Amber Sweet (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ambersweet) wrote2010-12-15 08:07 pm
ambersweet) wrote2010-12-15 08:07 pm
Entry tags:
A post about productivity.
Suddenly I've been really productive, which is good, because I'm running out of time between now and Christmas.
I finally finished finishing the One-Up Mushroom baby hat for my friend's brand-new extra life. I did all the crochet in a couple of hours, and then let it sit waiting to have the spots attached becauseI'm lazy I really don't like hand-sewing with yarn. This is why my project bag has sat around without the handles for probably six months.
I also finished Beer Glove #1! I have to block them and weave in all the ends, (Weave ALL the ends?) but I think I'm going to wait to do that untilcrankyoldman can try them on in person, so they fit her perfectly and I can fix any little holes that appear when she puts them on. This is a thing with fingerless gloves; sometimes the stitches gap strangely where the fingers meet the glove, just because of the way that they're constructed. This is something I've learned to fix, at least. Anyway, this morning on the train I cast on the Beer Glove #2, and during the course of my commute I managed to somehow whip out the entire cuff.
Speaking of whipping things out, I did the entire Sea Crone Cowl on Sunday during my library shift and then on the train Monday. It only took me as long as it did because I wasn't working on it very hard on Sunday - considering how fast it went on the train when I was actually knitting on it (as opposed to putting it down and fucking around every five minutes), if I'd focused on it it probably would've taken me less than three hours. Which was, admittedly, exactly what it was supposed to do, and why I picked the project.
On the other hand, the other three-hour project I picked is turning into a major pain in the neck. I'm starting to think this yarn is cursed, really. Tempe Yarn and Fiber does yarn "grab bags" where they put three skeins of a similar colorway in discontinued yarn in bags, and challenge you to make something with them. I picked it up back in the summer, right before my brother's wedding, and the colorway range was yellow-orange. Which - okay, I'm not remotely a yellow-orange kind of girl, so I knew it would be for someone else. So I ended up with a small ball of bamboo (just under 100 yards) in a "autumn leaves" sort of colorway (variegated red to yellow); a ball of a Cascade Yarns pima/tencel blend in sunshine yellow; and a weird orange ball with little yellow flowers (and I can't put my hands on it to check the fiber content right now) that reminds me of dish scrubby material. Anyway, the bamboo skein is really pretty, and I've tried to turn it into a project several times without any success. The latest attempt is a Calorimetry, which is sort of a hat without a top, designed to keep your ears warm without having to shove all your hair into a hat. I tried a crochet version, decided I didn't like the fabric that was being produced, and switched to the cabled knit version. Unfortunately the only needles of that size that I could find as I was running out the door to work last night were my Addi Turbos, which are WAY too slippery for the yarn and the small, semi-complicated nature of the project. So that was a massive fail. I'm trying to decide whether I'm going to frog it and switch to the straight needles the project actually CALLS for, or give it up and do something else.
So a couple of you suggested, in response to my last post, that I should write a book. I don't know that I'm up to book level yet, but what I'm thinking about actually doing is starting a blog. In it, I would talk about emotional honesty, and healing the damage caused by bad relationships, and building healthy ones, and knitting (and crochet and spinning and weaving). Because for some reason, the crafting and the counseling are plied together in my thoughts - maybe because I came to them together, and maybe just because I needed one to work my way into and through the other. There's just something about knitting, the act of making something real, that just is satisfying in a soul-deep way. Like meditation, with yarn. And meditation brings all sorts of people to new realizations.
I don't pretend I have all the answers, but if I can use my experience to help a few people, well, that's what it's there for. Teaching, and sharing, so we can all grow together.
The name I'm considering (thanks tofinch's suggestion) is Ripping Back, which both the knitting term for undoing rows of stitches to fix an error, and what you need to do to expose yourself in a way that honesty is possible. You have to rip back the shields, and the masks, and the facade that is the "cult of okay." So this will be a blog about admitting mistakes, working to fix them, and progressing from there, both in the emotional and the knitting sense.
What do you guys think? Would you follow me elsewhere?
I finally finished finishing the One-Up Mushroom baby hat for my friend's brand-new extra life. I did all the crochet in a couple of hours, and then let it sit waiting to have the spots attached because
I also finished Beer Glove #1! I have to block them and weave in all the ends, (Weave ALL the ends?) but I think I'm going to wait to do that until
crankyoldman can try them on in person, so they fit her perfectly and I can fix any little holes that appear when she puts them on. This is a thing with fingerless gloves; sometimes the stitches gap strangely where the fingers meet the glove, just because of the way that they're constructed. This is something I've learned to fix, at least. Anyway, this morning on the train I cast on the Beer Glove #2, and during the course of my commute I managed to somehow whip out the entire cuff.Speaking of whipping things out, I did the entire Sea Crone Cowl on Sunday during my library shift and then on the train Monday. It only took me as long as it did because I wasn't working on it very hard on Sunday - considering how fast it went on the train when I was actually knitting on it (as opposed to putting it down and fucking around every five minutes), if I'd focused on it it probably would've taken me less than three hours. Which was, admittedly, exactly what it was supposed to do, and why I picked the project.
On the other hand, the other three-hour project I picked is turning into a major pain in the neck. I'm starting to think this yarn is cursed, really. Tempe Yarn and Fiber does yarn "grab bags" where they put three skeins of a similar colorway in discontinued yarn in bags, and challenge you to make something with them. I picked it up back in the summer, right before my brother's wedding, and the colorway range was yellow-orange. Which - okay, I'm not remotely a yellow-orange kind of girl, so I knew it would be for someone else. So I ended up with a small ball of bamboo (just under 100 yards) in a "autumn leaves" sort of colorway (variegated red to yellow); a ball of a Cascade Yarns pima/tencel blend in sunshine yellow; and a weird orange ball with little yellow flowers (and I can't put my hands on it to check the fiber content right now) that reminds me of dish scrubby material. Anyway, the bamboo skein is really pretty, and I've tried to turn it into a project several times without any success. The latest attempt is a Calorimetry, which is sort of a hat without a top, designed to keep your ears warm without having to shove all your hair into a hat. I tried a crochet version, decided I didn't like the fabric that was being produced, and switched to the cabled knit version. Unfortunately the only needles of that size that I could find as I was running out the door to work last night were my Addi Turbos, which are WAY too slippery for the yarn and the small, semi-complicated nature of the project. So that was a massive fail. I'm trying to decide whether I'm going to frog it and switch to the straight needles the project actually CALLS for, or give it up and do something else.
So a couple of you suggested, in response to my last post, that I should write a book. I don't know that I'm up to book level yet, but what I'm thinking about actually doing is starting a blog. In it, I would talk about emotional honesty, and healing the damage caused by bad relationships, and building healthy ones, and knitting (and crochet and spinning and weaving). Because for some reason, the crafting and the counseling are plied together in my thoughts - maybe because I came to them together, and maybe just because I needed one to work my way into and through the other. There's just something about knitting, the act of making something real, that just is satisfying in a soul-deep way. Like meditation, with yarn. And meditation brings all sorts of people to new realizations.
I don't pretend I have all the answers, but if I can use my experience to help a few people, well, that's what it's there for. Teaching, and sharing, so we can all grow together.
The name I'm considering (thanks to
finch's suggestion) is Ripping Back, which both the knitting term for undoing rows of stitches to fix an error, and what you need to do to expose yourself in a way that honesty is possible. You have to rip back the shields, and the masks, and the facade that is the "cult of okay." So this will be a blog about admitting mistakes, working to fix them, and progressing from there, both in the emotional and the knitting sense.What do you guys think? Would you follow me elsewhere?