In Case You Didn't Know

Bloglines is shutting down - the "export links" didn't work so my butt is now numb for sitting here transferring all my links to Google reader.

Must pace and get my booty circulation back.

peace out

One More Step

Fair Isle has always been one of those knitting adventures that draws me in heart and soul. Who knows why, maybe it's that faint call of Scotland in my blood that draws me back to a small part of my heritage. Some things and places just pull at a person. Once I started knitting, it pulled at me. Certain artwork and photography are the same. Some countries and cultures tug at me to come back to them, like a long lost child going home. All the places that helped form the people who came together over the last several hundred years just so and brought me into being. Almost all the ancestry in me has some connection to knitting. Swedish, Norwegian, British, Irish, Scottish, Welsh and German people, to name some of what's in me, are knitters for the last few centuries. As I've blogged about previously, 3 out of 4 of my mom's Grandparents ( mostly descendants of the UK ) were knitters, and very good ones. As far as I know, none of my Dad's people, like his mother or hers did any knitting. I'm sure it's in their heritage, though, even if it was left back in Sweden, Norway and Germany.

So what about this Fair Isle thing inspires me to wax on prolific about heritage and knitting and what yanks my heart strings? Well, it's a very simple thing, actually. When I learned to knit, English was the method the book, "Learn to Knit" went over first, so that's the method I learned. Honestly it didn't occur to me to keep reading all the instructions and different methods, because I just wanted to keep on knitting, and that, I did. Then, I learned cables, knitting in the round, and eventually, through blogging, was introduced to gorgeous Fair Isle. While looking for something simple I could try, I saw that some use a mixed method for colour work, Continental and English method together. (Since I'm talking about Europe I feel compelled to default to the older purer spelling of colour, this post.)

So I started to try to practice Continental knitting. I did well at the knit stitch, but the purl stitch completely confounded me. So I did all my colour work in the round. I even procured a copy of YNotKnit, which teaches Continental knitting, and I still couldn't wrap my head around the purl stitch.

The other day when all the kids were knitting, two out of the three kept with it, but the youngest one asked me, "Momma, will you just make my scarf for me?" So, naturally, I said I would and I cast on a random number of stitches ( a bunch ) the way I like to make scarves. After a few rows of garter stitch I got bored, and decided to do some colour work. Only one problem with that plan. I still hadn't mastered the Continental purl stitch. So, I dug out my copy of YNotKnit and gave it another try and this time, I got it. Why I couldn't figure it out before, I don't know, but sometimes my brain just isn't ready for certain things the first time I attempt to get it to soak in. The simple, task of purling back and forth from Continental to English feels like a major triumph. This very little thing, at one time impossible for me, now possible. It gives me a little light of hope for making possible other things that now seem impossible or obstacles that seemed once insurmountable are now a little smaller. It may be silly but it's true. I have a long hard journey ahead and these little things really do help.

Once I have a little more to show, I'll post pictures, what I have now is just two rows of the simplest colour work. Something like this:

VVVVVVVVVVVVVV

VVVVVVVVVVVVVV

VVVVVVVVVVVVVV

VVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Simple, yet satisfying. It's not to be a very wide scarf, so the colour work will be little more than this, however, it opens up the whole world of Fair Isle just to be able to do the colour work in both directions. One little step.

Every Knitter's Dream

It must be in the air, knitting. My oldest, 11yr old boy, says, "I want to knit." My youngest, soon to be 7yr old boy says, "ME TOO!" Then my middle child, 9yr old girl says, "Where's MY knitting?" since she has a project in progress. So I quickly teach the oldest one to cast on, and move on to the youngest. Whilst still teaching the youngest, my middle child helps the oldest with the next step, knitting. So I look around me and all my kids are knitting.

At some point, 11yr old says, "I didn't think it could ever be this quiet in the house." Now why didn't I think of that?

Get to your knitting ye ruffians! I needs me quiet time, ARG!

I guess I need to start another project, too. I can't be the senior knitter, surrounded by little knitters and not also be knitting.

The Needles are Clicking

It has been a long long time since I picked up the needles and did anything. Yesterday was the day, my long dry spell came to an end. I picked up some very splitty off- white cotton and made a little scarf/sash thing. The reason I wanted it, was because I have a few of those 2 layer wrap skirts you can wear about 100 ways, and I wanted to make it look like an empire waist type thing. Plus, you can't have too many skinny Spring/Summer scarf embellishments in your wardrobe.

George was the perfect disinterested model, don't you think?

Art-wise, I'm gearing up for a "sky study" series, hopefully I can pull that off. I've been "painting in my head" these last couple of weeks. Looking at the sky and thinking, "How would I achieve that effect?" Looking at how the colors blend and the shadows work. Many times The skies have been offering up a very interesting canvas these last several mornings as I take the kids to school, and I've scolded myself for not having my camera along. So it will be living in my purse for some time to come. Here is one I took this morning.

Accomplishments

In case any of you not reading this blog think, perhaps I may have been lolloping around all Summer, here is a bit of what I've been doing. There are three others that haven't been photographed, hanging in the office where I work.

I've been working on painting lilies the most. Just popped into my head one day and I wondered if I could do it.

This one, however, is from a photo I spied yesterday at The Knittin Coop - Robin took some beautiful pictures and this one moved me. Since childhood, the visual affect of gradation has always interested me. I've always wondered if I could replicate it in a painting. I don't know why I waited until now to try it, but here's my first attempt at a landscape since Crayolas and grade school.

It isn't nearly as awesome as the photo, I still need to work on my technique as to how to achieve a more realistic and that popping light that shines so brightly through the gaps in the clouds. I tried leaving it white, but it didn't work. Next time I'll try a little more orange yellow than just straight yellow, possibly.

At any rate, these are my only proof of having done some little things of a crafty nature. It's something at least =)

Hello Darkness My Old Friend...

Not sure why that song just popped into my head, but there it is. My last post, June the 24th, weird, I didn't even realize I posted that day. Just happened to be the day I turned 41. I don't pay much attention to birthdays or any of that stuff, I just think it's weird I accidently posted my last rant that day.

Anyway, since then, lots of stuff has been rolling around in my mind. I had lunch with my sister the other day and learned that my dad and his wife had told their friends for some years that if things ever started "Going to hell in a hand basket" for them, that they'd end it all together. While that's still crazy and selfish... it does put another spin on this particular psychosis. It seems that it may have been a decision they made together. Anyway, that's that.

I've been doing some painting lately and they are turning out fairly well. I keep thinking that I am going to pick up the needles again, but it's not happening really. Oh well, it'll happen when it happens.

Lots of other stuff is rolling around in my head, too, but that's a story for later. Life is kind of like writing a book, sometimes you know the main idea of a story and you start to write and let the characters and events take you where they will. These things rolling around in my head are sort of like that. I know where the story is supposed to be going, I have an idea of where I want it to be, but I'm not completely sure how things will add up between the here and the there. That remains to be seen, but as someone recently told me. Start getting prepared and if a miracle happens (when it happens) you'll be ready. =) Vaguety vagueness - yes, but that's ok.

Anyway, I wanted to check in and pretend to blog a little, at least. My whole four readers might be getting worried =)

More soon, school will be starting a week from Monday so there will be less demands that I do this and that and the other thing for 6 hungry children between 8 and 4 on my days off hahaha. See you then!

Still Not Knitting

Don't know why. Don't know what I want to do instead. Don't know what I AM doing instead. Don't know what I want to knit. It's more like, I know what I don't want to knit, and that is everything I've planned to knit. I want something easy, different and practical.

It's hot, really hot, OVEN like, outside. I've had a migraine off and on for 7 days now. Even so, I've been in a good mood (well mostly). We have a largish kid pool that we have managed to bring back from the brink of stagnant pond to useable. (didn't know that was even possible)

Also, another positive - I'm not nearly SO angry as I was last post. In talking to my therapist about it, he asked me what would it take to get some sort of closure. My answer was, "I'd ask him, 'DUDE! WHAT THE HELL?' " To which he said, "Well the answer is that he was an alcoholic and when a person drinks that much it changes their brain chemistry which changes them into different people."

That's true. It's been driven home as completely true by the unfortunate experience of one of my friends lately. Another terrible story, but not mine to tell. I can say though, that alcohol changed my friend's husband to the point he was unrecognizable and wrecked his life, completely. (and changed her life forever, too) SAD SAD SAD

Of course drugs do the same thing and the combination of both together is especially deadly. It's too bad that so many people on the planet can't stop, or choose not to stop, down that road of self destruction. It's true that stopping isn't a matter of just making up your mind, it's much more of a complex issue. Like being made of iron and having an electromagnet following you around. So, those that have committed to sobriety and made it work, amaze me, and I am very proud of them.

I guess what I'm trying to say is if only more people on that road could realize that when they head down self destruction's path, they don't go alone. They bring all the people who ever loved or cared about them right along on a very scary and helpless trip. One of the things I hear over and over and have said over and over is that a person has to make that decision for themself, do it for themself, and not do it for someone else. It's a little bit flawed, that thinking. I understand why a person has to approach it that way, but it's not really like they are an island. Either way they go, they affect others for good or bad. Either way they head, all the relapses, all the pain, the fear, the final end of it all. No one ruins there own life without hurting someone else in the process. No one comes back from the edge of a cliff without someone breathing a sigh of nervous relief.

These words are all words that I can easily apply to myself, too. There are a million ways to hurt yourself and the people who love you. There are hundreds of addictions and self destructive paths out there. But how many people have the courage to stop what they are doing and take responsibility for their actions, and change for the better - for real? Really stop and take an accounting for the havoc, the tears, and the broken hearts. It's a vicious cycle I know the story. Just stop. STOP and breathe and let in the love of all those people and let it carry them through to recovery.

Yes, maybe that's over simplified, I don't know. It's not doctrine I'm preaching here, just my feelings. Sorting through them and figuring them out in my own clumsy way. Thanks for listening.