I’ve had a bit more time to think about these now, I think this is do-able.

1. Enjoy my knitting. I’m pretty good at this already, but sometimes I just need to remember that this is a hobby. For fun.
2. Finish one thing per month. I can get pretty busy, just look at me this month. 5 12-hour days, and one 8-hour day per week. Because this can happen, I used the word ‘thing’. This can include anything that gets bound off. In all of March, I just finish one sleeve of a sweater? That’s okay, it’s a thing! One sock? One mitten? All things!
3. I have two sweater’s worth of yarn in my stash at the moment (and one on the way). By the end of the year, I want at least one knitted sweater done. I’m going to cross my fingers for two, but I won’t hold my breath. (see schedule note in R.R. 2)
4. Leave more comments on people’s blogs.
5. Meet knitters in this city, make friends.

This month’s finished thing? Hopefully Clapotis. I’ve dropped 9 stitches so far, and I only need to drop 13 total before I start decreasing. Then it’ll fly.

I went Boxing Day shopping today. The boyfriend was getting up early (ish) to be at Best Buy at 8am. I got up too, and got the two things I went for: a Bluetooth USB dealie for the MIGHTY MOUSE I got for Christmas (I love my boyfriend), and the M*A*S*H Martinis and Medecine Collection for (get this) $219! That is 37% off! And I may already have Seasons 1-4, but this big hulk of box is still less than buying the other 7 individually. I’m going to sell them somehow. Ebay? Pawn shop? Something.

I made myself a deal, so I wouldn’t go spending every cent I own, that if Best Buy had M*A*S*H I wouldn’t go to the yarn store. Now I have lots to watch while I knit up my stash! Hopefully starting a new job in February, which should give me some more spending money. mwahahaha.

Knit more on Endpaper #2 today, I’m up to where the thumb increases start. Tomorrow is going to be a marathon of D&D, so I’m hoping to possibly finish, or at least get to the end of the thumb shaping.

Thursday I have to go back to work. bah. But, only three days before the weekend! Then the craziness of work + rehearsals start, so I’m not expecting much knitting or blogging time for that whole month. Also not much seeing the boyfriend time, which is very sad. But come tech week, he’ll be getting paid to spend time with me. (the show I’m working on is going into his theatre, just like in October).

After some intensive Googling, I got my progress bars to work again. The fix for Blogger Beta is here.
Other question… oh wait. Duh. Just answered own question, never mind.

Having those progress bars up is interesting, because I only have 3 projects going! I suppose some would say that that is enough, but I have seen sidebars full of these things. I don’t think more than one project is wrong. Sometimes you are just in a mood to knit something different. Can you tell I really want to start a new project?
I want to make a sweater, but I don’t feel like working on my Bubbly Jacket. I’m still kinda worried it will make me look like a gorilla.

I’ve been looking at a lot of Rowan patterns. We just got Rowan’s Vintage Knits in at work, and I had a lot of fun leafing through it. There’s lots I want to knit in there. Also, I’ve been browsing the Rowan mags on the internet (at work… shh) and I’ve seen lots in there too. Rowan 40 has lots, and there are even a few in the much-reviled Rowan 39. And I own 38, which has stuff too. And Denim People. Oh, and I want to make something else out of Kidsilk Haze. For me this time.

I have a sweater’s worth of Katia Dianat that I bought way back when. I’m not so in love with it anymore. I’ve been thinking about eBaying it. It is perfectly good yarn, a lovely red, I’m just not feeling the love anymore. Right now, I want tweed, I want semi-solids, I don’t want something that is just RED. A very lovely red though it may be.

Oh well, I should wrap prezzies before Christmas jumps out at me from behind the tree.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 0 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

505447 people with my first name, 0 with my last name (but 570 with a common mis-spelling of that name). heh heh heh, mum always said I was special!
Mum is special-er though, 0 people have her first name, and only 720 have her last (maiden) name. I’m honestly surprised even that many do. So if you put her married name in there… she’s the only one!

I wonder if there is a similar Canadian site? Or British, it would be interesting to see what my last name brings up in a British version.

Quick apology post, for blogger beta.
I love it, I love that there is a tagging feature. I’ve been going back and editing old posts so they have tags. In some cases, I’ve had to take out the old makeshift way I was tagging my entires, and editing a post, of course, makes it appear on Bloglines. So sorry for the spam.

Or maybe you want to look through my old projects. Crazy person.

I think I may make myself a Christmas stocking this year. I’ve got the material for it already (I went to Value Village today to drop off a bag o’stuff, and left with a red sweater to felt).

Blogger has been improving itself! There is a beta version, and guess what? One of the new features is TAGS! I loved them on LJ (wow, haven’t updated that in…. forever) and was very sad Blogger didn’t have them. I searched the intarweb, and found a few ways around it, and have even been trying to use one, but it just didn’t look pretty. But waiting around worked for once!
Now if only modblog.com hadn’t died before I finished moving all my posts over. I was almost done too.
Of course, this does mean I’m going to have to go back and label every post now.

Still loving CraftMemo. I haven’t found a way to share my stash with you yet, but I emailed CraftMemo to see if it is possible. I put in all my knitting needles tonight. It’s great, although to get the best out of it, you do need a naming convention, so if you set it to show only ‘Needles’ things come up in a good order. I titled things like this: “DPNs 2.5mm” or “Circ 7.0mm/60cm”. Then in the product listing I would note what brand. It seems to work so far, although I may edit them all to put the brand in the title. Not sure yet.

The system has you enter the vendors, so at one point I had to go over the Denise Site, and did you know they’re doing pink sets that support breast cancer research? Cool!

I got my stuff together for Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest today.

The piece is a blanket I started because I wanted some mindless knitting. The yarn was a Bernat Denim yarn, and very soft and lovely. It was a cotton/acrylic mix, I believe. I was going to knit a blanket. As you may or may not be able to tell from the pic, I started in one corner, and somehow thought I could knit something that giant without going mad. I was obviously wrong. So there it is, all packaged up and ready to go. It’s nice to have it off my back, and know it is going to someone who can use it. I included the needles, I don’t need more straight needles.


Oh, and while finding publisher links for my last post, I found my new wallpaper. On Potter Craft‘s website, they have two free wallpapers. And surprisingly, I went with the non-knitting-related one! It works perfectly because I flipped it horizontally, so although you can’t read the book credit any more, it doesn’t matter because the left side is the side my dock is on, so there’s just teddy bears peeking out from under my dock. Very sweet, and the book (Toys to Sew) is adorable and I’d buy it if I could only sew.

I finished Coronet tonight!

No model shot, as the boyfriend is playing computer games. I don’t like doing the whole in-the-bathroom mirror thing either. So sometime you may get to see me in my hatty goodness.

What makes me very excited is the my boyfriend thought it was cool, and said so! Said he may even want one for himself, in say, navy.

The only mod I made to the pattern was to knit the body of the hat in reverse stockingette. Or rather, I knit stockingette, then turned it the other way out. I like the way it looks, it’s a bit more textured seeing the ‘wrong’ side rather than the ‘right’.
Also, I thought it was supposed to be 8″, so I did the first decrease row, then realised that it was supposed to be 9″. I knit a few more rows, then continued decreasing, and it didn’t seem to make a difference.
Oh, and yeah, after picking up the stitches around the band, I forgot I was supposed to do a purl row. So that was knit one row (my oops), then purl one row (rather than tinking back a whole row).
It looks like I wasn’t paying too much attention to the pattern. Oh well, this is less for style, and more to keep me warm and toasty the next time it gets to -38C.

Now, do I finish that sweater sleeve, so that is at least done, or start on the fingerless mitts?

Coronet so far. It says to knit until it is 8″ from the bottom of the band, It’s about 5″ right now.

I was listening to the CraftSanity podcast the other day, the one where she is talking to two ladies from KnittaPlease. I really like what they do, I think it’s great fun. Then, I got to actually thinking about it, and it’s not a concept that can work here. When it can get down to -40C or colder overnight, putting a blanket around a pole would not be as appreciated as giving a blanket to a homeless person. The shelters are all full, people do indeed sleep outside in this weather, wondering if they’ll wake up in the morning. If I could knit fast enough, I’d knit a blanket, but it wouldn’t be done until the heat of summer.

I think tomorrow, I bake cookies.

But for now, I answer questions for the Stranded! Knitalong.

What are your projects for this knitalong?
I have just one project, Eunny’s Endpaper Mitts. I posted the yarn for them a few posts below. I’m trying to be good about finishing stuff, so I’m not going to start until I finish my Coronet (pay no attention to that sweater behind the curtain!).

Is this your first colorwork project? If it isn’t, what was your first, and has it survived the test of time?
This was my first colourwork project:

Huntingdon Castle, it’s on the cover of IK fall (or was it winter…) 2004. It got that far, then I ripped it. That was almost two (!!) years ago now, in March of 2005. I think I got the hang of the colourwork, but the yarn was wrong for the pattern, if I remember my knitting was a little loose (it was a bit too drapey), and it has no shaping. That last reason is now the one I cling to when I look at that lovely picture of 1/3 of a sweater, and think about the sleeve that is staring at me from the top of the bookcase…
But yeah, that was my first colourwork, and it didn’t even stand the test of being finished. I haven’t done any since then, so I feel like I’ve never done it before. Also, the yarn for the mitts is much thinner. Although, I always felt with that yarn that it was too defined for colourwork. Colourwork needs a bit of a fuzz, I think. That stuff was like perfectly round rope, but soft. I’ll definitely make something with it, I just don’t know what.

Something very interesting in the Craft: blog today. This article about a woman doing a one-person show, that needs your knitting input! Actually, your unfinished knitting projects. For sending something to her, you get a ‘Set Construction’ credit in the program. After it’s over, the bits get sewn into blankets and given to charities. I’m defnitely going to send her something, it’s my duty as both a knitter and a theatre tech. I wonder if I can put this on my resume…

The other interesting crafty thing of the day is I got my first issue of Craft:! Hurrah! I’ve only flipped through so far, but it seems really great.

I haven’t knit too much more on my Coronet hat, what with making dinners, cleaning, dishes and laundry, but hopefully I’ll get to it soon. I did the grafting, picked up the stitches, and got about 5 rows knitted.

We broke a 110-year old record temperature here today. It was -27C (I think) on the thermometer, and -39C with windchill. DAMN COLD.

I’ve put the sweater aside for bit. It’s SO. DAMN. COLD. here I decided I needed to knit myself a hat. I’m too poor to buy any more yarn (haven’t started those fingerless mitts yet, I’ll explain after some hat-ness), so I went through what I had in my stash.
My original plan was to make a hat out of some alpaca yarn I’ve have for a while. The brand is called ‘alpaca Indiecita’ and I’ve had it since about… *thinks* October 2003, so it’s time it got used. I’ve got some charcoal grey, and some cream. Looking at it, I realised the gauge was pretty small, and if I wanted a hat any time this year, I’d need to double it. I doubled, swatched, and found that it was close enough to the gauge for Coronet from Knitty! So I started. Crappy photos because the sun set at 4:30pm today, so no natural light. You may notice some ends hanging out the sides. Let’s take a closer look at those, shall we?

Now, why would a solid colour band have so many ends? The project that I originally bought this yarn for, and started waaay back in October 2003 was a sideways-knit garter stitch scarf, with a self fringe. In other words, at least a ball of this stuff was in lengths. And as I’m using them doubled, each change is four ends. Each scarf-length did about three repeats of the cable pattern. I’m making the medium size, even though I most definitely have a large head, as that is what my gauge is dictating. I did 17 cable repeats, which fits my head just snugly enough, rather than the 18 the pattern says to.
I think I may knit the body of the hat in reverse stockingette, because I do like the way it looks. I’m also undecided as to whether I will knit any of the cream in with the charcoal. That’s what the swatch I made was. I ripped it out though. I almost always rip out my swatches once I’ve found and noted gauge, I should really stop doing that so I can have something to refer to.

I also really wanted to start those fingerless mitts of Eunny’s, and I wound the one skein into a ball, and dug the end out of the other one (I hate those centre-pull balls! I can never find the end, I dug out about half of the yarn entrails before I found the end), and then was having problems deciding what size I need to make. I’m right between small and medium, so I’m not sure. Also, I thought any sock yarn would do, so I didn’t think of gauge, and I don’t have the yarn with me right now, but I think I’ve got a different size of yarn that Eunny made hers out of, so I’m going to have to think long and hard about that.

In other news, it was -32C outside today. So I didn’t go outside. I think I will weave in some ends now, so I can get some hat going tomorrow.

It’s been a very slow week in blogland with all you American bloggers off stuffing yourselves silly. Come back please? Entertain me with your knitting stories!

Dear Apple,
I love your products, I really do. I’ve had an iPod for over two years now, and an iBook for a year and a half. I have been lusting after the Mighty Mouse for a while now too, especially since it went all sexy and wireless.
But do you have to send me the advertising emails? The MacBooks are calling me, and I have nowhere near enough money to buy one. Nor do I need a new computer, when this one is fine.
I know I could unsubscribe, but then I might miss out on the next new thing. And as head of the Mac section at work, that would be bad.
Just please don’t tempt me so, dear Apple.

Heather

I just had a very enjoyable shopping morning, and only spent $40, and got a damn good stash of stuff with it.

My first stop was my LYS. I knew what I wanted when I went in, and that’s all I left with. Aren’t you proud? I needed more roving for my thrummed mits. I wasn’t expecting a great colour match, but I think I got a not-too-bad match:
‘
I figure with a bit of mixing, there won’t be too much difference. I was very happy to find those small packs, because the other stuff they had was big lots of Lorna’s Laces roving.

My next stop was Value Village, where I got some bargains. A couple old, tattered knitting patterns for 29 cents. Not planning on knitting them, but they’re in English and French (yay Canada) and I’m going to use them for ATCs, collage, etc. Also got a picture book to use just for the pictures, a new tea towel with a blue and white pasta print, and a small doily I’m currently tea-dying. All for $10.
I like the idea of using old pictures and neat, aged pages from old books in various crafts, but my inner bookworm always SCREAMS at the thought of cutting up a book. There was a used bookstore back home a few years ago that was going out of business, so everything was 70% off in the last few days. I bought up tons of old, tattery books to make book boxes out of. I could never bring myself to do it. And I now have a closet full os slightly musty books. Nothing valuable or antique, but I still couldn’t do it. The book I got today is more for the photos, it’s all old movie-musical photos, and pretty tattered to begin with, so I think I’ll be able to do it.

My last stop was Michaels. Now, as an ex-employee I should have remembered that on Saturdays Michaels turns into hell on earth, but I apparently forgot. I went in only for glue (shame, I know, having no glue in the house, and calling myself a crafter) but came out with something else. In my defence, I did get them to give me the weekly 50% off coupon, so it was only $15. I am so enamoured of it, I made a collage:

They had them in the scrapbook section (is it just me, or does it grow each time you go in?) but it’s just a great craft basket in general. There’s all the pockets, the inside is all divided, there’s a big zippy pocket on the back, and the drawer on the bottom! So cool!

I’m just a geek for pockets, boxes, and baskets, so this is all my obsessions in one.

All in all a good day. I spent more than intended (all I needed was roving and glue) but I got some good, useful stuff.

So far I’ve kept up with my own personal NaCoWrMo, I am very proud.

I’ve been having the urge to craft lately. I really want to run a craft business again. Nothing terribly serious, just something to do after work, make some extra money. Maybe find that I’ve hit on the newest trend and am now making enough to just craft my days away….
Okay, well that last sentence is a dream. The rest is pretty realistic. I want to buy a soldering iron.

I’ve also joined a swap on Craftster, because I want to get back in to making things. Not just knitting. I joined the ATC swap. It seemed like a good one to join, I just have to produce one ATC (2.5″ by 3.5″, it stands for Artist Trading Card) and send it out. A nice, gentle nudge back into other crafts.
The sad thing is that all my craft supplies (apart from the knitting stuff…) is back at my parents’ house. Although that can work for this swap, I think it’ll just make me be more creative by using what I have.

I’ve been reading the quilting books at work lately. Which is funny, because I can barely use a sewing machine! I’ll post a mini-review of one of my favourites soon.

I wish I was independantly wealthy. I just want to sit and craft all day. Damn my 9-5 job. DAMN I say.

Speaking of job, as you may have read here before, I’m head of the crafts section at the bookstore I work at. I am now also head of the Mac section. <3 the Mac. Now I just have to convince work that they need to give me money for a new iBook, so I'll know what all the new manuals are about. :)
And if you are a Mac-user, and haven’t seen MacStyles yet, get thee hence!

When I have the money, I think I want mine to look like this:

But then again there are so many choices…

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about crafting for fun and profit. And I think you need to be careful how you mix the two.
I want to make some crafts that can supplement my income. Don’t worry, I’m not going to go quite my dayjob or anything, but I just wanted something a little extra.
Thinking about that, the crafts I’ve done before, and thinking about the business mum had, I think that if you’re going to craft for profit, you need to enjoy what you do, but sometimes it’s a good idea if it isn’t your main craft. Now, ‘main’ may not mean the one you do the most (because if you have a business, you’re probably doing that a lot) it means the one you always go back to, your love.

I think I see myself making jewelry. Now, I really like doing fiddly tiny stuff, so that’s fine. I would never knit for profit. I tried that, with my uni craft fairs. I knit as a hobby, as a passtime, as something to relax. I don’t want to have to stress about deadlines. But say I started making jewelry, I could be doing that one Saturday, get frustrated or tired of it, and then I could go relax and knit. If something I was knitting for a show was frustrating me, I wouldn’t have another craft to turn to.

Knitting for me is relaxation.

Right now I need to find my perfect business craft.

I am very sad. So sad I didn’t post this last night when I discovered it.
I still don’t have enough roving to finish my mittens. I realise that yes, I was making the thrums pretty big, but then, I had a whole new clump of roving, as well as what was left over from the first mit. I guess the thrums were extra-super big, because yesterday night I lifted up one clump of roving, expecting to find more underneath, but no. I’d used it.

I have just enough (according to my kitchen scale) to finish the body of the mit, but none for the thumb. I suppose I need to rip it all out and re-do the thrums. I really don’t want to do that a second time. I may turn it inside out and pick bits of the big thrums. Timewise, ripping would probably be more sensible, but this method makes me feel better. blargh.

Well, at least my hands will be super-puffy-warm

Browsing the internets, as I do, I’ve noticed that it’s NationalNovelWritingMonth again, and someone has come up with National Sweater Knitting Month (although I don’t know how NaNoSweMo is the acronym… althoug it is easier to say that NaSwKniMo).
Now, I don’t have the time (or the ambition) to write a novel ever, much less in a month. While I would love to knit a sweater this month, and even have a tiny part of a sleeve started, I know I won’t finish. I’m slow. I don’t have the time.

What I do want to do is improve my blog-surfing manners. For this entire month, I pledge to leave at least one comment per day. I have 81 feeds in my bloglines, I check it over breakfast in the morning, and always throughout the evening, while I’m knitting or whatever. But what I never do is comment. I know I love seeing the comment notifications in my inbox when someone comments here. I’m hoping that by forcing myself to do it this month, it’ll be easier, more natural later on.

I’m sort of working on this principle: in grade 12, my more-religious-than-me roommate gave up biting her fingernails for Lent. I expressed some opinion of doubt, so she told me I’d never be able to give up chocolate for 40 days. So we both gave up stuff, and watched each other like hawks, and both survived without breaking our promises. After that, I was so used to not eating chocolate, I just didn’t get the cravings anymore.

And it isn’t that commenting is a chore, either. I know people must like getting them (I do!), it’s great to get feedback, it doesn’t take long, but for some reason I just don’t. It only takes a second to command-click (don’t knock the Mac. Love the Mac. Screw right-clicking) on the post I want to comment on. With it in another tab, I can even finish perusing Bloglines before commenting, it doesn’t need to be immediate. But for some reason, I don’t.

But this month, I will. At least one comment posted by me, every day. Maybe more. Not Less! I started this blog to connect with people. I realise now that you can’t just wait for people to flock to you. You must go out, and comment, my children.

I have already left today’s comment, now I knit. I want mittens for Monday.

Oh. Damn. Just checked the long-term weather, apparently it’s warming up on Monday. We get plus temperatures! Oh well, still want to finish the mittens so I’m prepared for the next time it gets past -10C. That’s when my little fleece gloves are fairly useless.

I’ve been thinking a lot about crafts lately. A Lot. I’ve mentioned before that I was put in charge of the craft book section in the bookstore I work at. This has opened my eyes to so much more that is out there.

It’s also got me thinking about my crafty history and my crafty future. And what is a blog for apart from recording?

My mum has always been a very crafty person. Very crafty, grew up in the 60s, so a little hippie-ish, always in to making things. Very very good with a sewing machine.
When I was little, she not only ran her own craft business, she ran our town’s big Christmas craft fair. So from the time I was about 3ish, she was a stay-at-home mum, so I spent a lot of time in the basement workroom, while she made teddy bears. I always played with the scraps from her garbage can.
When it came to craft fair time, I always wanted to be part of it, so one year mum let me have a card table space beside hers. I made (and when I say “I” I mean I made a few before I got bored and dad did the rest) origami ornaments and sold them for a whopping $0.50 each. It went over well, mainly because of my chubby 5-year-old cheeks, I think.
The next year I made more of them myself, plus some origami boxes filled with candy.
After a few years of origami, I was tired of that, so I switched to candles. I made poured candles in Goodwill mugs, goblets, whatever I could find that could withstand the heat. I also did rolled beeswax candles. Then I went away to school, and didn’t have the time for crafting for the fair anymore.
Mum also changed crafts. The fair got bigger and bigger as I grew up, and she went from teddy bears to placemats and other kitcheny things to Christmas ornaments. Christmas ornaments were the big thing.
Mum bought a fake Christmas tree when I was quite young, also some years the house would be fully decorated in November. She did courses on making Christmas ornaments and decorating, which ended with a tour of our house.

As I said, my mum is very crafty. Less so since the move to the city, now most of her energy is directed towards antiques and eBay. I started cross-stitching because I wanted to be just like mum. The two of us even pressured dad into starting one, which is amusing, because he is the only one who actually finished his project of the time. I think he’s crafty too, I have some vauge very young memories of him painting. I found the paintbox a few years ago, I don’t know why he stopped. He is a dentist, which is in a way, a craft: it certainly has the fine motor skills of things like tiny needle-work and model-making. Oh, and his sister! My auntie Judith is one of the craftiest people I know, apart from mum. Only unlike mum and I, she finishes projects. She’s done all sorts of things (their house is full of them!) but she is really involved in lace-making. Not knitting, but… is it called tatting? I’m not even sure. She also got me re-interested in beading the last time we visited.

I got into knitting a few years ago, when I couldn’t find a summer job. I did two craft fairs in university, the university organized one each year, and I made and sold eyelash scarves (and some of mum’s leftover Christmas ornaments, but shhh, I made them myself) one year, and last year I made more eyelash scarves and felted old sweaters into bags and iPod cosies.

Even though there’s gaps there in my craft fair years, I haven’t slacked onthe crafting. In my 22 years of existance, I’ve tried many of the options out there:
-origami
-friendship bracelets
-cross-stitch
-decorative painting
-Christmas ornaments
-card-making
-rubber-stamping
-polymer clay
-candle-making (poured & rolled)
-beading
-knitting
-soap-making
-re-constructing t-shirts
-altered books
-weaving
-that general ‘crafting’ that usually involves a glue gun, glittler, felt, and construction paper
-sewing, if you count the Robin Hood hat I made for my costume class in uni.

Sewing was the big thing I never got into. Mum is a sewing whiz, has her own serger, even! I got a sewing machine for Chrismas when I was about 10. Never used it more than twice. It’s sitting here in my own apartment now, 12 years later, I want to use it.

Crafting has always been a big part of my life, I’ve got the half-finished projects and extra supplies to prove it. Actually, I only have my knitting stuff here, because on the move out here (in my boyfriend’s Sunfire) I had to chose between my books and my extra craft stuff. That meant almost no debate. But it means I don’t even have white glue! a glue gun! Needle-nose pliers! acryilc paint! It’s very odd, especially when I’m in such a crafty mood as recently.

I want to run my own crafty business, from home. I want to organize an indy craft fair in this city. I want to try spinning (taking a class at Make 1 in a couple weeks) I want to try wet felting, needle felting, quilting, sewing… I’ve also got all sorts of ideas for Christmas decorating…

I’m on handcrafting overload, I just want to stay home and do it all, to actually have the time. But I work 9-5, I come home and have dinner, then I end up frittering away time getting even more ideas on the blogs. When I finally stop that, I then spend a good hour going through the not-really-organized craft/computer room, to confirm that I really did leave my trusty glue-gun at home. I’ve had that since I was 12!

Then it’s time for tea and bed.
I’ve got all this pent-up craftness inside that needs to get out.

I used to be a crafterfly: I’d be al enthused about beading for a while, buy all the supplies, make a few pretty things, then ohmygod look what you can do with these nifty sheets of wax! Knitting is the longest I’ve (actively) stuck with any craft.* I love it, even though I’m slow at it. I could never knit anything more than short novelty scarves for a craft fair. But wearing my own handmade socks is just amazing. As for a sweater I’ve made myself… ooooh.
And yet I still have all these other itches in my fingers. Whatever I start will take away from knitting time. But then, all my thinking about other crafts, and blogsurfing for other crafts takes away that knitting time.

I don’t craft to save or improve lives (except maybe my own), I’m never going to be asked to write a book, I don’t think my works will inspire others, I just have this urge to create and it’s feeling sadder and sadder that I spend 8 hours a day selling stuff (admittedly, books) when I could be crafting. I’d spend the day crafting, and relax in the evenings with my knitting. I’d have funky clothes, a deliciously decorated house, and warm baking smells wafting through it all the time. I wouldn’t sit around in sweats, broke from having no job, and 300 pounds from all that home baking. Nosiree.

Don’t even get me started on my sudden need to go thrifting…

*I have technically been working on the same cross-stitch since I was 12, in that it’s been sitting, half-finished in its hand-made bag for 10 years.

I like setting iTunes to random. I have 7 days worth of music (or just under 9.5GB), so I can get a whole lot of random. But I also like patterns. I’ve found the greatest thing to do to make interesting yet random playlists.
It’s actually an idea I got from someone I worked with in Victoria. She was talking about her brother has really bad insomnia. She and her family have taken to giving him tasks to do to tire him out, or give him something to do rather than stare at the walls. She’ll say something like ‘find all the songs you can that have a whistling solo’ or ‘songs with cowbell’ or whatever.
While I don’t have the time he does, I really liked the idea. Unfortunately, to create a cowbell playlist, I’d have to listen to every song I have (so far I have Honky Tonk Woman by the Rolling Stones), but I’ve made some easier ones. I generally go by title, so I have the ‘Colours’ playlist, the ‘Numbers’ playlist, I just made the ‘Weather’ playlist, I have ‘Days of the Week’, and that’s it so far. It’s great, because there’s a theme, but it never gets restricted to just one genre or artist. the only thing that restricts that is my music collection. One day, I will make the cowbell list. I need to remember to add songs when I hear them.

A few examples:
Weather
Raino – Chilliwack
Full Force Gale – Gordon Lightfoot
Ain’t No Sunshine – Bill Withers
Greased Lightning – John Travolta (hee hee)
Raining in Baltimore – Counting Crows

Numbers
One Week – BNL
Mambo #5 – Lou Bega
Seven Seas of Rhye – Original Cast of We Will Rock You
634-5789 – Wilson Pickett
200lbs of Pure Love – the Red Elvises

Ecclectic and fun, or I think so anyway.

Know any songs with cowbell? I know BTO and the Guess Who have some, but my music library is sadly lacking their songs.

Speaking of BTO, you must listen to ‘Taking Care of Christmas’ sometime in the upcoming holiday season.