The Accumulation of Stuff

It's the week before Christmas - LOL - I guess you know. How nice that we have the full week leading up to and then a weekend to enjoy. Our friends were here this past weekend. They came to move their son into a condo that they'd bought for him to share with his roommate - our oldest son - which meant that both sets of parents spent Friday helping to move. The "boys" were really excited because they'll have a dishwasher and covered parking. Too funny. It's amazing how differently they talk with a little life experience. After barely two weeks of living on his own, our youngest son is able to price compare groceries at several stores around town and has developed a keen appreciation for the cost of milk, something we'd tried to explain to him before and that he now understands fully since he can't support his gallon a day habit. It makes me laugh. I have great kids and I love watching them grow up.

On Sunday, we decorated the Christmas tree, played games, and ate finger food. There was Howard and I, our two sons, and Colin - our adopted son and Aryck's roommate. We've been having a tree decorating party on the Sunday closest to the 15th of the month for twenty-two years. It used to take a really long time to put all the decorations on and this year, it took less than half an hour. It's a lot different when you leave the hooks on and have the help of four men who are each tall enough to reach the top of the tree and have realized that this will go faster, and they'll get to the food quicker, if they co-operate. Too fun.

I don't play long drawn out board games like Monopoly. I knit. The Boneyard Scarf is up to 283 stitches. Each row feels like a lifetime commitment so it's lucky that I made some kind of mathematical error when I calculated the end number at 650 stitches. What an epic journey that would be. I'd have to pee and eat before beginning each row - LOL. I'm on the twelfth repeat.

The pattern says to knit until the desired length which I find as useful (read useless) as cook until done on a recipe. The photo illustrates thirteen repeats and then the border. After I finish the next repeat, I'll test the size on Millicent to see how it looks while keeping in mind that Millicent is more svelte than I. As noted previously, I'm hoping for an elegant and sophisticated, throw over the shoulder, shawl as opposed to the old lady look.

The scarf that is really a shawl is far too big to stretch out. It's so big that my longest cable wasn't long enough so I purchased a 60" one and that appears to be slightly less than half the stitches. The stitches on the cable form the V point and two bottom edges which would mean that each edge is roughly 60" and the top edge is REALLY LONG. It'll take a few cables joined together to see exactly how long.

On Saturday, I sewed most of another Vogue 8499 - Marcy Tilton - skirt. I wear the black and white one from earlier this year all the time and it always gets compliments. It's the skirt that made me want to try some more funky, less classic, styles.

I was cutting out the last side of the last piece when it dawned on me that this purple paisley fabric had quite a large print that just maybe should have been matched. It was already too late so I went ahead and sewed the pieces together because I'm not the matchy matchy kind and I don't mind when the lines of a design are broken up and scattered only these lines didn't scatter. They lined themselves up in an unflattering way. The skirt is wide at the bottom and narrow at the top. It seemed there was one paisley in each top portion and another set across the hips. Not. Flattering.

The fabric is a rayon polyester spandex blend. The pattern calls for a stretch denim. It seemed the two would work together but - in reality - the fabric was too soft and the shape of the bottom would have been lost. The black and white print is much crisper and maintains its shape - something to keep in mind for next time. I bought the purple paisley for $2.00 a meter in the bargain center in Nanaimo sometime last year. This is the second time I've attempted to use it and the second failure. There's still some left. Perhaps it will be third time lucky.

LinB wrote - I am glad you are excited about new ventures. Hope that all goes as expected on the home front for you, and that next year is a happier one.

Thank you. Deciding to take a month to move slow was a good decision. It's been low stress and easy living which is a funny thing to say about December. Howard was on holidays last week and we did quite a few things together. This week, I'm exchanging gifts and catching up with friends over breakfast, lunch, or coffee. In attempting to describe this year, it's not that it was particularly unhappy. Many good things happened. And it's not that it was particularly stressful. There was stuff but there's always stuff in life. Nothing horribly bad happened although a lot of little, stressful, not fun, things did.

I seem to live a high stress life. Possibly it's that I don't deal well with stress but that's not easy to measure so who really knows. Thankfully, I deal with it a LOT better than I used to which would be because I've had lots of practice. What I think this year has suffered from is the accumulation of stuff from the last several years. Sometimes, a whole lot of little things can be worse than one major big thing.

It's wonderful to be heading into the next year with a plan. Even more jewelry design ideas are dancing in my head and I'm looking forward to getting started in the new year. I've asked my family for polymer clay supplies for Christmas so hopefully sometime soon, I'll be playing with clay. I don't plan to start out fancy. I plan to roll and cut and bake and play and experiment and see what happens.

Next to one of my favourite breakfast places downtown is the studio and shop of a metal artist. Along with his own jewelry and sculptures, he sells pieces on consignment from other artists. When I dropped by this week to have my ring cleaned, we had a long chat about my new direction and what I had planned. His idea for what I should do was interesting - that I'd need to quickly produce a lot of inventory to be ready for the summer craft fairs. No thanks. I have already decided on a pace and a path and don't feel that pressure. I intend to play first, see what happens, wait until I feel confident and have produced pieces that I'm proud of, and then sell through galleries and perhaps on-line but not at craft fairs. As I said to one friend, I'm too young to do nothing and too old to invest in any expensive long term training. In my opinion, I'm also too old for craft fairs - LOL.

Edited 10:30 p.m. - Blogspot had a glitch and posted this earlier than it was supposed to. I was still writing. I'll come back later and proof - hopefully I didn't say something really messed up. Further thoughts will have to be in another posting.

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - a sense of direction