The Bristol Stomp Redux

Today tastes like library paste, paper, and adhesive.

I remember in one list I was on, someone posted that she wouldn’t be participating for a while as she had just trashed all her supplies. Someone else posted my thought exactly when they said in response “Why on earth would you do something like that?”

But I tell ya, some nights I understand exactly where the first person was coming from.

I’ve been wrestling with this one design. I have a terrifically knittlerly construction going for a lacy moebius from the center out—and it just isn’t gelling. I get the needle all loaded up, and I’m ready to knit the first of some very very long rows—and I look down at the needle and the article that might go over a min pin’s head and I just can’t bring myself to trust the process and get it going. I want to have it done SOON SOON SOON for fall/winter submissions (which need to be actualized and in various hands by uhm . . . NOW) so I don’t want to invest the time and find that I have indeed created a dog collar. Pout.

So I took it all apart, and spent the evening fuddling around with a less wowie construction, a less wowie lace, practically down to two rows of garter, k2tog yo across, repeat until long enough. And well, the results did not wow me. So the project is currently on the back burner until Monday, when I may feel like dealing with it again. I may just whip up the center and two-three rows of plain knit in scrap yarn to prove that it doesn’t shrink past redemption.

Since my stress reliever was CAUSING stress, I went out to the other studio to play with ATC’s. I had recalled paper-weaving as a fun little technique, and had made a couple of cards much like scaled-down tarted up versions of the construction-paper placemats of kindergarten. I had some papers from a paper swap already about the right size, and some scrap watercolor from blotting mailing labels, so I was all set. Weft weft weft weft, and I was all done. Went to lift the paper . . . riiiiiiip. The header tore, and weft strips floated merrily out like blue and green snow. Buggah!!!!

So I went back in the house before anything else could blow up in my hands. With nothing to do, and a big red mad on. Probably the worst combination possible because the boredom and inactivity heterodyne with the frustration.

I want to start on the story. I was hoping to be able to keep the Big Bad Muse locked in the closet till my birthday, and then begin it as a birthday present to myself. Start April 1, and have 50K words done by May 1, with the general arc and pacing complete. Then polish polish polish and there’s next year’s gift to self. Bind it as a folio edition for haw-haw’s. I have an idea for the form, and I see why the narrator is telling it that way, and I have no ideas at all regarding what will happen along the way. I’m just looking forward to the ride.

But at the same time, with stuff falling apart, do I want to begin another project that lives close to my heart? I love knitting, and paper arts are fun, but writing . . . writing is close to my core in a way that these others are not. Frustration does not equal devastation, after all. Because I did not have an attachment to the outcome of the ATC I wove last night, I was able to pull it from the heap, repair it, and complete it this morning before I left for work. When the old computer went to the silicon graveyard and took all my works with it, it took months for me to write more than a grocery list, and months more to begin getting interested in doing some self-study and writing practice. This will be the first big piece I’ve attempted since the other two were stillborn.

So while I like the symbolism and the neat little cycle, I recognize I ought to strike while the iron is hot, and get the thing rolling now before the window shuts., and it turns back into a painting again. But at the same time, I fear getting started and then having it fall apart on me. I care too much to take the chance, and yet if I don’t risk it, all the caring in the world won’t help me out.