Progress of a Sort

Today tastes like Midori margaritas with too much salt. Just as the lovely melony yum starts to kick in--blammo comes the saline!

Progress is being made on all the projects posted earlier this year. The charcoal thing is longer and greyer, the red stole is . . . longer and redder, and the castle blanket is more colorful in a willy-nilly way.

As mentioned earlier, I plan for no posts of the lace until we block--all the patterns are set, and unblocked lace looks like wet Kleenex. Seriously. It's crumply and rumply and you can't see the places and spaces that make it dandy. I suppose I could photo on the tile floor to give a sense of the thing growing, but I'd almost rather go to blogthings dot com and post a quiz result.

Currently I'm working to reduce the number of projects for other folks in the paper realm. 2007 is all about me after all. I've determined that I'm going to complete my obligations to others and then not volunteer for any more until I get my projects down to a manageable size. Yes, knowing me, this may take the rest of my life. I am very selfishly okay with that.

But it feels good to have reduced the decos down again, and to know that once I eat my obligations for the swaps I'm in, I'm done. I like decos--I like planning them, and finding just the right images for my themes, and finding the right stuff for others' themes and creating the composition. But I'm really not okay with the poor rate of return.

In one group I've sent out six decos over a year. I know where one is, and I have not received ANY home. One in particular (and not the one where I know where it is) is near and dear to me, and as far as I know, it's in a landfill somewhere.

Fortunately I bought more materials to re-create it as soon as I finished it and was having trouble prying it out of my fingers to mail. Unfortunately, I haven't had the time to assemble it.

That's how it goes, ennit? I have an art journal with stuff and things and inspiration wedged in the pages that needs to be glued in--haven't done that yet, either. I have books of techniques to play with that would yield scrumptious backgrounds to place focal images on that could then be journaled in with text winding among the pictures, or that could even have pages printed on the computer and then glued on before the book was finally bound.

Yup. Sounds familiar. So I'm focused on getting the bulge moving, closing the doors behind me (gently, gently, I wasn't raised in a barn after all). I'll probably continue with one deco group whose raisin meal¹ is to finish half-completed decos and get then home to their owners, full of art from various artists in the owner's chosen theme. I like to work in them, I just don't like having to make them on schedule, send them on schedule, and then wait . . . and wait . . . and wait for them to come home at last.


1. Raison d'etre = raisin d'entree = raisin meal. B'dum bum ching. I'm here all week; try the pork roast.