Ok, 13 months between postings is just too damn long. I've never been good at keeping a diary and I'm equally bad at taking pictures; I've always justified it under the Mae West clause: "Good girls keep journals; bad girls don't have time." And while I may not be a "bad girl," I certainly don't keep up very well with journaling my life. Anyway, one of my "101 in 1001" goals is to keep track of my craftsy activities, so I may as well do it in a blog form. More on the 101 in 1001 later.
I blame my mother for my obsession with craftsy things. Yes, it's a deliberate mis-spelling. Move along. Mom loves textiles and stamping and hobbies that require a lot of stuff, so I picked up the tendency from her. Our craftsy hobbies dovetail nicely together: she quilts, scrapbooks, sews and stamps while I knit, embroider and (occasionally) paint. My point here is that when we're together, we tend to egg eachother on. We'll go to a yarn store and she'll pick out something for me to make for her, then because she's in a craftsy mood we'll stop at the fabric store "just for a minute" and I'll find something I want her to make for me. It's a vicous cycle and ends up with both of us hiding our purchases in the back of the van so my stepdad doesn't give us The Face. Inevitably he finds out we've been shopping, but I try my hardest to make it after I've left for home instead of while I'm there - that way I get The Voice instead, and it's much easier to justify my cravings via phone.
Lately I've been knitting. Like most craftsy things, it looks difficult but is actually easy. Unlike most craftsy things, knitting is easily portable and doesn't take a lot of set-up time. Plus, it makes useful stuff! Sweaters and hats and bags and wee bitty baby booties with matching wee hats in all the colors nature invented (and some she didn't). So far I've collected enough yarn to fill a small set of drawers, planned roughly 50 projects, begun 7 of them and finished 2. I was going to crow over my admirable restraint - smugly picturing my mother's craft room - but then I realized that it's about par on the golf course of my crafting existence. I have roughly 50 embroidery projects, 8 of them started, and 2 completed. So much for being restrained.
I snagged Jer's snooty camera and took pictures of the knitting that's on my needles right now, but for some reason the camera cable isn't working so I'll have to wait for Lizabeth and him to get home from Tahoe to make him fix it. For now, here's the list of projects I have started and plan to finish in this lifetime:
1. Scarf for Papa for his birthday on 3/1 (finish by 2/24)
2. Scarf for Mom for Mother's Day on 5/13 (finish by 5/7)
3. Baby hats and booties for Jenny's baby (Finish ASAP!)
4. Stole for Nadia's Ammi (Mother's Day?)
5. Ravenclaw Scarf for Sioux (someday...)
Everything else I haven't allowed myself to start yet, which is actually admirable restraint on my part, thankyouverymuch.
I need to get one of those nifty little bar graph things that shows the % completed for each project, and maybe learn how to set up a blog a bit so I can put the % bars in a sidebar. Hmm... so much to do, and so little motivation. I think I'll go work on the baby stuff, since I missed Jenny's baby shower yesterday. "I'm sorry I didn't show up" is so much easier to forgive with a hand-made gift accompaniment!
