A jumper and a cardigan

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are two of my recent knitting projects. The chunky cable-sleeve cardigan was knitted in a day, and I learnt the magic loop method in the process (turns out you don't need circular needles of varying lengths; you can use long ones for small circumferences, too). It bought this pattern from Knit Safari and made it in size S, but I used different wool: Lana Grande from Cascade Yarns, which is 100% Peruvian highland wool and very soft and lightweight. I also love Tiam's designs with big sculptural sleeves and have bookmarked some I might try in the future, but I chose this one as it fits under a coat without being too bulky.

Making the jumper was a very different experience, and as I was switching between thick needles (I was working on a blanket with 25mm needles at the same time) and thin ones, my first attempt resembled a chain mail, as I didn't knit tightly enough. It is based on a free pattern by Paintbox Yarns ('Bubblegum Bobble Sweater'), but I spaced out the bobbles more - the original has two extra rows of bobbles between my rows. I also used different yarn again (a cotton/bamboo blend), and I didn't bother making the tension swatch. When I did measure along the way, I stretched the piece, which was another mistake (I do tend to interpret instructions as a rough guide...). In the end my head didn't even fit through the neckband and I had to make the front and back again. 

The result is now a mix of sleeves in XS, as they were fine, and the torso two sizes larger ('to fit bust 91cm', which I am not), but it is still quite small overall, so it works.

I am happy with how it turned out and didn't mind the extra work - I enjoy the process. Sewing it all together was the hardest part, and my seams are a bit messy. In hindsight cotton/bamboo wasn't the best choice for bobbles, but I just pretend the visible holes are deliberate. There are also some irregularities in the rows of stocking stitch, but I like the wabi sabi look.

I love bobble patterns - they are so tactile and fun - and am planning to make some cushion covers with bobbles next.

Bedrooms

Some normality has crept back into my days, and that includes getting things done around the house (we are still renovating three years after moving in). In autumn last year I deliberated over decisions, mixing three paint colours to get a calming shade for our bedroom walls (named 'Marina's Tears' by John), and spent hours painting. Fast-forward to October 2018, and it took me five minutes to pick a new colour without seeing it in real life, and this time we hired a professional.

For months we had noticed a strange smell in our bedroom, and after some detective work and paranoia (a diagnosis like lung cancer makes you extremely sensitive to any smells) it turned out we had got a bad batch of paint from a well-known company. In an effort to make their low-VOC paint even greener (not the colour), something to be applauded, they ended up with paint that allowed bacteria to grow, hence the cat-pee smell. The summer's heatwave aggravated it, but with everything going on we left it and moved into the spare room.

When I had recovered sufficiently from the surgery, the painter came and Marina's Tears disappeared under coats of stain block primer and the new colour (see first photo), which goes well with the blush colour in the dressing room. He also painted all the remaining timber and the radiators, and it has made a huge difference. We moved back into our bedroom, and that in itself has brought back more normality.

Though I happily interrupt that with different sleeping arrangements. My sister and her family stayed the night recently, and Aidan and I slept on the pull-out bed in the map room / yoga room. I had never shared a bed with a three-year old before; it melted my heart hearing his breathing.

I decided to tackle some small projects of my own and finally finished knitting the blanket that had been sitting in a big lump in various places for months and, momentum thus built, went on to knit a cushion cover for the guest room in two days, designing it as I went along, necessitated by running out of yarn: the other side features a pink square on a grey rectangle that has drawn generous comparisons to the art of Patrick Scott and Mark Rothko (apologies to both). 'Great to get that bit done', as they say here.

Making - eat, bathe, wear

 

|  Eat: Christmas cookies, as per German tradition: very rustic-looking Elisenlebkuchen (my sister's are perfectly round and smooth) and Engelsaugen (angel eyes), and with the leftover egg whites I made coconut macaroons (not pictured).  The Lebkuchen have all the Christmas flavours - ground cloves, cinnamon, mixed peel and rum. I also made several loaves of hazelnut-studded Apfelbrot (recipes for that and the Lebkuchen to follow in time for next year's seasonal baking - I have been meaning to add a page with recipes here, for archiving purposes - the internet is chock-a-block with food blogs, so I'm sure the world isn't waiting anxiously for my contribution, but it will be nice to collect some here, as a back-up to my notebooks and folders).

|  Bathe: These bath truffles were easy and fun to make. I used six drops each of geranium and lavender essential oils and both rose and calendula petals. Due to the coconut oil, they create quite an oily bath, which some people don't like, but it means no need for moisturising. They were sitting on the kitchen counter, which confused visitors to my house, as they look edible (white chocolate and rose truffles sounds good). I love having baths with Epsom salts - they are a good way to absorb magnesium via the skin and have numerous healing properties.

|  Wear: I knitted this simple scarf for John a while back; unlike many other projects (where did this year go??) I managed to finish it in time for the colder weather. He knew exactly what he wanted; he picked the colour and requested the white strip. Sometimes I like being given instructions.

Making things has been an antidote to the stress of the last few weeks. Using my hands is so therapeutic, a way to get out of my head - the thoughts it stimulates are of a less frantic kind. I have prescribed myself daily doses of knitting for the holidays.

Scene from the weekend

Another week has gone by, and there has been more knitting and painting. We did one craft fair on Sunday, and there will be another one this weekend. The day itself did not really feel like work, and the hours flew by, but I was exhausted afterwards - as an introvert and Highly Sensitive Person any day surrounded by lots of people seems to have that effect. Too many stimuli. I took most of yesterday off - Monday often happens to be a day off for me* - and am looking forward to an Epsom salt bath tonight and the sauna tomorrow.

* Incidentally, I found out yesterday that Marc Allen doesn't do Mondays and finds that by Tuesday afternoon he is absolutely eager to work. I watched some Marc Allen youtube videos because I am re-reading Shakti Gawain (they co-founded New World Library). I like his work-with-ease approach. Apparently, he never works more than 20 hours a week. For many people that is not an option, but as someone who works part-time in her day job and in productive bursts at home, I can relate. You can get more done by doing less. And quiet time is so important to refill your "creative well", to use Julia Cameron's words, and let ideas emerge or develop.

Daily drawings | Not drawing, but painting (and knitting)

I've been having fun with these: tiny canvases to do quick paintings on (I chose a Galway theme). If I make the Daily drawings a regular feature, I had better change the title to include painting.

I find myself using the colours of recent evening skies:

And another colour pairing: I only noticed when I started knitting with this yarn that it matched my nail polish.

My sister and I are preparing for a crafts fair this weekend, and in my usual fashion I am doing lots of last-minute projects - painting by daylight, knitting and crocheting at night.

Feeding the muse

my sister's windowsill

My sister is serious about crafts. Whenever I met up with her recently, she would have a new elaborate project going on, while I would still be knitting the same never-ending wrist warmer. We want to participate in various crafts fairs, so there is a deadline of sorts approaching, and I am hoping it will motivate me. My sister knits and crochets every day of the year, whereas I seem to take a break during the summer (an exception is cotton and silky yarn - wool just feels wrong in the warmer months), but now I am slowly getting into it again. One reason for the slow pace is having to prioritise other work. Once again I have spread myself too thin with commissions and my own projects and can feel panic tingling at the edge of my awareness.  

What I tend to do in such times is shut myself away from the world, thinking I need time at home both to work solidly and also to recharge for the next burst of productivity. In a talk she gave with her writer mother-collaborator here in Galway last year, the illustrator Polly Dunbar said her friends were used to not seeing her for weeks on end when she is in the depths of working on a project. 

I recognised my own work tendencies in that. But ideally I will find time for everything that is important in any given week - people, work, leisure, exercise, rest. I realise I am actually more productive when I make time for friends and for attending things. This week was packed full with activities and events I thought I wouldn't have the energy for but that ended up energising me. These two musicians (and wonderful people) were a heart-warming part of a fireside soirée that included a panel discussion based on Jean Cocteau's contention "The arts are essential - if only one knew what for". They talked about being subversive and how everything we make is art ("cleaning one's kitchen really well") and children being the most incredible artists of all - topics I feel passionate about. A friend invited me to see the beautifully shot Renoir and I have resolved to go and see more films from now on. With the internet and a DVD player you have endless inspiration available all the time, but there is something about going out and seeing something live or on a big screen surrounded by other people that makes me feel more inspired and more alive than anything I absorb via my laptop.

I still haven't found the magic solution. While I saw friends and went out and did things, I somehow forgot to make space for the essential task of buying groceries, so I lived on peanut butter sandwiches and meals out (and of course those lovingly cooked for me). I've been feeding the well of inspiration but neglected feeding myself properly. There was also very little meditation and yoga; they were replaced by almost daily glasses of wine, which is a rather inadequate substitute.

Recently

I was absent here for a while for various reasons - family visiting, work in the Uni starting again after my long summer off, needing time away from the computer after long sessions of teaching myself Adobe InDesign - and came back only to find Blogger stubbornly refusing to cooperate, so I have temporarily lost bits in the sidebar. While I attempt to solve this, here are some glimpses of recent happenings and be-ings:

View from the prom in Salthill. Galway Bay was eerily still for a few days - a mirror-like surface, coupled with thick warm air and people moving slowly; it felt like walking through a dream.

 

Encountered on another walk. I must emphasise I do not approve of people dumping old furniture in the landscape, but this was at least aesthetically pleasing. It also reminds me of that famous Cranberries album cover. 

My sister and I are busy preparing for crafts fairs, Christmas markets and online shops. I am trying to establish whether buttons or hooks and eyes or snap fasteners work best on crochet cuffs.

Baking. There has been a lot of baking, for birthdays, hikes, visitors and visits. I found out that liberally substituting honey for sugar is not always a good idea (banana mash instead of banana bread) and that a cake described as "really moist" in the recipe still can turn out excessively moist (pear mash instead of pear cake), to the delight of my visitors, who thankfully were all family and brave and ate it anyway.

Rab and I presented some of our collaborations at the first ever Cong Arts Festival. My sister and brother-in-law kindly helped out in various ways, from driving to filming our show. Cong is a picturesque village most famous for the film The Quiet Man. We loved this sign plus painted ducks' footprints.

Pink

 Recent crafting has been dominated by pink lace (an antidote to potential January blues):

 

cat and cuffs

And my rocking horse made its way from the easel...

 

... into a festival:

(invites and the most beautiful personalised diary a friend made for me, cat included)

This week

little eyes

my sister playing with her food

this book

 

knitting and tea for giants (or me)

glitter

light

For hands and feet

The weather has been rather mild after the snow and ice that covered this part of the world just a few days before I arrived. Impractical dresser that I am I brought elbow-length evening gloves and no other type, but, coupled with my moss-stitch wrist warmers (the length of the gloves scrunched up underneath), they suffice for now.

I am knitting socks with leftover yarn at record speed - usually it takes me weeks, as I pick up the needles now and again for a few minutes, but I knitted one sock in two days this time.

I am still reading and re-reading Marion Milner - I always have several books on the go, and this is one that is accompanied by plenty of note-taking (and I will share my thoughts soon), and The Lacuna tempted me not only because I was in need of books that make "everything else in life seem unimportant", but also because it takes in Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and things I spent a large chunk of my university years on.

But right now I am reading my airplane book (the requirements for that are 'lightweight' and 'easy to read'; I usually fly in the early morning after getting up at midnight) - Nicci French's The Safe House. I read tons of psychological thrillers when I was a teenager, and somehow, being back in my childhood home, it seems appropriate. Not that it isn't appropriate at other times. I am intrigued by husband-wife writing duos, how they work, and particularly how both female and male sensibilities imbue the writing as a result. I am not saying that a male author is not able to convincingly get inside the head of a female character and vice versa, but there is a difference when the book is written by authors of both genders, even simply in the reader's knowledge of that fact.

Fading light

The only way I have been working with colour lately is in choosing yarn, since I have been focusing on black-and-white drawing. This weekend I am hoping to get my paints out and use bright colours as an antidote to the short days. I don't suffer from SAD, but like everyone I am happier if I see daylight every day, so whenever I can I go outside - no running this week so far, but walks, errands and forgoing the Ride of the Park-&-Ride and going by foot instead.

The lack of daylight meant I couldn't get better pictures of the crochet bracelets, but I actually like when pictures come out slightly blurry - as a myopic person, it feels so familiar.

Making...

...things for a Christmas stall...

 

...bread (though I want to eat less stodgy food)...

 ... artwork - revisiting/layering in this case (realising just how versatile watersoluble coloured pencils are)...

...time: for people, for running (my new rule is: if I am at home and conditions are acceptable - no horizontal rain! - and I am not expecting anyone, I go for a run, no matter how busy I think I am. The hour it takes up I get back through increased energy and clarity.)

Dogs, kids, birds, berets

 tiny dog, huge shadow 

berets - knitted earlier this year

 

 hooded

 acrylic birds

I don't have a dog and I don't have children, but last weekend I was given one of the former and two of the latter on loan. I got no painting done (the kids did - eight paintings between them in less than half an hour; they are very prolific), but I did get out of my head, which is just as valuable. 

Then Monday came and I spent it very much in my own head, so much so that I took to bed to make it stop. I know spending time with children and animals isn't the only way to feel grounded, but left to my own devices I often sabotage myself and don't do what I know would be good for me while fully aware of how I am blocking my wellbeing. 

There have been some blue-sky days, but mostly it has been typical November weather, wet and windy, and I haven't been out for a run or a swim in over two weeks. The last three days I didn't get home until after 8pm, and running in the dark doesn't appeal to me either. I shouldn't blame the weather and lack of daylight, though - dedicated people don't let these things deter them. Last night I saw a runner with a headlamp dodging puddles. It is possible, and I really need to be in my body more.

Crafting also takes me out of my head - it does leave plenty of space to think (so does exercise, but even if running sometimes stimulates my brain too much, at the end I always get that rush of endorphins that dissolves whatever was going on in my head), but for some reason the thoughts I have while engaged in crafting are of a less obsessive, less negative nature. It seems to sedate you. I am enjoying knitting round things at the moment - the sense that there is no beginning and no end; it just goes round and round... mesmerisingly absorbing.

Patterns

Repetitive patterns are calming to an over-anxious mind:

 

|  I chose this Noa Noa dress (a present from my mom) partly because of the print - dots in wobbly squares with rounded corners are very satisfying. I can stare at this print for a disproportionate amount of time - it is a type of meditation.

 

|  I have been making more crochet cuffs and knitting socks.

|  Tempting liquid blue in Ballyvaughan.


On a different note, today I am procrastinating by reading a book about procrastination that a friend lent me. I am only a few pages in, but it is interesting what Fiore has to say about the role anxiety, self-criticism, fear of failure/success and guilt play in the context of procrastination. We need compassion for who and where we are now to overcome the underlying causes of procrastination. I always knew that I procrastinate because I feel I am not good enough, so why even bother starting something, etc. And I can see that while putting things off leads to anxiety, the reverse is also true, so it is important to tackle the anxiety. Fiore is adamant that laziness and disorganisation are not the reasons people procrastinate, which is worth reminding yourself of.

These days

 

detail - work in progress

Painting: I am painting -and drawing- and feeling happy. Reading about Lucian Freud has been both liberating (he was painting when it was extremely unfashionable and didn't care; he always did his own thing) and intimidating (he could be quite critical and damning of other artists' work). I can only paint freely when I don't think about who will see the result and how it will be judged. I need to do it for myself. 

Then, of course, occasionally I exhibit my work (and I show it online all the time), and that makes it and me vulnerable and exposed. But I am just so content that I am creating again and on a regular basis that this feeling of joy is above everything else.

Learning: I was working on this programme, and this year there were barely any hiccups. Since my only training in graphic design so far has been a one-day course for Adobe Illustrator (a programme I don't have yet), it can be challenging (for me and for the printers, who have to deal with what I give them), but I am learning a lot (though my favourite parts remain the handmade ones - I enjoyed creating the artwork).

Wearing: Reason number 764 why my sister should open an etsy shop.(This is so beautiful, Anke!) I don't have a photo of the back, but you tie the choker with a ribbon, and it has tiny beads where the ribbon is attached to the lace. I will wear this a lot.

The view from my bed in the evening

Reading: After working on the computer a lot recently, which resulted in an aching body and dry eyes, I am now keeping my evenings computer-free. Since I only have a small not-very-soft couch, I set up a reading/tea-drinking/notebook-and-sketchbook island on my bed and sit there with the last bits of daylight, and it is lovely. I am reading Marion Milner and am getting so much out of her books (am working on a post about her).