I'm having a very busy day trying to finish my piece for that Loop exhibition next week, so I'm just going to link a VERY interesting blog post about knitting/crochet and the idea of "difficulty". Take it away, Orata.
(I'll post my response later in the week. I constantly encounter this question about "difficulty" in my work and have a few things to say about it)
I went out for a walk in the sunshine today.
Along the way I passed one of my favourite pieces of street art. Seeing this little happy seal never fails to cheer me up. Look at his wibble face!
Usually any graffiti or street art gets removed rather swiftly, but this little fellow has graced the side of the bridge for as long as I can remember. Maybe he cheers up the park wardens too?
Leaving the footpath running through the arboretum, I entered the actual Botanical Gardens. Snowdrops, croci and this almost-in-bloom tree. The sun continued to shine. I saw students curling up on benches trying to focus on their books (and failing miserably).
I honestly felt tempted to buy myself some coffee and a croissant, and join the students on the benches but I've been down this road before and know the Sore Throat and Blocked Nose consequences far too well.
Besides, I had errands to run like a proper grown-up. Well, if you saw my errands you'd refuse to believe I'm a grown-up but I'll save that for a later post..
Needless to say, I was also cheered by my lovely sunshine-yellow beret that I am wearing a lot at the moment. My beret matches the yellow crocus flowers, I discovered, which pleases me no end.
Then I came home to find my postie had left a parcel for me. I had ordered some African wax print cotton off eBay and it arrived today! Hooray!
My fabric is lovely and I had a very, very pleasant transaction with the eBay seller (who I recommend wholeheartedly - how often can you say that about eBay sellers?). The fabric is earmarked for the Crepe dress which I have a notion to make many, many times. I just need to find fabric for the sash (maybe do the sash out of the same fabric? It is so busy it doesn't need to be broken up by a solid colour) and, of course, find the time..
.. because right now I'm really, really busy trying to make my piece for the Tramway exhibition work. Right now I have a bucket wallpaper paste and a bag of old newspapers lurking in my bathroom. No prizes for guessing what we've been up to tonight.
Get involved. There is still time for you to knit a square and send it in to Janssen & Jetson. If you are in Glasgow, why not volunteer? You can help stitch the blanket together, you can donate your time and ushering skills, or you can help spread the good word.
I'm currently reading Zadie Smith's On Beauty. The book is marred by a faint (if constant) whiff of hysteria which I'm finding rather unappealing despite the novel's veneer of congenial humour and sly take on family and academia. I am not sure I'll finish the book but I cannot really pinpoint why. Meanwhile, my thoughts go out to my friends in New Zealand. Most of my friends are North Islanders but I'm still rattled by the Christchurch earthquake. Friends of friends are still missing. I'm not a religious person, so I cannot pray, but I can at least sit here and hope for good tidings.
Finally, on a personal note, things are a bit rough at the moment for one reason or another. I'm trying to find joy in small things but even this exercise is becoming somewhat sluggish. Perhaps the long winter is getting to me. Perhaps I just need to make my peace with some relatively big chunks of my life. I don't know. Solutions/answers to the usual address, please.
At a recent knitting group, a friend worried that I would become a Sewer rather than a Knitter. Fear not. I may have spent a small fortune in a fabric shop yesterday but my first love remains knitting. And I have actually been knitting away on a couple of projects. To wit:
Addendum: Knitting as Therapy. A very good blog post about body image, self-acceptance, and knitting. Warmly recommend. I'm not the emotional sort but even I had a lump in my throat after reading this.
Pause, rewind. Sewing is a different process to knitting. So far I have traced the pattern, worked up a toile (muslin) and discovered that I need to move the bust darts higher as well as doing a FBA. It is sort of a pre-process prior to making the actual garment out of the fancy fabric. Had this been knitting, I would have swatched using the actual yarn and probably be well under way making the actual thing itself.
Different processes. It's interesting.
Anyway. Random selection of linky bits: + The George Hotel, Glasgow. If you like urban decay, faded glamour or Trainspotting (the film, not the activity) + Is Denmark Breaching Human Rights? The other reason why I left Denmark. Even if D has a so-called "correct" skin tone and is an EU citizen, he would still get so much flak. No way would I put him through that. + BBC4 - The Beauty of Books. For a programme series apparently about the materiality of books, it does boast a suspicious amount of textual critics and biblical scholars. I was not impressed but I'm not exactly a layman. You might like it? + 100 Young Adult Books For the Feminist Reader. I spot certain omissions (such as this and this) but everyone's got opinions and it's a handy list. + Are you a knitter of the literary persuasion? Why not give the Beowulf socks a go?
Finally, I've derived great enjoyment from this video tonight.. Enjoy!