The Treeless Forest

The Damp Swells

 

Today is one of those days where the damp seems to pervade everything, and make it feel tight and full.  I feel on days like this it would be nice to be one of the lovely ladies in the image here (Albert Moore, The Dreamers,  1882, Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery;) limp and relaxed, wrapped up in soft clothing, with nothing much to do.

Sadly, it is not to be.  Not today, anyway.  There's plenty of work to be done at, you know, work.  It could be worse.  I'm currently working on a Winslow Homer project.  I'm not a huge fan - his landscapes and sportsmen/cowboys frankly bore the daylights out of me - but I love his women.  The Milk Maid is not bowed, or slumped with resignation or frailty.  To me she's just...  accepting.  Seeing, assessing, caught in a pause before she does what needs to be done.  The New Novel (sadly the museum's collection isn't online) evokes so familiar a feeling of hiding out with an anticipated new just-for-me book that I can't help but smile.  Mending the Nets is just lovely.  Quiet and warm and filled with the comfortable purpose of work.  So, things could be worse.

I finished the big crochet blanket over the weekend, and it was immediately put to exuberant use as my husbands current favorite blanket.  I'm hoping to get a picture of it soon to put up here, but the camera's gone AWOL.  I can't start the baby blanket until I get out to the not-so-local yarn shop, so I've been trying my hand at one of the coffee-cup cozies (nts: the link to which I need to repair.)  I'm finding, especially in this case, that I need to just trust the pattern.  Parts of it didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense, but I decided just to keep doing what the pattern said.  Lo and behold, it's starting to turn in to something recognizable!  It's not going to win prizes, but for a first effort, I'm damn proud.  Again, pictures forthcoming once the camera is winkled out of whatever hiding place it's snuck off to.

I've sort of sputtered to a stop with I Married Wyatt Earp.  Once I got through the Tombstone section, my interest sort of guttered out.  Which is okay, since it was the Tombstone section I was primarily interested in.  I'll probably wander over to pick up the Breakenridge account, but at the moment I've started reading Gunman's Rhapsody, by Robert B. Parker.  My mother passed it on to me after I told her what I'd been reading, and it will likely be a pretty quick read.  Already, though, after having read the Josie Marcus account, it's sort of interesting to notice all the liberties that he took as the author.  I don't really mind them so much, it's just not very often that I'm in a position to notice the differences between the tales that spring from legend and the actual events.  I think Gunman's Rhapsody and Helldorado will be the last of the Tombstone books, though.  Then it's on to Marilynne Robinson.

Last but not least, I made homemade vanilla pudding Monday night, from this recipe over at Rosy Little Things, as a treat for Crane.  Or, rather, I tried to.  What actually happened was custard with vanilla bits in it.  You see, wha' ha' happened was...  I couldn't find vanilla paste at the local gigunga grocery place.  So I just scraped a vanilla bean and thought no more about it.  Which would have worked, had I either then put the vanilla in with the milk while it heated, mixed it in with the eggs and such, or mashed it up with the butter.  As I did it, there was just no way for the flavor to really develop and intermingle throughout the pudding.  So, Crane thinks it tastes like cake batter.  Good cake batter he says, but not really like vanilla pudding so much.  Pooh, on the other hand, loves it.  Of course, since he's diabetic and shouldn't really have any.  I'm not entirely sure what I'll do with the pudding, but will likely involve the extra pie shell I have.  I'll definitely try again, knowing what I know now, though.  Tonight, though, something I am good at:  Quiche!

Grand Plans, Part the Second

I would really like to be able to say "I'm a Crafter!"  Complete with perky little exclamation point.  The exclamation point is largely determined by coffee intake, but if I'm honest with myself, what I am is someone who likes the results of craft projects, and has a lot of interesting ideas, but has a hard time finishing things.  Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, does it?

The things I like most to do are crocheting, knitting (though this is a bit patience-frustrating, since I appear to tbe the Slowest.  Knitter.  In.  The.  UNIVERSE.) and paper crafts.  I aspire to being a sewer of things that are fit for more than just burning on sight.  Aspire being the highly operative word.  Also, weaving.  I think this is incredibly cool, and it is one of my aspirations to learn to do this before I die.

Anyway, enough about my insufficiencies!  You are not interested in them, and I happen to find them dull and understandably dreary.

I am drawn to crafting for two main reasons, other than the aesthetic pleasure I take in handmade things in general.  The first is that I grew up with the concept -- I went to a Waldorf School, where creativity is practically mandatory.  You learn to knit in first grade, you learn to paint, and play a musical instrument; you make your own books, put on a class play every year (beginning in 3rd grade at the school I went to,) learn multiplication with dried beans kept in little handmade calico pouches, and begin learning two foreign languages in first grade.  It's a fantastic school, based on a fantastic educational model.   The other main reason is that the rest of my day is taken up with very abstract, non-tactile endeavours.  I look at art all day, but when you boil it down, and strip the bells and whistles, what I do is really data entry.  Keyboards, keybords, everywhere, and nary a needle to stitch.

So I am working on my stick-to-it-iveness.  I'm very proud of the fact that I'll be finishing my first large scale blanket this weekend - I've just got to finish the edging, and weave in the ends.  Admittedly, I've been working on it on and off for about 5 years, I think?  Anyway, it's a very simple blanket that started as an exercise in maintaining consistent stitch tension, but I made it, and I will have finished it.  I'll post a picture when it's done.

What also needs work is my ability to follow patterns.  I tend to make things from patterns that live in my head, so I have no practice at following patterns.  Therefore I have harbored the mistaken belief that I don't know how to follow a pattern.  I've decided that I have to learn sometime, and that now is as good as any.  I'm starting with these crocheting patterns:

1) Tiramisu Blanket - I love the way this blanket looks, and Alicia Paulson is one of my favorite crafters on the web.  She has such a lovely, soothing, and happy-making sense of style.  Also, she has the one of the cutest dogs, ever.  Anyway, the one change I'm going to make is that it will be sage with dark green ribbon, rather than cream with brown.  So maybe more of a 'key lime pie' blanket?

2) Coffee Cup Cozies (scroll down to or 'find' Tuesday, August 02, 2005) - I think these are nifty, and I have a lot of cotton worsted to use up, from a long ago project that turned out to be a dud.  (Also, I keep buying it thinking I'm going to make hot-pad sets for people, and then not getting around to it.)  I don't know who all I'll give them to, but I like the pattern, I know I could use a few, and I like having small work to do on the bus for when I don't feel like reading.  As a side note, I really like Drew Emborsky's blog in general, even if he and I don't always see eye to eye on designs.  He's a neat guy, doing interesting things.

3) Lacy Shawl - Also via the Crochet Dude.  I'll likely make this as a gift for a friend, but I think this is pretty, and looks like a nice next step in learning patterns.  If I am successful, I have another yarn I'd like to try and make it with, as a gift for a co-worker.

I'm thinking of a blanket after that, but then again, I may move on to sewing or a paper project.  Not that I don't have one of those already bubbling away in the back of my head, but we'll see where I am when I get there.