Tuesday, June 24, 2008

A Few Days Late . . .

Today tastes like sand, paper, and wind. I meant to post this1 last week, in celebration of the glory of the Oak King (and the birth of the Holly King) but never got around to it because of this miserable summer cold.

Being sick in summer is worse than winter. Hot tea feels good and tastes good in the winter. It's dark late and early, the wind blows, it's dry and brown. There's nothing going on outside of the manufactured festivities. There's no reason to leave your bed.

In the summer--especially now and here--it's light early and late. The sun rises at 4:15 at this time of year. The sun sets around 8:00. It's hot outside, but for those of us who like it hot, that's dandy. However, you can't play Nekkid Hose Monster when you have a cold--the flux of heat and chill isn't good for you. Nor do you really have the energy to run. But of course, you can't sleep--it's hot and light.

Summer colds stink.

(1) Midsummer’s Eve

June 20 rolled around again, and my loony roomie was making plans. “The full moon falls on that night,” she chirped brightly. “We should hold a drum circle, scry our futures in a glass of wine, dance naked with the fairies!”

“Oh, I can tell you our futures,” I said. “Arrested for disturbing the peace.”

Monday, June 09, 2008

TGIM

Today tastes like green chile pork stew where the onions were left on the heat too long and carmelized/burned. With a side of coconut cotton candy. Not quite what I had expected, but workable.

It's been one of those weekends where you'd think I'd be delighted with everything that got done. I think I had eight arms, and every hand full of something.

See, I finished the Neverending Binkie of Modular Doom:




Then this:



became this:



became this:



and this:



became these:




More about the beading and the dyeing in later posts. Promise. Right now, I'm just so glad to be back at work where I can rest and recuperate from the weekend.

Saturday, June 07, 2008

Fourth Review

In February, I made the following Groundhog's Day Resolutions:

1. I will not beat myself up for falling short of perfection with respect to this list.

2. I will complete 9 knitted projects this year.

3. I will complete three spreads per month in the art journal.

And as before, I'm hanging on to 1 and 3 by the skin of my teeth.

I finished a pair of complex socks for Gareth, then a blanket for Project Linus, and a shawl for me.

Now another binkie:



On top of that, I'm keeping up with the exchanges that are near and dear to my heart--the Hideous Fairy, and soon a Beaded Bag. Somehow I forgot to take into account my love of exchanges with strangers when I set up my goals.

I know I've re-thought this ad nauseam, but really, it's the process that matters. If it ain't fun it don't get done, and all that. Now I'm wondering if I can quantify the process of what I do to make it possible to set goals.

I've planned out how I want to play the remainder of the knitting year--I plan to work on this month's binkie as a travel project, and work on Veil of Isis as the home project till July 5, when I hop onto the Tour de France KAL1 (virtually). Then the all-consuming nature of a closed ended KAL will have me carrying the Irtfa'a everywhere with me, knitting away every moment of my waking hours to strive for completion.

Then in August is the Knitting Olympics, and another shawl--PinkLemonKnits' Swan Lake with a similar level of commitment.

Once that fun is over, then I'm planning a Low-Sew version of the Psychedelic Squares and to complete just one more binkie for Linus (which is, yes, on the needles).

The good part is that this will clear my needles of everything that was started at the beginning of the year. Incomplete projects give me hives, so I try not to start too many things.

On the other hand, I'm a polyandrous knitter. I love cables, I love lace, I love simple texture stitches that let me play with color. I love stranded knitting, I love modular knitting, I love bizarre shaping. I love complex projects that tie me to charts, I love easy projects that can be memorized in a moment.

Nine in a year seems to be a reasonably good match for appetite and time. Now if I can only find my happy place with respect to the visual journal.

Four in a year? Perhaps.


1. See, every sporting event on TV is fodder for a knitalong. You start when the
event begins, and shoot for completing the project by the time the event ends. And it gives you something to watch while you knit. The Tour de France begins July 5 and ends July 27.

This ensures that you get to start lots of projects, promise yourself a deadline date for completion, and then start more stuff even if you haven't finished the first. Great for we obsessive types.