Category: crafting

Posted on

Christmas Jumper

It was raining earlier, then the sun came out, now the clouds have returned and the sind wounds (of course I meant ‘wind sounds’, but left that in because a typing spoonerism is pretty weird!) – the WIND SOUNDS a bit rough. Lots to do indoors today – more stuff to do on the website, but at least it’s going okay, and the client is happy.

The knitted jumper’s growing slowly, it seems to be taking ages to get to the point where the sleeves can be separated from the body. I’m working it from the neck down on a circular needle – bit technical there, but what it means is that it should be possible to do the whole thing in one piece without having to sew it together or (my deepest horror), join the sleeves on at the end. I’ve done it that way with crochet a few times (some successful, others not, but with a better record than I’ve had with doing the pieces separately and joining them). I found the method (it’s not exactly a ‘pattern’ because it doesn’t give exact numbers of stitches for size and shape) in a book about knitting all kinds of ‘sweaters’ (it’s American). You start with the neck hole, increase for the shoulders, then keep increasing till it comes down to the bottom of the armholes before starting on the sleeves, and so on. The crucial thing is that you have to keep trying it on – which knitters will understand is a bit tricky when it’s all on a circular needle which is smaller than the circumference of your body. Also it’s complicated by the fact that it’s for my daughter, who like me is broad across the back (and not lacking out front either), but not quite as big as me- there again it’s a Christmas jumper so doesn’t need to be snug, so I’m trying it on myself and aiming to make it so I can get into it, but a little too tight for comfort.

The last three years I’ve made Christmas jumpers for the grandchildren, and made sure to make them with plenty of growing room. (My original plan was that they could then be ‘passed down’ when grown out of, but I can’t see that happening.) So this year it’s my daughter’s turn.

You may well ask why this year I’ve decided to go for this top-down method rather than sticking with the pattern I’ve used before, and I asked myself that question quite a lot when I embarked on this a few weeks ago. But I think if I can master this technique I’m going to find it a lot more interesting and enjoyable – in fact I am finding it just that – and might become inspired to make more jumpers this way and develop my own designs… in fact I’ve already got a few ideas.

Another way of using up all that yarn I keep buying – and it’s raining again. Might as well hunker down.

Posted on

Order and Chaos

In the last week I have: walked to the beach twice; had breakfast out twice; had a cream tea out once; had a flu jab; walked to the garage to drop off the van keys (for MOT); been to a real live tai chi lesson at the community centre (just restarted after the teacher’s quarantine); resolved the initial issues and produced a reasonable stab at a first attempt on the website, to show to client; ditto the Christmas jumper (except the ‘client’ can’t see it because it’s going to be a surprise); phoned my sister; as well as writing every day (last Thursday’s effort handwritten in a notebook on the beach) and did at least some of my exercise and meditation routine every day (which reminded me to go and look in the spare room and check that I’d blown the candle out, which I had).

Also I notice that I haven’t been moaning about not being ‘motivated’, although I must admit the house is even more chaotic than usual. Earlier I filled the plastic water jug for the coffee pot while I was trying to tidy up around the sink, then moments later knocked it over and half the water went over the counter. I managed to mop that up and make sure it wasn’t too close to any of the electrical stuff, then turned round and knocked it again, with the rest of the water going over the floor. However, this is not to say that that’s in any way unusual, just that my feet and my dressing gown got wet.

Years ago, I remember a friend telling me that her cat disapproved of her standards of house-keeping, and kept giving her disapproving looks. I laughed at the time, and thought ‘crazy cat lady!’, but now understand exactly what she means. I feel so guilty sometimes watching my cat trying to pick her way around piles of junk on the floor – often knitting yarn, or books (or clothes – mostly in the bedroom) but also random other things which have fallen or been dropped or knocked off the furniture and not picked up, whereas I just step over it without even noticing it’s there. Also she is terrified of sudden movements and loud noises, which must make living with me a nightmare, as I blunder my way around the place.

All thoughts of trying to impose any kind of order on my life and my living space seem to have gone out of the (smeary, blurry, fly-specked) window. Having ‘projects’ to do somehow gives me licence to ignore that stuff – and go to the beach, or eat scones in a quiet café.

And yet… in the mornings, I feed my cat, do my exercises and meditation, write my blog. Every day (mostly) – and have done consistently for months. Yet making ‘to do’ lists and sticking with them is beyond me – I keep trying, but it all falls apart.

Sun shining this morning. Skype therapy at 2.00. That’s today.  

Posted on

Gloomy Monday

I am here again – today, anyway, though it remains to be seen whether I will post this or just rant to myself. I went to stay at my daughter’s for the early part of last week, after my infusion at the hospital – quite a last minute decision, to do with me going to see their new house before she goes back to work full time, and not knowing when we might be able to meet again. I came back on Wednesday and came down with a cold Wednesday evening, which I’m now over except for an embarrassing cough, a nasal whine and a cloud of gloom that I’m struggling to get out from under.

Aha, autumn, increasing darkness, getting colder, and nothing to look forward to in the next six months but more of the same. Yes to all of that, but also commitments; an Xmas jumper promised to one person and a website to another, both of them started over the weekend, neither of them particularly well.  

One of the joys of combined singledom and retirement is not having regular commitments to do things for other people. Although it has been said to me that the best way to make yourself happy is to make other people happy, for me it just creates so much stress and worry beforehand, and the outcome is so uncertain – what if they don’t like what I’ve done when I’ve done it? What if it all turns out to be crap? For example, if I’m crocheting something for myself and I hate it when it’s finished, I can either unravel it or shove it into the back of the wardrobe and never have to look at it again (which is what mostly happens with the things I make). But if I’m doing something for someone else, I have a certain responsibility, and they have certain expectations which I have to meet. And what would happen if I fail to meet those expectations? Another failure to throw on the ever-growing pile, but with the added sense of shame and guilt of knowing that my failure is not just a private one but visible to others.  And even if they say they like it, how can I ever know that they’re being honest and not just trying to spare my feelings?

A crowd of starlings just flew past my window and over the roof – or the roof of the next house down the terrace perhaps. There’s a word for it – isn’t it ‘murmuration’? Or is that when they all get together and make a noise?

Yesterday was sunny but chilly. I stayed indoors, though I know there’s lots that needs doing in the garden to stop it descending further into an ugly green mess. Will the weeds die back in the winter? There’s no guarantee of that. Today it’s grey and gloomy, which is a good enough excuse to stay in. Already been to Sainsbury’s, and committed to going to yoga this evening. That’ll be enough.

Posted on

Log Cabin

Very late this morning – although I’ve been awake for two and a half hours already. I decided to start doing my half hour yoga etc in the mornings again, and had a shower and washed my hair, and just generally time passed as it so often does.

Routines, as I’m sure I’ve said before, are both constraining and liberating. I half thought last week that I wouldn’t restart these two morning routines – exercise and blogging – but that’s because I was in a pretty shitty mood after returning from Cyprus. It’s so easy to slip down into chaos – especially for someone like me. Spontaneity can be exhilarating, but it can also be terrifying. Sometimes the chaos reaches a point where the only way I can deal with it is by ignoring it, and so it grows exponentially until it reaches a crisis and I fall apart emotionally. I was getting close to that point last week. But yesterday I wrote my blog; tidied the kitchen; loaded, ran and emptied the dishwasher; hoovered the stairs and landing – never really know what brings me back from the brink. I might say: ‘a decent night’s sleep’ but that wasn’t the case. Taking the van out on Friday? Doing that one, big(ish) stressful thing and then putting it to one side? Putting everything else into perspective? Maybe.

When I was learning to drive, the instructor told me that the greatest pleasure in life comes from doing something you really don’t want to do, and then afterwards, knowing that you’ve done it. Over forty years later, I think that’s still one of the wisest pieces of advice I’ve ever heard.

I’ve started a new crochet project – while still finishing off the previous one (both cardigans). I started following a pattern for what’s called a ‘log cabin’ design, starting with a small square, then every few rows rotating the work and picking up stitches along the edge of the existing work so that you have a rectangle that keeps growing – like a spiral growing out from the centre, but with straight edges. I’m using a ‘cake’ type yarn with large blocks of colour, and it looks pretty good. But I don’t like the shape of the pattern in the book – which makes a sleeveless waistcoat, which I’m not that keen on. So I’m trying to think of a way of adapting it to make a cardi with sleeves. This is the sort of thing I like to do – trying out something new and seeing how it works out.

Every so often I think I’ll give up on crochet, because it’s too repetitive and I feel like I’ve exhausted the possibilities. Then I get an idea like this and get interested again. Admittedly, I have cupboards full of projects that I’ve never finished, and garments that I’ve never worn. But I keep going back to it. And today I’m looking forward to sitting in the sunshine and trying again.

Maybe there’s a metaphor for life in there somewhere.

Posted on

Tangled

I did finish the book yesterday (the one I was reading, not writing) and yes, there were some surprises in the last 10%, a couple in fact, when it seemed all was lost and then it turned around and things weren’t so bad, and then it turned around again… and I did some research on the author and found that my intuition about them not being English was completely wrong, they’re older than I thought, and they’ve worked in script-writing, which fits with the crisis-point-here style of plotting. And the sequel had a good write up, so I may try that. At some point. Not now.

Looking for something else on the Kindle, I bought three other books (that’s the way it goes, my virtual shelves are groaning with unread books just as my physical shelves are, three new ones bought with every one read) and found one that I have no recollection of having bought, by an author I’ve never even heard of, but I obviously thought it sounded good enough to try. I think it might have been on a special offer, because these days I usually download the sample before I buy, and I can’t remember reading that. I may start this one next, though its estimated reading time is over 11 hours, which means it will probably take me months.

I finished the book, caught up on the weather blanket (which I’d fallen behind on because I needed to finish a baby blanket for a friend of my daughter), and finally finished untangling the yarn for a sleeveless cardigan which was also abandoned when I started on the baby blanket. And I’ve bought more yarn. Which rather mirrors the situation with the books and Kindle books.

Today is a special day, because it’s the 17th of the month, which is the day when I start the next row of the blanket, do the next bit of the border, and add the next colour to the border. This is the seventh colour, and they’re already starting to get tangled. By the end of last year they were in a terrible mess and it took ages to sort out. I can’t find a satisfactory way of avoiding it – except I could leave the border and do all of it at the end, but I don’t want to do that. I have some plastic bobbins which are supposed to snap shut and stop the yarn coming off, but they won’t take a whole skein and I haven’t got many of the largest ones (they come in three different sizes). My daughter bought them for me when she used to work in a crafting shop, I’ve tried looking for them online and have found them but only in the two smaller sizes. I can try cutting the yarn so it just fits, but that will mean joining new yarn in more often.

Well, these are the exciting things that take up my time and metal energy. Happy Monday to all.

Posted on

More about Reading

There were two points I intended to make yesterday, and I don’t think I got round to either of them.

The first was about reading in general. A few months ago (when lockdown seemed like a temporary thing which would soon be over), there were suggestions going round on social media about how to make the most of your time, improve your wellbeing and cope with the changed circumstances. Often these were in the form of lists (spend some time in the open air; eat healthily; wear your nice clothes, that sort of thing), and one suggestion frequently included was: ‘read a book.’ This sort of advice irritates me because, well, reading a book is something to be done for the sheer joy of it, because it’s one of life’s greatest pleasures (or can be), not something you ‘should’ do because it’s worthy, and then afterwards you can tick it off a list and feel smug about yourself. It’s one of the reasons why I don’t engage with ‘Goodreads’, or join book groups. Yes, I know, I know, this is just me being grumpy, curmudgeonly and intolerant of other people’s choices. But the idea of something which feels so essential to me being treated as a kind of challenge to be met and then worn as a badge of honour sticks in my throat (which I know is grossly unfair and judgemental on the people who do go on Goodreads and join book groups).

Anyway, enough of that rant, because however much I love reading, I don’t do it nearly as much these days as I used to. When I do get properly stuck into a good book I remember how wonderful it is, and think: ‘why don’t I do this more often’ and really, why don’t I? It’s not as if there are so many more important calls on my time (well, maybe there are, but I’m quite good at ignoring them). That said, I do get two hours a day of audio drama from the radio (more if I download things from BBC Sounds) – and I can crochet at the same time. But however great the BBC’s available repertoire, it can’t match the stacks of books, unread or re-readable, on the shelves in my study.

Then there’s the telly (which I watch for between two and four hours most evenings). There was a time, in the early 2000s, when I gave it up altogether. We had a big house with a living room and sitting room either side of the front door, and in the evenings Hubby would sit in the former watching the box while I sat in the latter, either listening to radio drama and crafting or reading. Then after I moved out, I had no television in my flat, or when I was travelling, or (except for two months in 2012 when I stayed with Laura) the time after that, until I returned from Prague in 2014.

Run out of words again. More tomorrow.

Posted on

Reading – (to be continued…)

This morning, I did something I haven’t done regularly for years – read in bed. For most of my life I’ve read in bed both at night, before falling asleep, and in the morning, after waking up. Then when I was regularly attending the sleep clinic in 2006-07, I was told that I needed to train my body/mind to associate being in bed with sleep and nothing else – if I was awake in the night for more than twenty minutes I should get up, go to another room and do something quiet and relaxing, and only go back to bed when I was ready to go back to sleep. Unfortunately, this never really worked – I could be awake in another room for two hours and feel myself dozing off, then go back to bed and lie down and my brain would be wide awake again. Over the last few years, I’ve started listening to the radio in the night – or rather, downloaded plays and readings from BBC Sounds – and sometimes I fall back to sleep, and sometimes I don’t, but I’ve never really got back into that habit of always reading in bed.

But it bothers me that the only time I read whole books the way I used to is on holiday, or long journeys – and even then, it’s been replaced by listening and/or crocheting. When you’re reading, you can’t do anything else, but if you’re being ‘read to’ (ie listening to the radio, or audiobooks) your hands and eyes are free to be doing something else – like crochet – or any other kind of handicraft, (or even chores come to that). And because I only read in fits and starts (often, to be honest, when I’m on the loo), I never really get into what I’m reading, not helped by the dyspraxic effect that I don’t take in what I’m reading on the first time through, and am constantly forgetting who’s who and what’s happened.

This morning, around six, when I’d already been listening for an hour or so, I decided to read from my Kindle, a thriller that came up as a recommendation based on my previous reading, and which I won’t identify because I don’t want to spoil the plot for anyone else. I’ve been enjoying it, but as I’ve only been reading it for 10-20 minutes or so a day, it’s been slow going, and I’d started to feel that it was becoming a tad repetitive. This morning I’d read three chapters, when, at exactly half way in (according to the Kindle read percentage), there came a catastrophic event, in which one of the protagonists was killed and it seemed all was lost. I couldn’t help but the think that the author must have read/been told the advice about having a major climax/plot reveal at the end of Act Three – and I was rather shattered that s/he’d killed off this character (or has s/he? It sounds pretty conclusive, but who knows?)

Dammit, I’ve run out of words again…

Posted on

Monday Morning

Back here again. Why? Because half the time I swear I’ve given up for good and then one morning I think I might try again. Just this once. On the understanding that it’s the same old nonsense and, basically, a complete waste of my time writing and yours (whoever you are) for reading it.

But we both still have a chance. You can stop right here – or I could, in which case you wouldn’t have the chance either way, because obviously I wouldn’t bother to post this. But I probably won’t – stop, that is. Though with another potential 400 words… Who knows?

It’s nine o’clock now (I went to the Co-op before starting) and it’s Monday. Does that mean I can play music without worrying about disturbing the neighbours? There again, they might work shifts, for all I know.

Okay, now I’m playing Roxy Music’s ‘Flesh and Blood’, that being the first cassette I pulled out of the shoebox at random that I haven’t already transferred to the PC. Still haven’t done anything about replacing the stylus on my turntable.

Reached the second track, ‘Oh Yeah’, and the sound quality is pretty awful. I have the original album somewhere, so if I get my finger out and do something about that stylus, I can play that. But I still feel a bit wary about playing these old albums – they’ve been kept for all these years and moved from place to place, and maybe it’s all been a waste of time because they’re ruined anyway.

Next track, ‘Same Old Scene’, isn’t much better.

How do I manage to do anything? Repetition, routine, and constant self-bullying. I bullied myself into going to the Co-op this morning. I bullied myself into putting the shopping away when I got back, and starting a ‘to-do’ list. The weight of the things I don’t do is always in my head, because I’m always thinking about them, except the times when I let myself off and sit in the sun or listen to the radio and/or crochet. Or else I’m thinking about other things, worse things, that I’ve read or heard or people have said or done to me that make me angry or sad or hopeless.

I think constantly about these things, but never do anything – worse, the thinking itself is completely aimless and futile, it’s not even as if by thinking I ever produce a coherent plan of action which I then proceed to complete. Except – well, I did start making that to-do list. If I completed some of those things, I suppose I’d be happier. But a more reliable way of becoming happier is by quietening the thinking – and the way to do that is by doing things that make me happy directly – like sitting in the sun, listening to the radio, and/or crocheting – all of which I may do later after I’ve had breakfast.

The second side of the album sounds better than the first one did.

Think it’s time for breakfast.

Posted on

Every Day is New Again

Today is different. Every day is. Feeling quite good, which is noteworthy because so unusual. Wish I could tell you why, what makes today different from the norm, but I have no idea. I didn’t get any more sleep than usual – fell asleep around 12.20 (according to the app) and awake 4.30, so if anything slightly less. Don’t have to go anywhere today (except possibly yoga this evening if the ground isn’t too wet), so nothing to feel apprehensive about. I had a go at making a birthday card for my granddaughter yesterday, which has been lurking at the back of my mind for a while as something that needed doing – that probably helps.

Remembering the REM song, ‘Every Day is Yours to Win’:

‘Every day is new again
every day is yours to win,
that’s how heroes are made…’

I don’t anticipate being a hero today, or any time soon, but inclined to look for the good bits this morning – maybe I can have breakfast in the garden?

Still no idea what I’m going to write about. Yesterday I wrote about dyspraxia, which I’ve tentatively started on a couple of times before. Yesterday I went into more detail. It’s hard to explain because I’m still trying to get my head around it myself – and quite honestly, it doesn’t seem very well understood scientifically as yet, compared to dyslexia and dyscalculia, which have been studied for much longer. And (naturally), I’m not very good at explaining it to other people. When I try to talk about it, mostly they seem to think it’s snowflakey, self-justificatory nonsense and just an excuse for continuing to be lazy, scatty, disorganised and inconsiderate of others – or alternatively, that I’m being unnecessarily ‘hard’ on myself, and I’m really not any of those things, and I should stop ‘worrying’ about it. This is where writing comes in, because it’s so much easier to explain things when I have time to think and compose what I want to say without being face to face with somebody interrupting and asking questions and throwing me off-track (which usually results in me feeling tongue-tied, stupid and frustrated).

Now I’m staring at the screen wondering if I want to go on, and if so how, and looking again at that Paul Nash postcard, the one of the bird looking into a mirror on a cliff top. What you can’t see from my photo (because of the poor light in here) is that in the mirror there is the reflection of another bird, this one flying away in the distance.

I like art which shows the impossible, or what appears to be impossible, or at least unexpected. I’m not a fan of Dali (possibly coloured by what I know of his politics), but I quite like surrealism in general. I like pictures that get you thinking and seeing things in other ways. The literary equivalent is magical realism – I like that too, set in the ‘real world’ but with impossible bits.

Posted on

Jigsaws

Said a painter called Vincent Van Gogh,
‘My surname sounds just like a cough!
It causes such trouble,
because foreigners struggle,
and some of them don’t even know.’

Linda Rushby, 21 June 2020

Well, I’ve got that off my chest.

Very late this morning. I woke about the usual time but haven’t been able to get anything in gear so far.

Lay in bed thinking; ‘Why do I bother to do anything?’ Exercise, meditation, shower, blog… nothing particularly unpleasant about any of them, all likely to make me feel better, if anything, but I couldn’t be arsed. Who knows, let alone cares, if I don’t do those things? Only me. I am in sole control of how I start my Sunday morning – any morning – the only obligations are the ones I left off the list: feed cat and open the door to let her out, and even if I missed those for once, there wouldn’t be any sanctions, but I would feel pretty mean.

The sun is shining – once those things are completed (and I’m currently on the last one), I can sit outside and eat breakfast, and then the day is my own. Any day is my own. What shall I do with this one?

I need a new project – all the ones currently on the go are beginning to bore me. Maybe this passion for crochet is waning, and I need to find a new one. Current best guess is jigsaws – I started one on Friday. Some weeks ago, when lockdown was well bedded in and I was responding by frivolous online shopping, I ordered three jigsaws from ads on Facebook, none of which have yet turned up. Having cleared the kitchen table of the card-making/paper-crafting stuff which had been there since the beginning of March, I thought that maybe if I started doing one of the many jigsaws I’ve acquired in the past and never done, that would speed them on their way. I chose the most recent one, which is of Van Gogh’s painting of the café terrace at night – which is what inspired me to pen the limerick above,

Of course, I could also put my energies into something practical and useful, like tidying the study. I started on that yesterday – emptied a whole box of old photos and albums and stuck them on a shelf, then put the box in the recycling bin – which sounds good, but I only put that particular box in here last week some time, prior to that it had spent some time in the hall, after I took it out of the Chinese cabinet in the front room so I could clear away some of the bags of yarn and half finished crochet projects. Okay, slow progress, but it is progress.

Yesterday I ordered a replacement stylus for my turntable. When that comes, I can start playing my old records again, maybe transfer them to the PC. There’s a project. Hope they’re not too damaged.

I could even sort them into alphabetical order.