Sweeping out cobwebs

For some reason, there was a conversation at Steve's office about just how much yarn I had. When details were divulged, his boss said it sounded like it was time for me to knit or get off the pot. After a month of moving all of our furniture around, and doing some I-wish-it-was-spring cleaning, I'd just come to that conclusion myself, albeit not quite so... succinctly.

We've switched workspaces, the artist and I. His drafting table faces the windows in the office now, and I'm curled into the corner by the heating vent. The sewing machine is the short side of the L that is my space, and we can both get to it (he learned to sew last week so he could make puppets). This works out better than we'd anticipated actually, and in a celebration of organization and inspiration, I'm trying to be good to my workspace and not overtax it with a bunch of half-baked projects.

I've assembled what I call the "basket of shame". It sits by my desk, full of things I either have to frog or finish. They stare up at me, little orphaned projects... the guilt alone is some serious incentive.

I'm almost done cutting all of our old denim into quilt blocks, and I've salvaged some of the zippers to sew into felted or fabric bags. Just two pairs of jeans left. The denim will be paired with my favorite bright fat quarters in a simple quilt. My grandmother is a quilter, and while this will not even touch her finished pieces, it should be attractive and will make me proud of my use up/make do abilities.

I have a pile of mending sitting by my machine, so I can do an odd bit or two when I have a free moment. Buttons will once again be reunited with plackets, and Steve may get some of his clothing back once it's patched. Pants will be hemmed, shoulder pads will be torn out. And then I'm going to train myself not to look at something and think "it'll be fine if I just...". And hopefully the mending basket will stay empty... ish.

The stack of magazines I was saving, for who remembers what, is gone. Inspiration clipped out, and the chaff recycled. There's a clipboard on my desk with the tidbits I culled, and I flip through that every once in a while, changing the one on top to fit my mindset (a gorgeous cork tiled floor, a gingham quilt, a color combo of orange and aqua).

Maybe it's the full moon, maybe it's the new space for my brain and eyes and hands to play in... but my sleep the last few days has been full of colors and images and project ideas. It is rare that I remember that kind of thing when I wake up, I'm usually more focused on the people and emotions in my dreams. These pictures lasted well beyond that first waking moment, and so I sat with a glass of wine at my desk last night to sketch them out with coloured pencils. I poked through my stacks of fabric, yarn, and ribbon and found matches, and then bundled up my sketch with the appropriate bits and put them in plastic bags. I now have a small pile of projects, stored so I can see their colors, and can pick one up when I feel like working on something. My notes and all the little bits of detritus I think would help are in there. It's a bit scary actually. Like I have some kind of momentum... that I should respect... and do something with.

Unwilling to fully engage in an analysis of my own behavior (I'm never productive AND organized unless I'm baking), I picked up the mohair wrap from the shame basket (if your mother buys you local handspun mohair, you darn well better do something with it), and started to work on it. The voice in the back of my mind was very quiet, and only said it once, but it was clear as a bell... "knit or get off the pot"!

Christmas, Part II

I called this post Christmas Part II, because I got over here to find out that Kate had beat me to the gift update post. I do have some pictures of my progress for you.

This is the first of what will hopefully end up as a pair of fingerless mitts for my mom. She's like me (or technically, I'm like her) in that her hands are always cold. The yarn is a superwash merino from Art Yarns that I used for my own mitts. The colors in the photo are pretty true to how the really look. When choosing colors for Mom, she's very flexible, as long as they fall in to the category she refers to as "Hello Kitty Colors." The pattern is my own design, cobbled together from about three written patterns and my unfailing stubbornness to follow a written pattern.

Next up, a scarf for my mother-in-law. This is a fairly simple and (in my opinion) a slightly boring scarf. I do like the flippy little ruffle on the ends. My MIL is a very sweet woman, who I am very lucky to have drawn in the In-Law lottery. She is always very put together. She doesn't wear clothes so much as she wears outfits. I'm hoping that this will fit in to her outdoor repetoire somewhere. I really hope so, since there are about eleventy-billion stitches in this scarf.

These are the socks least likely to be finished for Christmas. I'm not saying who they are for, since I think she reads this blog and I don't want to disappoint her if they don't get done. I adore these socks, done in a variegated Koigu (the blue/green yarn) and Cherry Tree Hill solid purple. They are knit in a two-color stranded pattern from Charlene Schurch, and I'm so proud of this sock! It's the first time I've been able to get the color work on a stranded sock to properly make it's way around the heel. I even managed to get the heel gusset to stripe like it was supposed to. Love, love, love them. On second thought, maybe they will have to be my Christmas socks and I'll make something else for her. Don't tell her I said that.

Okay, so that sweater for my honey. He and I talked about it yesterday and after a long list of excuses, he said to me "Even if you started that sleeve right this second, it wouldn't be done by Christmas, would it?" No, no it wouldn't. "Why don't you see how much you can get done on your other things before doing mine?" I do so love that man. I'm still feeling guilty about it, though. I've done about four embroidered pieces that will eventually be a quilt/throw for him. These are the two I have photos of today. I can imagine how I want this to look, I just hope I can make my vision a reality. Don't feel too bad for him - he will be getting many fine Christmas presents. They will most likely come from amazon or somewhere else on line. No malls for me. They give me hives.

In other news, I won a trivia contest online, and I won yarn! Yay for free yarn! The online shop is www.sonnyandshear.com and they have a great store. I've gotten a few skeins from them in the past and I found them to have a wonderful selection. I may wait until after the Christmas knitting is done before I go shopping though. I certainly don't need any pretty distractions. Kris from sonny & shear also has a really interesting and well written blog at http://knittingwannabe.typepad.com/. If you need yarn, give them a look!

Next up... another installment of "Who are you and how did you get here?" You won't believe some of them!

Bad Blogger

My god what happened around here? One post in the month of November? And that was from Kate! It appears that my last post was close to a month ago...I'm sorry, I didn't even realize I was being so bad. So, what have I been doing for the past month? Not much, really. Well, not much that I would consider blog-worthy. But I'll tell you anyway. You knew I would.

Work is...work. About the same unending dreariness that it has been for a few months now. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, though. I am so pleased that I have finally found someone to come and take on the position as my assistant manager. Sometimes I think a little unemployment is a good thing. It has seemed for a while now that all the people who we would want working here already have jobs, so the parade of applicants has been a little sparse. I don't think many people realize just how policy and procedure driven banking is. Or how very very involved the government is in banking. To look at some of our more unpopular regulations you would have to assume that we are the last or possibly only chance to stop terrorism funding on the planet. "Hi, you'd like to open a small savings account for your toddler? Great, have a seat and fill out this huge, invasive questionnaire and we should be able to wrap this up before your child has a screaming fit from having to sit in my office for an hour." Okay, it isn't that bad, but it's close. Don't ever utter the words Patriot Act near me unless you want to see someone have a fit of epic proportions. Hate that thing. Bad, BAD thing! Evil! Anyway, my point here was going to be that being a manger in many other fields does not necessarily translate in to a career in banking management. I'm sure many of these people would make great managers, but this isn't something you can pick up in a couple of weeks. I wanted someone with at least some banking experience. As a former teller myself, it can be really hard to have a boss who can not answer the simplest questions about Reg CC or BSA policies. Anyway. I think I may have found just the right person. She's sweet, funny, and smart and seems to be willing to do whatever needs to be done. I like that in a person. Just make a decision and run with it. And she has many years of banking experience which pleases me no end. She starts training on Monday and should be in our office sometime at the beginning of December. Halle-freakin-lujah!

No knitting. I have completely fallen off the "knit gifts for Christmas" train. I have a little over a month left, and I have nothing. I'm still swearing up and down to my darling boy that I will finish his sweater. It was supposed to be done for last Christmas. I don't think it will be done for this one either. Really, all I need to do is seam it up and finish one sleeve. That isn't much, considering how many tiny grey and black stockinette stitches have already been put in to it. Hardly anything at all. I don't know why I have such an aversion towards finishing this sweater (see Things you Might Not Know About Me, #55. Thank you). It's really beautiful and deserves to be finished. It's the first thing I've ever made for Mark that he actually wants, which makes this all the more frustrating for both of us. I put it down a year ago because I was angry with the sleeve, and now it sits around mocking me. I didn't like the sleeve pattern or how it was turning out. I've actually given some thought to frogging the completed sleeve and throwing out the pattern. Having considered it for almost a year now, I don't see why I couldn't seam up the sweater sides, pick up stitches at the sleeve opening and knit the sleeve down in the round with decreases where I want them instead of knitting the thing separately with multiple badly placed increases, which then need to be seamed and grafted to the sweater. I really need to do that. I don't suppose anyone can tell me what size needles I was using? No? I didn't think so. I can't remember either.

To further my ongoing efforts to avoid knitting gifts for Christmas, I thought it might be time for a new project. Not knitting. Still thread, but not knitting. Now if you looked at my project area (which is just fancy talk for a pile of crap on either side of the couch and covering the coffee table) today, mixed in with all the started and frogged knitting projects you would see embroidery floss, needles, hoops and bits and pieces of fabric. Yep, I've decided that the flavor of the month is embroidery. I went from making my kitchen curtains to "hey, I'll finish this quilt I started seven years ago," to "oh...I remember why I didn't finish this, I hate it!" to "well, I'll start another quilt, a better quilt! I'd like to try that thing they call crazy quilting, with all the embroidery." That progressed to "hmmm...I don't really know much about embroidery, I think I'd better go buy me some books and stuff." I'm nothing if not thorough when I throw myself headlong in to a new craft. I like to be prepared. I ordered a kit with a book from a great place called Sublime Stitching that arrived yesterday. I am so pleased! If you haven't been to see their stuff, you really should. Sorry to be an enabler, but who could possibly resist embroidery transfers with dancing Day of the Dead skeletons? I certainly couldn't. All my latest purchases prompted Mark to say "you sure do like string." Master of the understatement, that boy. I do like string. String is good.