a monologue about being short (well ... rant, really)

It's been a bit of a slow week for me. (And yet, ironically, I'm more tired now than I was last Thursday.) Here is a list of things I have not done this week:

- laundry. (Well, that's a big one.)
- cook. (Another big one.)
- bought a house. (Not that I buy houses every week. But I was sort of hoping that I would this week.)
- made cards.
- knit on anything other than a giant man-sized sweater in stockinette.
- finish climbing a 5.11a.
- finish climbing anything harder than a 5.10a, now that I think about it.

I did, however, buy yarn. A big whacking load of it. And now I'm all antsy until it gets here, because then I can knit on something other than a gigantic stockinette sweater (because, you know, the big pile of sock yarn in the stash is nothing — nothing, I tell you).

So anyway, no, climbing is not going so well. The route-setters have this rhythm that I'm starting to get used to, but which annoys the Hell out of me — every three months or so, they decide to set up climbs that work only for tall people. It's insane. The 5.11a is not terribly difficult; it's very precise and I love it. Well. I would love it if I didn't have to stretch this way and that like ElastiGirl, and no, there isn't any other way to do it, because I am 5'1" and that's not gonna change. I wouldn't mind it quite so much if it was obvious that there's something I should be able to hold onto but can't; it's when I climb things and I get stuck because I literally cannot touch the next hold and then my 6'1" husband and his 5'10" friend easily and casually sail past it that I have a problem with. And I am having this problem on 5.10c routes — 5.10c. I can redpoint bloody 5.10c; this is not a strength or technique problem.

I am getting, as you can tell, very cranky. I only have about six weeks left to finish a 5.11c (toprope) and it's not looking so good any more. There was a perfect route I was projecting (not too reachy and über crimpy — exactly to my taste), but they took it away and replaced it with a 5.10d two weeks ago. Berks.

(Kniting update: still on the sweater, right front now. It's just chugging along. Man, bulky yarn on big needles is fantastic. Why didn't anyone tell me this before?)

Shop Announcement! (hee.)

My Etsy shop is up! I will be selling my handmade Christmas cards there for the next little while. What I will do after Christmas ... I don't know. I'll figure it out later. But this has been something like two years in the making, so it's nice to have it finally done. Now I can get back to actually making the cards, which would be nice. I've got a few new ideas I've been doodling around with ...

Anyway, in case you can't guess, I spent most of the weekend setting up the shop. (Well, there was other stuff. There was an excellent brunch, for example, and open houses, and a hockey game that would have been heartbreaking if we hadn't already given up on the Leafs.) I also knit:


This is Pierre's not-unexpected Christmas present. (Big sweater cardigans are not good stealth projects.) It's the Daniel pattern from Twist Collective, and it's knitting up fast, which is a bit of a relief. This is the left front; I've already got the back done. The yarn is Manos del Uruguay Wool Clasica, in the new naturals line, and the colour is nothing like the picture — it's much more of a woodsy, dark brown oatmeal kind of colour. I love it. It's a bit thickie-thin and rustic (but softer than it looks) and the heathered colour and slubby bits give the vast yards of stockinette good interest. It should be warm, too, which is just what he wanted.

When I went to the Purple Purl to buy an extra skein, they told me that Manos del Uruguay just got their fair trade certification. I didn't even know that yarn could (or couldn't) be fair trade, but it made my hippie little heart happy.

And finally, about a week ago, we had some friends over to play Beatles Rock Band (which is über fun, by the way), and it turns out that my cat has a secret life as a roadie:


She may want to work on that narcolepsy thing first, though.

easily distracted by shiny things

So ... lately, I have been thinking about taking up quilting. Which is stupid, and insane. I do not need another hobby, especially not one that lets me have a giant, ever-growing stash. (I already have two of those. Check.) Also, I really, really hate the sewing machine. A few years ago, a friend of mine and I took some sewing classes. She's a great seamstress (she was, even before the class) — and she always finds the cutest patterns and makes the most adorable clothes, so it seemed like a good idea to go with her. We took two 6-week classes. The first one, which I really enjoyed, we learned to use the sewing machine and made a messenger bag, which I still use and love. The second one, slightly more advanced, we learned to use a serger — and that is in the loosest sense of the word "learn" only, because all I really did manage to do was cut up pieces of my laboriously-traced fabric. Repeatedly. And then I forgot that I was supposed to have taken the grain of the fabric into account before cutting, and I had to make up the dimensions of some of the pieces because the sizing didn't go as small as I am (granted, I am abnormally midget-sized), so by the end of the class I was only halfway into the stupid project and it is now in a little ball crammed into the back of my closet. I didn't want to finish it anyway. The pants looked stupid.

So maybe quilting is not the best idea (unless I can somehow make a bag out of it; apparently I'm okay with that). But quilts are so pretty! I actually don't like them as a bedspread — I love my white duvet — but as a dash of colour they're gorgeous. And so nice to snuggle up to. Here's a nice one I found on Etsy (click on the picture to go to the listing):



Wouldn't this look lovely spread on a white bed?

a little forward momentum

It's warm! It's warm!

The unexpected warm spell this weekend (and today!) is a little bit insane. I just want to run outside and jump around, absolutely silly, when I know perfectly well that 18-degree weather three months ago would have made me bundle up and grumble about unseasonal weather. But never mind all that: it's warm! It's warm!

Ahem.

Much as I would have liked to spend all weekend outside (and yes, really, I would have preferred that), I spent most of it working instead. Pierre pitched in and took some lovely photos of the newest Gocco design for Christmas:





And I, uh, made the cards.

I also finished the latest batch of baby congratulations cards:



Just in time, too. Two of these will be winging out of here soon; a friend gave birth last week, and another is expected to do the same sometime this week. And as soon as Christmas printmaking and knitting are out of the way, I need to start on a baby-related project for yet another friend. It's that time of decade, I guess.

(I have also been knitting, never fear. But right now I am working on a sweater for Pierre — Christmas deadline — and I decided to start with the back, which means inches and yards of straight stockinette. It's not exactly photogenic, but it is very soothing to not have to worry about a pattern. Yet.)

a little bit behind

I was planning to have my Etsy shop ready for the beginning of November, but ... no, that's not going to happen. Now I'm hoping for some time next week. It's been hard to find the time to make cards, and I've also been having some technical problems — namely, that water-based calligraphy ink slides right off Gocco ink. I've switched over to an acrylic alternative, which seemed to work when I tested it last week but has suddenly stopped working now. I think the solution is to let the Gocco ink cure a bit more, so they're sitting on their little rack until I have time to get back to them.

Oh well. In lieu of actual finished cards, here's a picture of what I did to the dining table in the meanwhile:


No, we don't really eat there right now; why do you ask?

Another view, with a close-up of some of the cards I was working on:


Aren't they cute?


These won't take long to finish; they just need calligraphy "legs." I held off because the Gocco scrollwork hadn't dried and honestly, scrollwork with permanent ink when you're tired is never a good idea.

Here's a preview of the new design that's been giving me problems:

It's a bit hard to see, but the Gocco image is lifting a bit over the calligraphy, which makes the latter busy and hard to read. (And yes, they're sitting on top of an Ikea catalog. It was taking up valuable flat surface space!)

A new beginning

So it turns out, and this probably won't come as a surprise to anyone, that I am crap at updating regularly. Thing is, I am both a little bit obsessive and easily distracted. Which means that I will do something very intently for a few weeks and then move on to something else, which is a problem if I've already started a blog writing about the first something, since I'm no longer doing it in an obsessive kind of way. I no longer, for instance, manage to finish a complicated sock pattern in a week. Now it takes me two — but really only because I've moved on to sweaters. Or printmaking (not with yarn). You see?

So my solution, this time, is not to start a blog about knitting sweaters, or printmaking, or whatever else I happen to be doing; my solution now is to just write about everything in one place. Specifically, this place. This means that I will no longer have three separate blogs about three separate topics, and also makes it likelier that I will update more than semi-annually. These are good things.

And now, let me give you a photo and a question:



A friend recently visited our apartment and, while standing in front of these very bookshelves, asked if I still bought physical books. This picture encompasses roughly a third of the collection crammed into our little 800 sq.ft. apartment, so let me ask you:

Does this really look like the library of a girl who doesn't buy books?