

David pulls a face and sways closer. “You should kiss me now,” he mumbles, almost nervous in the way he’s pawing at Patrick, and dropping his gaze.

“You should at least buy me dinner first,” Patrick manages to get out before David’s lips are on his.

It’s a short kiss really, considering how long they’ve been waiting, though not by Patrick’s choice, as he makes a disgruntled noise of annoyance when David’s mouth is pulled away, and moving.

“Wha--”

“I said, how set are we on the café for our first date?”

Patrick blinks incomprehensibly, unable to stop his gaze from straying back down to David’s lips. Not that he knows what they feel like, how they taste, he can’t help but want to dive in for a second try.

“It’s just- There’s a diner down the road from here, I was thinking we could maybe--”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” David says, grinning and kissing Patrick quickly again. “Go get changed. This is lovely, but I want to go on this date with the blue-button-up, discount jeans Patrick who has been driving me mad these past few months.”

Patrick kisses David again, just because he can, and hurries off to change.

He’s got a date.

[swlbarnes]

More Like Home - Jack Kline x Reader

Summary/Request: @previouslyforgotten requested:  Hi! It’s me again. I was wondering if you could do a someone x reader fluff where the reader is decorating her room in the bunker because she thinks it’s too bland and the man of men of your choice help? Preferably Dean or Jack? But you can pick whoever:)

Pairing: Jack Kline x Reader

Word Count: ~3.6k

Warnings: none!! fluffy fluff with jack and the brothers!!

A/N: okay so when given a choice i tend to choose jack, and im sorry, so i tried to put a smidge of dean in there as well! i hope this is okay, thank you so so much for the request!! i love your ideas so much, they’re so soft :)

BUY JACK’S SCENT HERE!

It didn’t feel right. No matter what you did, or how you moved the existing items around, it just didn’t feel right. Going on two years of living at the bunker with what Dean had deemed Team Free Will 2.0, you began to realize just how drab you seemed to feel in your given room. While the golden numbers adoring the door, addressing it as room 17, were always a welcoming sight after a long hunt, you couldn’t help but want… more from the interior.

Sure, you had your fair share of sentimental objects. Your guns and knives were displayed proudly on one wall, always well within reach and easy to dismount if the need to use them arose, which it so often seemed to do. A few pictures cataloging your travels with the boys littered the space, along with your notebooks and other hunting materials scattered about. This was nice, and offered a great reminder that this place was where you slept, but it still didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like home.

You lay on your back, arms and legs spread out like a starfish pondering this exact idea the day that the bunker’s resident Nephilim, Jack Kline, decided to pay you a visit. Your door was already open, but he made a point to stop at the threshold and tap his knuckles against the wooden slab to alert you of his presence. “(Y/N)?” He called to you in question. You made no move to get up, and simply let out a low hum in response. The sound of shuffling footsteps grew ever closer. “Are you alright?”

A sigh escaped your lips at this query. Now, how were you meant to respond to that? Were you okay? In theory, perhaps you were doing just fine, but this answer just didn’t seem to suffice for your mind. So, instead, in a rash decision making moment, you blurted out a simple, “no.”

This seemed to be the wrong answer. Hardly a moment passed before Jack was pulling you up into a sitting position, his eyes wide in panic as they scanned you for any visible injuries. “What’s wrong? What’s happened? How can I help? I want to help, let me fix it!” He blubbered on without end. His hands pressed against your cheeks and he turned your head every which way in an attempt to spot the problem. 

“Jack,” you tried. He continued on. “Jack,” a bit louder this time. His voice grew in volume as well, incoherent gibberish of worry at this point. “Jack!”

Finally, he froze in place. Then, within a moment’s notice, his hands were gone from your skin, and a fresh blush swept up his neck and along his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I meant to say, uhm, what’s wrong? And… how can I help?” 

You furiously fought against the smile tugging at your lips, but in the end your expression won out. A bright grin plastered itself across your face. “I’m actually okay, Jack. You don’t have to worry about anything, alright? I’m okay,” you reassured the nephilim. Even still, his crystalline sapphire gaze ran along your skin in a fervor.

“You’re sad.” This wasn’t even a question, but instead a statement of fact.

“I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m sad, per se,” you tried to ease his tension somewhat. The celestial being was having none of this, and swiftly caught on to the ambiguity of your words.

“But you’re not happy.”

Your nose wrinkled in thought. The nephilim was smarter than he ever dared to let on, and definitely more observant than your fellow housemates saw him for. “I’ll be okay, Jack. I’m just thinking, is all.” 

The boy pulled his legs up onto the bed, crossing his legs over each other criss cross style to face you fully. Comfy sweatpants covered his legs and a soft knitted sweater adorned his torso. Even in the summer months, the bunker could be quite cold, and there was only one reason that you never asked Dean to turn the heating up. As long as the air retains its usual chill, you get the pleasure of seeing a comfortably soft Jack Kline all year round.

Jack reached down and plucked carefully at the fabric of your comforter. A scowl formed on your face at the sight of the thing. It was the same tan sheet that adorned the beds in most every bedroom. It wasn’t special. It wasn’t yours. This room wasn’t yours. Everything was just a constant reminder of that fact.

You had to say, you truly envied the brothers’ abilities to cope in an environment that was so out of your comfort zone. Sam, though you know he had started out his time at the bunker in denial that it would ever become his home, had come around in previous years and began adding personal touches to his own space. The television was an important part of his room, usually playing some of his favorite movies or the local news station to stay updated on current happenings. His favorite books lay scattered on every conceivable surface. Room twenty-one was Sam’s and only Sam’s. Dean’s room held even more of his own personal touches. From the stereo concealing a hefty collection of vinyl records underneath it to the guns adorning the wall to even the countless family photos both taped to his walls and leaning haphazardly against various objects on his desk, room number eleven was undoubtedly the home of one Dean Winchester. 

But room seventeen? It could belong to just about anyone. You had hardly changed a thing since moving in. Most of the room remained in the same pristine state the Men of Letters had left it in all those years ago. It might as well be some random hotel room, capable of housing just about anybody at any time. It wasn’t yours. 

“Jack,” you spoke up suddenly, your mind set. The nephilim peered up at you in question. “Do you want to go into town with me?”

The boy’s brows furrowed in confusion, but he nodded all the same. “Can I ask why?”

Turning to the boy, you cast him a smile. “I’ve gotta make this house a home,” you hummed. Glee dripped from your words at the prospect of finally doing this. You were finally going to make this room your own, and no Winchesters were going to stop you.

-

Sam and Dean let the pair of you go relatively easily. That is, Dean ceased his interrogation once you assured him that you weren’t taking the Impala, driving the point home by jingling the pair of keys in your hand: keys that undoubtedly belonged to the ‘67 Ford Mustang you had brought back to the bunker after having fallen in love with the thing on a hunting trip to an old used car lot. You pocketed some cash and a couple of fraudulent credit cards, and you were on your way.

“So,” Jack began as he buckled the seat belt around his waist, “what exactly are we doing?”

Fair enough question. You hadn’t actually said your plan out loud. Jack was simply excited to spend time outside of the bunker (plus, the fact that it was with you was a real bonus in his eyes). You began to explain as you revved the engine to the old muscle car. “My room is just so… drab, you know? I want to make it feel more like home. So, you and I are going shopping!” The boys eyes lit up at this. “We’re going to go out and find some decorations and maybe we’ll paint the walls and everything. It’s gonna be fun!”

His feet shuffled in excitement. You had a feeling that, had you the ability to see into the boy’s mind, you would see a flurry of thoughts about how he had never been shopping for decorations and renovations before. That much would be true. The hunter’s life didn’t have much time for simple pleasures, so the fact that you were able to give Jack this little glimpse into a normal life sent your heart aflutter.

The ride into town felt shorter than usual, likely to do with the company you kept and your own choice of music permeating the air. Jack’s head bobbed along with the beat of the song flowing from the radio. Your hands smacked in tandem against the steering wheel, which the nephilim quickly likened to the eldest Winchester’s own driving habits. You poked your tongue out at Jack in retaliation, reaching out to turn the volume up to block his words out. 

Shopping with Jack was more fun than you could have even imagined it would be. He had such a wonderful reaction to every new thing he experienced, and it was clear that he wanted to soak in every aspect of human culture he possibly could. He was practically bouncing on his heels by the time you made it to the lighting section of the local hardware store. The way the seemingly endless aisle of lamps and lighting fixtures reflected in his irises made it difficult to maintain a casual facade, and you soon found yourself reaching out and grabbing his hand as you made your way through the store. This was normal as ever to the boy, who gripped your hand back just as eagerly and tugged you towards the mirror section.

Choosing a paint color was quite an adventure as well. Jack took this entire ordeal very seriously, especially after you explained to him how your current living situation made you feel. The discomfort you described was utterly unacceptable in his eyes. If a new coat of paint on your walls could alleviate that feeling and make you feel more at home, then the boy was going to do his best to make it the best paint color you had ever seen. That’s why you ended up standing in front of the display of paint swatches for around an hour before he finally allowed you to make a decision. It was all worth it in the end, especially once the paint mixer buzzed to life and Jack’s soft gasp sounded from by your side. He didn’t stop talking about how pretty the colors blending together was on the whole car ride to your next stop.

Item after item got checked off the list inside your mind. Picture frames, a new comforter, fresh pillow cases, professionally printed photos of yourself and the rest of the team, wall art, a soft new rug, little desk ornaments, and basically anything that popped into your mind that would make the space feel more like you. Jack even took it upon himself to buy you both matching art pieces, claiming that he wanted to have a piece of you in his own room to make sure you always felt like you were together. It took all of your willpower not to tear up as he happily placed the framed photos into the shopping cart. 

You arrived back at the bunker just as the last rays of daylight peeked out above the horizon. Jack, of course, insisted on carrying as many shopping bags as he could possibly fit on his arms. He was half angel, he reminded you, therefore weight wasn’t a big deal whatsoever. This made the unpacking process relatively simple, especially once you walked past Sam and Dean and the pair begrudgingly stood up and shuffled through the halls to follow you into the garage and help you with the rest of the bags.

“What’s all this for?” Dean’s voice called with a grunt as he readjusted his hold on the box containing your new nightstand.

You twirled around on your heels so you were walking backwards down the hallway, now facing Dean and Sam. “I decided my room was too… blah. Not enough me, not enough like a home. So, Jack and I went out and bought some stuff and we’re going to redo it! Painting the walls, new furniture, new pictures, the whole shabang. You guys wanna help?” You beamed at the pair of brothers. They shared a questioning look with each other, both shrugging before turning to you and agreeing. 

“Where’d you get the money, anyways?” Sam queried with a furrowed brow. You turned back around and cleared your throat in a bit of an awkward fashion. 

“I might’ve… stolen a couple of debit cards. And also a little credit card fraud. But it’s okay! Because when are we ever really gonna go back to those stores anyways, right?” You passed it off with a chuckle. The beginnings of an argument about how we don’t do credit card fraud this close to home and if you need to spend money in town then at least get the money legally arose from behind you, but it was too late. In a split second you picked up the pace and dashed off down the corridor towards your own room.

-

“No, no no no, not like that,” Dean corrected, reaching out and grabbing the paint roller from Jack’s hand. Only moments prior, the boy had tried to repeatedly press the cylinder against the wall in an attempt to apply the paint. This resulted in a small patch of globular paint right smack in the center of your wall. Your hand pressed firmly against your mouth in an attempt to fight back your laughter.

“I’ve never done this before,” Jack muttered in protest, his cheeks a bright crimson red due to his clear embarrassment. He peered over his shoulder at you, causing you to force back your amusement and offer him an encouraging smile.

“Okay, just… like this. Roll the paint on. That way it’ll be even, alright?” Dean demonstrated how to roll the paint onto the surface properly for a few strokes before offering the roller to the nephilim once again. Jack took the item with a newfound desire to do this right, and he continued to paint the wall in exactly the way that Dean displayed.

Sam emerged from the hallway empty handed, having just arrived back from wherever he decided to put your belongings while you started your renovations. At the moment, the entire room lay barren and empty, save for the paint cans and plastic lining protecting the floor from rogue paint. A thin layer of sweat made the taller brother’s hair lay flat against his forehead. He had done most of the heavy lifting so far. You found this amusing, seeing as Jack’s outlook on carrying heavy items seemed to change so drastically over the past hour or so. It occurred to you that it likely wasn’t the action itself that changed his mind, but perhaps there was an ulterior motive behind his kindness with you. The thought alone made you smile to yourself.

“You’re doing great, Jack!” Sam praised the boy, causing him to perk up significantly. Jack flashed a bright smile as he continued to work. 

Painting didn’t take quite as long as you expected. With the extra two pairs of hands, that meant each of you only had to focus on one wall. Soon enough, the walls were completely coated in your chosen color, and it was time to let them dry. You all took a break to eat dinner, which was filled with conversation about what you wanted your room to look like once it was complete. By the time you finished eating, the paint was dry and you were ready to move everything in. 

Strangely enough, Dean seemed to be the most hellbent on getting the “look” just right. Jack listened to whatever you said and wanted to a T, and Sam leisurely nodded and complied with your wishes as well. Dean, however, seemed to have a vision of sorts. Each time you explained your idea, he would interrupt you with a pitch for a completely different idea. Some worked, and you actually quite liked, others you ended up shooting down immediately. 

You worked all through the night, sharing stories and jokes as you went along. None of you seemed to feel the effects of the all nighter you ended up pulling. The atmosphere seemed too perfect to destroy with even a single yawn or complaint. At one point, as you and Jack worked on putting your new sheets onto your old bed, you couldn’t help but grab one of the pillows and toss it at the back of Dean’s head. Sam seemed to hold back his laughter to the best of his ability as his brother turned around with an all-too-serious look in his eyes. Within seconds, the eldest hunter grabbed the pillow from the floor and leapt up, charging at you with the fluff filled item held over his shoulder in preparation. A screech left your lips, and you bounded over the half made bed to cower behind Jack. And that was how not only Jack’s first pillow fight, but the first ever pillow fight in the bunker began. 

Your phone screen read 5:02 AM by the time you put the last touches on the space. One last flattening of the comforter, a quick check that the pictures on your desk were turned just so, and the final addition: a gun tucked carefully underneath your pillow. That was all it took for your room to be complete.You turned to the brothers and pulled them both into a hug. You expressed your true gratitude for their willingness to help you at such short notice, and for such a long period of time. Dean insisted that you owed him a new flannel for the fact that a splotch of paint was now visible on the fabric of the one he was wearing, but he retained his easy going smile all the same. Sam wrapped his arms around you and gave you a comforting squeeze, reminding you that he would always be there if you needed him for anything. And with that, they bid you adieu. 

That left just you and Jack in your newly completed room. You made your way over to your reclaimed bed and flopped down on your back, a soft smile adorning your face. A few seconds passed, and you peered over to where Jack still stood, simply watching you in wonder. You offered him a smile and patted the space next to you. He wasted no time as he, too, lay down atop the new sheets. A moment’s silence overtook you both, but it was far from uncomfortable. It felt like more of a mutual understanding. Like nothing need be said, because everything was already understood.

In a moment of surging self confidence, you reached over and grabbed his hand in your own. Your fingers laced together out of pure instinct. Just like back in the store, he reciprocated the affection immediately, even giving your hand a quick squeeze to show that this was okay. 

“Thank you,” you whispered into the tranquil atmosphere. The shuffle of fabric let you know that Jack had readjusted his position to be facing you without needed to see him at all.

“For what?” He asked you, his voice carrying the same soft tone as yours. He, too, clearly sensed the importance of this moment, and what it meant in the grand scheme of a hunter’s life. Moments like this don’t exist for hunters. Lives like this aren’t possible. But maybe, for just one second, you can pretend. Maybe you can pretend that this is a home, and that this is possible. Maybe you can pretend that your life can have something this good in it.

“For everything, really,” you began quite simply. You gazed blankly up at the empty expanse of your ceiling, wondering if Dean would ever let you live it down if you decided to put up those little glow in the dark stars. “I haven’t felt like this was my own space for… so long. It’s always felt like I’m just a guest, and that this is temporary. I keep waiting to have to pack up and leave for the next place. I even started avoiding this room altogether just so I didn’t have to face that feeling anymore. But after today?” You finally turned your head to look at the nephilim, only to find him gazing at you already with a look of pure awe. “You changed that, Jack. You helped me to make this something I can be proud of. I can feel comfortable and safe here, now. And I don’t think I would’ve taken that leap if I didn’t have you by my side.”

Slowly, the boy’s lips began to turn up into a smile. It wasn’t the smile he had been flashing all night. It wasn’t a bright, blindingly overjoyed grin that seemed to always split his face in half and fill the room with light. No, this smile was different. This smile was soft, and it carried the weight of everything the pair of you weren’t sure you should say. It was all you needed to see, and you let your head fall back down onto the soft sheets beneath you. 

The silence stretched on, but it didn’t matter. No words needed to be said for you to realize what you learned that morning, just as the sun began to color the sky a soft pink and the birds awoke with their song. This was a home, and it was your home. This was not temporary. This was your family. And this wasn’t pretending. You deserve the happiness and the love of that moment, basking in the relief of finding where you belong. You had found the good you needed, and you were going to hold onto it for as long as you possibly could. 

[olderthannetfic]

Thanks for the honest review! I was wondering how the bottom-up close-the-armpit-after pattern was turning out 😂

Heh.

Honestly, there are like 10 different things wrong with it, and most of them are due to lack of experience more than the pattern. The armpits are particularly ill-fitting, but it’s only half due to the pointless bottom up choice of construction.

The biggest issues are that my ad hoc shaping doesn’t work how I want it to, the ribbing sucks at this gauge, and the gauge I liked in a swatch I despise once the garment is under tension. The bad fit also makes the owls distort unattractively, which will be solved by making the yoke much more generous and then immediately tightening things up once we’re past the armpit hell zone.

I did swatch extensively, but I lacked the experience to guess what I’d actually like in the final sweater. I’m very used to my normal tight as fuck gauge, and this doesn’t feel drapey: it feels like it’s full of slovenly holes.

TBH, it’s not that big of a deal: it will be fast to re-knit even on smaller needles, and I now have an extensive list of issues with fit to address instead of guessing. (I also have nearly 3 skeins of yarn left over, so I’ll still have enough even with the adjustments I’ll be making.)

I’m going down to a vastly smaller needle for the ribbing, and I may do a k2, p1. The original pattern has those stupid-ass stretched out 2x2 ribs where the purl stitches don’t even seem to be sucking the fabric in. Blech. My current version was knit on a #7 and a #9, I think. (I’ve got it in my notes somewhere. I’ll probably go to a #4 and a #7, among other changes. Instead of shaping with decreases, I may just make the sweater tight as fuck and/or switch needle size for part of the body to get the fit I like.

I still need to knit arms for my Cassidy and finish knitting (and designing!) my BTS sweater. I also have several other projects in mind, so we’ll see how soon I get back to my Owls. They annoy me less folded up on my sweater shelf than in my yarn stash, so I’m not eager to instantly unravel the whole thing.

I really want to finish a mushroom hat and to use my possum yarn for something.

owls update

I loathe it and am going to reknit it on a different size of needles, top down, changing the shaping.

But only after I finish some other sweaters.

[vashti-lives]

Hey a PSA for all the knitters out there.

Do a fucking gage swatch you guys. If you’re knitting a garment do a gage swatch!!! Even if you think it’ll be fine!! 

I’m making a sweater out of yarn I’ve knit four (4) separate projects out of. 3 of those 4 projects required the same gage my current cardigan project requires. I was SURE that I knew what needles I needed to achieve correct gage. 

BUT I also knew I wanted to add patch pockets to this cardigan so I figured I’d start there and get pockets out of the way first and I could just, you know, triple check gage while I was at it. Since I wanted to knit them anyway and it would be a really quick thing I could do tonight. 

And the needles I was sure would get me gage????? DID NOT GET ME GAGE. I was getting 9 stitches per 4 inches instead of 10!!! I genuinely didn’t see it coming and it absolutely would have fucked my cardigan up because I was planning on knitting it a bit large to start with. Sooooo… I sized down my needles and re-knit the pocket and got gage for real this time and everything was fine but like, if I wasn’t obsessed with putting pockets in every possible garment I 100% would have skipped doing a swatch and this would have been a mistake. 

Do a gage swatch you guys. 

[ladytemeraire]

Snapshot Sunday 9/8/19

Honestly this picture describes my week better than any pictures I’ve taken recently. Having Monday off was nice but also threw off my groove in a major way.

I will be making a primer for this and my other recurring posts at some point so I can just link to that rather than explaining it each week. For newbies, welcome, this is my weekly newsletter/summary/progress report. I mostly use it to keep myself accountable, but also to share a bit of what I’m working on and any cool things I’ve read or listened to recently. Most of it gets stuck under a cut so I don’t break people’s dashes, but you’re welcome to blacklist the tag “Snapshot Sunday” if you absolutely don’t want to see these posts.

Reading: Finished both Thrawn: Treason (ABSOLUTELY DELIGHTFUL) and Outbound Flight (everything hurts and I’m dying but I love it). Also still enjoying the Miss Fortune Mysteries series as a bit of mental fluff. After I finish the current one I think I’ll dive into Wanderers, which is enough of a doorstop that it may be the only thing I read this week.

Recommended Listening: I’ve been enjoying Jo Blankenburg’s discography this week after stumbling across a few of his pieces on a study/reading playlist. I’m also still working my way through back episodes of Cortex, skipping a handful of eps whose topics I don’t care about, and recently giggled my way through the episode where they talked about their roombas (I think it was Ep 72). Humans really will pack bond with anything.

Knitting: Still chipping away at the dark green socks. I’m also trying to make a hexipuff per day, which I can usually get done over my lunch break and/or during meetings (or while scrolling on Tumblr). If I can keep up making ~30 a month, I should be actually done with this thing in a relatively reasonable amount of time. I’m currently working on frankening the charts for the Star Wars sweater I want to make because if I want to wear that to Ep 9 I need to start on it, like, yesterday. Hopefully once I get going it’ll be a pretty straightforward knit; the body and sleeves are mostly plain and for some reason stranded colorwork goes fast for me. (I blame wanting to see the pattern evolve; “just one more row” syndrome is especially strong when it comes to charted patterns.) And I’ve already swatched so I know what needles to use!

Spinning: Nope. Wait, scratch that, I plied the rust-red merino laceweight up on my EEW Nano. Guild meets this Tuesday so I’m going to work on plying up the Sheep-to-Shoe singles that have been on my Traveler for forever and a day. I also ordered a couple takhlis and a spinning dish from Etsy because I want to expand my skills a little (and because they’re pretty and I’m a sucker for pretty tools).

Writing: HEY I ACTUALLY WROTE A LITTLE THIS WEEK GO ME. Self-indulgent noodling around on a fic, but it still counts.

Exercise: I walked Blitz while I was home, and Bella while I’ve been dogsitting this weekend, and I think I used my mini-stepper a few times this week? Not as consistent as I want but it’s a start, and it’s been cool enough that I wasn’t absolutely dying. Unfortunately this was significantly offset by eating out a lot this week - my own fault for not packing lunches, but I very much didn’t have time or energy to cook after driving home from visiting my family (see above re: groove, thrown off).

Adulting: Still haven’t gotten shelves hung in my room, dammit. But! I did get everything unpacked and put away from the weekend and the kitchen cleaned up and laundry done yesterday, and I’m very proud of that. Even if I’m not making much “forward” progress, I’m doing a decent job of maintaining, which is a big deal when you deal with depression.

Goals for this next week:

Write every day (except maybe Tuesday because I have to drive)

Finish the sweater chart frankening and start on the sleeves

Schedule dr’s appointments (ugh phone calls uuuuuugh)

Hang shelves GDI

Deal with whatever the hell my herb baskets are doing, I haven’t even looked at them for like three weeks so they’re probably completely feral by now

Actually make meals for this next week - I want to try that ratatouille bake again, and have a recipe for zucchini parmesan that sounds really tasty. (I’m trying to branch out in terms of veggies.)

How has your week been? What do you want to get done this next week?

[lightlyknitted]

It’s almost June so it’s time for a mid-year update on my knitting. I posted a roundup in March of some goals and current wips so I thought we could do a quick update on where I’m at with that. 

My stash busting is not going great. I have purchased a bit more yarn but have slowed down considerably in my knitting and crochet production. So I haven’t used more than I purchased in the last few months. I will be keeping up with trying to shrink my stash but my stash is still controllable. 

In the next month or so I plan to start my fiance’s christmas sweater so that it will be finished in time for the holiday season. That will use the yarn I purchased in March and a few from my stash (not completely for the sweater but close). If I have enough left I might make a hat / scarf / mitten set to go with the sweater. 

WIPS: 

My wedding knit is coming along. I finished the lace filler row I was working on in March but did set it down for a few weeks because I had messed up the next section and needed to rip it out. I completed recently and unknotted the yarn ball I had been using so I have started it back up and changed my pattern. 

Because I put it aside for a few weeks I am still on my first 100 grams. I think I can still get that finished by December but I will not be too upset if it doesn’t happen. 

I did start knitting a skirt based on a vintage pattern I found in an early 1900’s book. I bought three balls of bamboo pop. I’m on ball number two so hopefully I can finish it up in a month or so. 

Another wip I have that is not too high on the priority list is a cardigan. I bought some wool for swatching and testing some ideas I have. There isn’t a set pattern for this, I am making this one up as I go. 

FINISHED OBJECTS: 

I did finish the campfire cozy shawl. It is currently waiting to be blocked and it turned out good! I am happy with it and can’t wait for it to get cool enough to use. 

I also took a week or so to make some golf head covers for a coworker. These were in the colors of the college he graduated from and was a fun project to distract myself with. Ended up making five so he has an extra one in case they get too worn out and fall off. 

Other Craft goals: 

I haven’t started the bookbinding properly. I have most of the supplies, I just need to work up the courage to start it. I decided not to make the crepe paper flowers and instead a friend of mine offered me their old tunisian crochet set so I might pick that up since it’s helpful with stash busting. 

My fiance and I did purchase a resin 3D printer so we’ve been playing around with that. He helped me make a few bobbins for knitting and it’s kind of fun. We’re planning to use it for wedding stuff but might use it for a few hobby supplies when we get a bit better at it.

[spideyxchelle]

When Peter Met Michelle

the when harry met sally au

Michelle blew her sweaty, sticky curls out of her face and heaved a hefty exhale. Beside her, Peter rubbed his face and was uncharacteristically quiet. They had sex. No, more accurately, they had good sex.

A creeping, bright smile nipped at the corners of her mouth until she was beaming. She had not expected the night to progress from sobbing about Harry Osborn to falling into bed with Peter, but she was glad for it. In a little over a year, he had become one of the most important people in her life. He was the kind of man that took a cab across town in the middle of the night to hold her as she cried. She had somehow missed how wonderful he was between the late-night talks about black and white movies, and weekly lunch dates, and walks in the park.

Michelle rolled over and tucked a confident arm around his naked chest. Peter stared at the ceiling, still catching his breath.

“You know,” he said, eyes focused on the crown molding of her apartment, “before you go to bed with someone, you don’t know things.”

“Like what?” Michelle yawned.

He gestured limply to the ceiling, “Like their ceiling has two different shades of white.”

Michelle rolled her eyes and pecked his cheek. He really was the most easily distracted man. She leaned across him and flicked the light off. When she cuddled up to Peter, Michelle tiredly stirred, “Yeah, that’s New York landlords for you. Shotty paint jobs.”

Peter husked a laugh and said nothing more.

The sunlight did not wake Michelle. She only stretched awake when her bed shifted as Peter crawled out of it before the sunrise. Michelle propped herself up on her elbows and watched him quietly zip up his pants, and she felt sick to her stomach.

Something was terribly wrong.

Michelle turned her beside lamp on, illuminating the room, and Peter turned to look at her. He was smiling, but it was too tight to be natural and it didn’t reach his eyes in the way she was accustomed. She had been right—something was wrong.

She no longer felt the same warm comfort from the night before when she had buried her face in his sweater and he had dropped effortless kisses on her head. Feeling exposed, she pulled the blankets up over her chest and leaned back against the headboard. She tried her damndest to feign a casual demeanor as her insides shrieked. “Where’re you going?”

Peter pulled the sweater she had bought him, that he had called ugly the night before, over his head. In the shady light of her beside lamp, Michelle decided she, too, thought it was the ugliest sweater she had ever seen. It deserved to be tossed into some kind of bonfire, perhaps with his stupid ass.

The stupid ass said, “I’ve got to get to get home to change for work.” He knelt beside her bed and rested an anxious hand on her knee. Peter was so stiff, as if he had never touched another person before. He gracelessly pointed out, “You have to go to work, too.”

Michelle nodded tersely, “Of course. I understand.” She understood perfectly. He was running away.

He squeezed her knee, “Listen, after work today, let me take you to dinner, okay?” Michelle wanted to demand answers, but she was so caught off guard and hurt by the morning getaway, she only nodded. Peter smiled and perfunctorily kissed her on the mouth. It tasted stale. “I’ll see you later.”

Her eyes prickled from some unbidden emotion. She was too afraid to speak, in case her voice gave away how distressed she felt, so she nodded. Again.

He stepped toward the door briefly. Michelle hiccupped a sharp breath. Peter stopped cold in his tracks. He swooped down, pressed his lips against her forehead and lingered.

Michelle closed her eyes and when she opened them, he was gone.

She grabbed the pillow beside her and buried a sharp scream in it. The scream did not offer the relief she desperately craved. It had been the pillow that he had slept on the night before and it still faintly smelled like him. Michelle cursed a tapestry of filthy words.

Thoroughly embarrassed, she tossed it away.

She looked around her room and scowled. It was a crime scene of her tumble with Peter. There were traces of him everywhere, as if he had left invisible marks in her space, claiming it as his own. He had burned his presence in her home and then, run away.

Michelle scrambled for her cellphone on the bedside table and called the only person she could stomach to speak to in her current state. It rang for two, torturously long dial tones, “Betty?”

Her best friend groggily groaned from the other end of the line, “MJ?”

Michelle heard Ned distantly gripe in the background, “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

Betty hushed him with a sounding swat and asked Michelle between dips of yawning, “Honey, what’s wrong?”

She scornfully eyed the pillow that still vaguely smelt like Peter from across her bedroom and sighed, “God, Betty. I did such a dumb thing.” Ned spoke softly in the background, saying something to Betty that she could not hear. Michelle ignored him and pressed on, “I found out Harry was getting married yesterday and, I don’t know, Peter came over last night to comfort me and one thing led to another and…we did it.”

Betty gasped, “Oh, MJ, honey, that’s great!” Ned eagerly said something she could not make out. It almost sounded as if he wasn’t talking to her at all. Betty plowed on, “We’ve been hoping you would for months now. It makes so much sense. You two should’ve done it months ago.”

Michelle swallowed the lump in her throat and banished the welling of her stinging eyes, “The during part was great, but, I don’t know, after he got all weird. And this morning he could barely look at me. It was like he zipped up his pants and left.”

Betty snarled, “What a pig.”

Michelle crawled under her blankets and rested the phone on her sex-ruined duvet. She would need to wash everything that Peter had touched and tainted with his memories. Not even her split from Harry Osborn had hurt as much as Peter leaving. She wondered when she had given him the power to wound her. “I feel so stupid.”

“Do you want to come over for breakfast?” Michelle heard Betty and Ned echo simultaneously.

Michelle considered it, if only for a moment, but she did not want to be around her happy engaged friends. She needed to clean her sheets and curse Peter for a few more hours until she felt like a person, again. She declined, “No. I don’t think I’m up to it.”

Betty sighed, “Okay, well, you know I’m here for you if you need to talk.”

Michelle stared at the paint stain on her ceiling. She hated how it now reminded her of Peter. “I know.”

When Michelle arrived at the restaurant Peter had chosen for their post-coital dinner, she realized she was not ready to see him. She had spent the better part of her morning furiously cleaning every surface he had interacted with the night before and even nipped out to buy new pillows to mute his memory from her bedroom. After all of her meticulous preparation, Michelle had looked around room and frowned. Clean sheets and new pillows did not banish him.

So, when she saw him sitting too casually to be natural at their usual table in the corner, she froze. She took two steps back toward the door, planning her escape, when Peter called out, “MJ! Michelle, over here!”

Her feet were filled with lead. It took Herculean efforts to drag her feet along the carpet to the shared table. Peter stood awkward, as if he might hug her, but then he thought better of the intimacy and pat her on the shoulder. Michelle bit her tongue. She sat in the straight-back chair and made a sour attempt at smalltalk, “Has the server come yet?”

Peter nodded, “Uh, yeah. You were running a little late so I took the liberty of ordering for you.” He hurriedly added, “I know how particular you are with your food.”

He had called her particular the night before when they laid strewn out on her bed as she cried about Harry. Peter had delicately brushed her hair out of her eyes and looked at her like she was the answer to some question he had been asking forever.

Now, he could barely meet her eye.

Michelle took a hearty gulp of her water. She allowed the uncomfortable silence to eat away at the time. When the starter arrived, Peter sighed, “Look, MJ—“

She did not know what he wanted to say next, but she was filled with a sharp fear that, if she allowed him to talk first, he would get to control what happened next. So, she spoke over him, “Peter, last night was a mistake.”

His shoulders collapsed and he had the audacity to look relieved. “Yes,” he smiled, “Yes. Exactly. I knew you’d understand.”

She picked up her wounded pride and dusted it off for something much colder and removed, “We should just pretend it never happened.”

He smiled, “I just want things to go back to the way they were.” Michelle stiffly bobbed her head. She stabbed a mozzarella stick with her fork and traded in conversation for food. It was quiet for a while before Peter tried to break the icy front that she was guiding brick by brick between them, “Its so nice when you are so comfortable with someone that you don’t even have to talk.”

Michelle would not have called the dinner comfortable silence. It was everything but. 

Every day leading up to Betty and Ned’s wedding, Michelle used every wedding-related excuse in the book to avoid seeing Peter.

One day she had to help Betty arrange the seating assignments for the reception. Another day she had a fitting with all of the other bridesmaids that meant she couldn’t go to their weekly dinner date. Then, she had wedding shower details to coordinate and presents to wrap and a registry to help Betty organize.

All of the wedding preparations meant she simply did not have time for Peter Parker.

In the little non-wedding time she was afforded, Michelle painted her room a light blue. It covered the ugly, mismatched swatches of white that once stained her ceiling.

Michelle could not fathom how one person could look so resplendent. Betty Bryant, soon-to-be-Leeds, looked absolutely knockout stunning on her wedding day. As the Maid of Honor, MJ stood at the head of the alter with the perfect view of her best friend gliding down the Church toward her future husband.

Betty had tears in her eyes.

Michelle knew the wedding had been fast, but she recalled what Betty had said at the Bugle when Michelle questioned her best friend about Ned Leeds. “When you know, you know,” she had said. She did not understand that sentiment, then; but she did now. Michelle resisted the urge to look at Peter who was standing on the opposite end of the alter as Best Man. She could feel his laser-focused eyes beseeching her to turn to him, to meet his eye, to look at him. She would not. It had been a month since they had sex on that sweltering August night.

Her anger had still not subsided. She would not let it go because she was afraid when the fear was gone she would only be left with some kind of sadness and inexplicable loss. 

“She looked lovely,” Michelle agreed with who she believed was Ned’s cousin at the wedding reception.

Perhaps-Ned’s-cousin nodded his head toward the dance floor, “Could I offer you a dance?”

Michelle tugged on her velvet bodice and politely declined, “I’ve been on my feet all day, but thank you, anyway.” She respected that perhaps-Ned’s-cousin did not argue with her, but instead moved onto the next bridesmaid he might have better luck wooing.

“That’s Marvin,” Peter clarified, as he took his usual spot at her left hand side.

All of the warmth she had greeted each and every guest that monopolized her time at the reception suddenly frosted over. She looked out at the dance floor, in an attempt to avoid his gaze, and curtly replied, “Thank you.”

She heard Peter shift his weight between his feet. She knew he had a tendency to squirm when he was uncomfortable. She heard the wrinkle of his dress pants when he shoved his hands in his pockets, “How’ve you been? The wedding kept you busy.”

“Fine.”

Peter rolled his ankle, “How’s everything with, uh, work?”

Michelle rolled her eyes, “Peter, I don’t want to talk about this.”

She did not mean work and he knew it. Peter turned to face her completely, “This is because of what happened, isn’t it?” Michelle iced him out and tried to get a better view of the wedding party doing a half-assed electric slide. Peter touched her arm, pleading, “MJ?”

She grit her teeth but refused to look at him, and said, “It just happened, Peter. I don’t want to talk about this with you. Not now.”

“Miche—“

“Maybe not ever,” she crumbled, turning to look at him. God, looking at him brought the wave of all of her heart crashing back on the stormy beaches of her heart. She could not forget the hurried way he had fled her apartment that morning and the uncomfortable, awkward dinner that followed that night.

His helplessly countered, “It happened three weeks ago. When are we going to get past this?”

She barked out a rough, emotional laugh. The wedding guests on the outskirts of the electric slide turned around curiously. She did not want to draw an audience, so she began to stomp toward the staff kitchen. If he wanted to have a throw-down fight with her at their best friends’ wedding, she would not do it in full view of strangers.

Peter did not hesitate to scramble after her.

When they blew through the staff kitchen door, Michelle found she was in immediate view of the curious staff in the tightly enclosed space. It was worse than fighting on the dance floor.

“Michelle,” Peter tried.

She snapped, “Don’t!”

Michelle tried to sidestep Peter and exit the kitchen. The staff was starting to twitter nervously at their heated exchange. She had not wanted to fight in front of the wedding guests, but the watching kitchen staff made her feel just as exposed. “I just don’t understand,” she quipped, “how it didn’t mean anything to you.”

Peter blocked the swinging metal door, “Hey, woah. I am not saying it doesn’t mean anything. Just—” Michelle crossed her arms over her chest. His eyes were wide, open and imploring, “Why does it have to mean everything?”

Michelle taped her cracking heart with flimsy adhesive and promised herself she would fortify it with steel later. Never again would she let Peter Parker make her feel the fool. God, she should have trusted her twenty-two year old self that clocked him as a exactly what he turned out to be—disappointing.

She scoffed, “Because it does.” The embers of some long forgotten angry fire when they had first met awoken. “And know you know that better than anyone because you ran out the door the first chance you got.” She remembered how big and empty her bed had felt the morning he had left her all alone. And, she wasn’t sure the hurt would ever subside or if she could ever forgive him abandoning her.

Peter, with an outstretched hand, stepped toward her and said, “I didn’t run…”

She recoiled from his touch, “You sprinted.”

Peter dropped his hand. He clenched it into a tight fist and forced it to his side. “We both agreed it was a mistake.”

“The worst mistake I ever made,” Michelle agreed and shoved past him. The kitchen door swung open and her shoes clacked as she re-entered the ballroom. The wedding guests were still milling about, smiling and dancing and laughing. It felt like a mockery of her own circumstance.

Peter chased her heels, “What do you want from me, huh?”

Michelle carelessly looked at him over her shoulder as she tried to escape his looming figure that seemed determined to hash out whatever they had lost between them, “I don’t want anything from you.”

“Fine!” Peter hissed. He grabbed her arm and expertly spun her around. Michelle tried to shirk herself free but she was stuck. To look at Peter Parker, she would have thought he was a flimsy and soft-handed boy, but he was a strong man. “But let’s get something straight, okay?” Peter whispered hastily on the outskirts on the crowd. “I did not go over there to make love to you, that is not why I went there.” Michelle huffed. Peter continued, “But you sounded so upset over the phone and, I don’t know, I had to be there with you. I couldn’t let you be upset alone. And when I got there you were looking at me with those big, weepy eyes.”

Peter trailed off, as if he had been swept up in the memory of that night. She shook like a leaf. He didn’t deserve to reminisce about a night that he had proven meant less to him than it had to her. She tried to pull her arm free and, in turn, yanked him from his thoughts. “Michelle,” he said softly, “What was I supposed to do?”

Her breath caught, “You never should have kissed me.”

Peter glanced down at her mouth, “I-I’m not that strong.”

She put on an impressive show of pulling her arm free from his grasp at last. Michelle tucked her arm into her chest and cradled it there. She swallowed her emotions, “Are you not that strong or was it a mistake? Which is it?”

Peter growled in frustration, “Why is everything so black and white with you? Can’t it be enough that I didn’t want to see you upset?”

Michelle whirled at the implication of her words. Violent irritation flared in the pit of her stomach and drowned her voice in malice, “What are you saying? That you took pity on me?”

“No, I was—”

She heard the crack of her slap before she felt the sting of it extend out from her palm to the ends of her fingertips. Peter looked as shocked as she felt from the impact. He turned his head back to her with wide, betrayed eyes. She had hit him.

“Em—” he questioned.

The part of her that wanted to apologize and fold him into her arms could not stop remembering all of his words, his kisses, and his pity. Michelle would not be pitied. Cross her heart and hope to die.

She hastily wiped at her eyes, “Fuck you.”

Michelle pushed into the gathered wedding crowd that all seemed eagerly focused on the newlyweds giving their wedding speech. Peter pursued Michelle through the thick of the crowd until Betty noticed them weaving through the room.

With the brightest smile, Betty addressed her wedding guests, “And, of course, we want to thank Peter and Michelle.”

They both stopped dead.

Ned tugged an arm around Betty and joked, “Thank you for inviting me to the worst double date of my life. Without that really awkward dinner, I never would have met my wife.”

The whole room politely applauded, but Michelle only heard the racing of her broken heart.

In all of her thirty-one years, Michelle Jones had never really listened to any of her voicemails. She had been a child of the nineties for what felt like only a minute and text messages had taken over as the primary avenue of communication. The only people that ever bothered to leave her voicemails were telemarketers.

Until Peter Parker.

After the wedding, he began leaving lengthy messages on her machine and, for the first time in her life, she listened.

The first few messages colored the fall with familiar jokes and wistful recounting of shared memories.

By mid-November, they turned far more desperate.

 September 27

 "Hey MJ. I went to our favorite diner today. That waitress was wondering where you were. I’m wondering that, too. Call me back.” 

 September 30

"Hey Michelle. I was thinking about my message the other day. Am I not allowed to call you MJ right now, is that why you aren’t calling me back? I remember you said only let your friends call you MJ and, I guess, I haven’t been a very good friend. Please call.”

 October 5

 "Michelle, I had a horrible thought in the shower this morning. If you aren’t picking up because you’ve been crushed under that rickety bookcase for the last week, I don’t want to say I told you to fix that bookcase, but I told you so. I hope you haven’t been crushed to death. When you wiggle free of the bookcase, call me.” 

 October 12

 “I spoke to Betty today. She says you are not dead or the victim of a bookcase accident. I’m very relieved. If you want to call me…But that’s the thing, isn’t it? You don’t want to call me. I hope you change your mind." 

 October 20

"I am out of mind from missing you. Look, I know I screwed up. I get that. I wish you’d call me so I could make it right.”

 November 9

 "God, what kind of asshole can’t take a hint, you know? This asshole. I am an asshole. So, please call me.” 

 November 23

 "Happy Thanksgiving. Do you remember last year when we spent the whole day eating mashed potatoes on my couch? You were very judgmental of my mashed potato and ketchup combination. I still stand by it. It’s delicious. Ring me back.” 

 December 2

 "I miss you.”

"...I miss you so much.”

 "I promised Ned I would stop making a fool of myself. I can’t. I know I should leave you alone, but we’re friends. Friends fight. Then, they make up. Or at least, I have to hold out hope that we will. Cross my heart. Hope to die.” 

On the second of December, Michelle listened to Peter’s three messages back-to-back, over and over again. She could imagine him slumped over the old, tattered chair jammed between his living room wall and the window. If she closed her eyes, she could see him wrapped around his phone and leaving message after message for her voicemail.

He had said he missed her. She wanted so desperately for that to be enough, but in the last two months of their icy silent routine of not seeing one another, Michelle had discovered they could not go back.

The two of them had carelessly tipped over the edge of some invisible line that, once crossed, was impossible to backtrack from. She knew every part of him now. She could not forget the way he kissed her or the way his body rippled under her eager hands as they made love. She could not forget the whole beautiful, tragic rightness of it all.

It had been a mistake. She wished she could take it all back, but being an adult meant living with mistakes. Or choosing when certain pain could not stand to be endured, but instead cut out.

And she had cut Peter out with a jagged knife. The hole he had left behind was uneven and scarring, but she would survive. She was, at her core, a survivor.

She picked up the phone.

It barely rang for less-than-a-tone before a breathless Peter answered from across town, “Michelle? Hello? Is that you?”

The sound of his voice in real time sent her back to the end of September when they had fought at Betty and Ned’s wedding. Michelle schooled her features and wavering voice to something more cold and clipped, “Peter, I can’t talk long. I’m on my way out.”

She heard Peter stumble over something as he stuttered, “Where…where…where’re you going?”

Michelle rested the phone against her chest and took a deep breath. She would not let him rattle her. She was strong. She lifted the phone to her ear, “What do you want, Peter?”

“Nothing. Nothing. I just…” He exhaled, “I just called to say I’m sorry.”

In all the months they had been fighting, Michelle realized Peter had never said he was sorry. As soon as he did, she felt lighter, like he had released her from some purgatory she had been living in since the day he had zipped up his pants and creeped out her door. She wanted an apology. She missed her friend.

Michelle clasped her hand over her mouth and mumbled, “I’ve got to go.”

Peter nearly yelped, “Wait a minute, MJ. Wait, hold on.” She did not hang up. “Are you going to the Bugle’s New Years’ Party? Because we always said if we didn’t have a date by New Years, I could go with you.”

As friends, Michelle bitterly thought. They had made that arrangement before they had fallen into bed together and their entire friendship imploded.

Michelle cut off his incessant rambling, “I can’t do this anymore, Peter. I am not your consolation prize.” She refused to be that girl. She deserved better than that.

“Em—”

“Goodbye.”

She hung up the phone.

But even after his voice had gone dead on the other line, Michelle kept the phone up to her ear to listen to the fuzzy dial-tone until her cellphone shut off, forty-five minutes later.