One month later

I'm a bit amazed- I actually finished the scarf! It is warming my neck as I type this. I do like the colours and the feel of it. It is a bit on the scraggly side, a few dangling bits of yarn. I will have to see how it wears and washes. I don't think it will totally come apart.

Also, I have learned that it is really hard to take a picture of yourself; hence the scarf is on my little set of drawers in the photo, rather than on me.

I haven't blogged as much as I wanted to. I meant to write about the death of Oliver Postgate, whose work I've really enjoyed. (The clanger pattern was a pre-buscraft project. I spent a lot of time making a clanger while riding on the train to work. I'm not sure how I would feel about sitting on the bus using foot long metal spikes, um, I mean knitting needles.) But Mr Postgate's work deserves more than a brief note from me, and to be honest I'd prefer to watch the Clangers and Bag Puss rather than to write about them. So simply, a farewell and thanks, Mr Postgate, I do hope to always be  inspired by your work.

And Finally, I've been trying to think if I want to have a paper-based journal, like I used to keep, for tracking what I'm up to in 2009, or if I should just use this blog. No conclusion reached, so I'm going to start the year by doing both, and seeing how well both work. (I was happy to be able to check when I started the scarf, so am please with blogging at the moment.)

Someone spoke to me!

Going to work this morning, an older
gentleman sat beside me and asked what I was making. I'm afraid I
didn't answer very well (I can't hear well in noisy environments, and I
wasn't familiar with his accent), but he did say the scarf looked
pretty, and so it started my day well. This is the first time since
starting the blog that anyone has commented on my buscrafting. Scarf progress: 3 rows are put together, the next one is started, then 2 or 3 more to go.

And here's a picture from when I wasn't
crafting, just staring out the window. The weekend before, it seemed
all of England was covered in mist. On this day, the sky was clear(ish)
but the bus window was fogged and patterned with splashes, hiding
things in a similar way.

 

Also, I've been struggling to finish a
project for the Embroiderers Guild meeting on Saturday- a runner
decorated with felt patches we made earlier this year. I feel like a
student, rushing to finish at the last minute!

oh no- I've started something else!

In this case, it is a finger knitted scarf. I have some old blue chenille, bought years ago at Bainbridges in Newcastle. And I have some fresh ribbon yarn from Wool in Stockport- all glittery rainbow coloured. So they will hopefully combine to give me the nice warm scarf I am yearning for. No pattern, but I remember seeing one on Craftster, and I can also remember how to finger knit. When I was in elementary school, or maybe junior high, there was a brief craze for it. It seemed sort of ugly to me, but the scarf with a combination of yarns and textures did look nice.

I do have a horrible habit of starting things and not finishing other things. Will I ever get back to those crochet flowers? I'm thinking they would be a nice embellishment on a patchwork shirt; a project I'm thinking of starting after I finish the quilt I've been working on for a year and a month. Too much thinking!

Doing nothing

My
lack of blogging reflects my lack of crafting- all I've done on the bus
is sit. I've been disorganized and unmotivated (though I know I'll make
no progress if I don't force myself to work on things). I've also been
tired- possibly because of anxiety around my sister in law needing an
operation, and stress around cleaning the mould infestation in our flat.

 

Must remember that at this month's
Embroiderer's Guild meeting, Carol gave me a lovely bit of hand dyed
yarn- wonderfully soft. It was a left-over from her card making, and
she suggested adding it to the mending I was doing on one of P's kimono
(finally wearable again- all 3 need more patching, but 2 are back in a
wearable state). I put it along a spiral of green stem stitch, and it
looks so fun. I need to be more generous- and I need to buy nice stuff
so I'll have nice stuff to share.

 

I read about implementing the 101
things in 1001 days on the Peacock Chic blog (she seems so fun). It
does seem like a good tool, but I feel like I'd just be setting myself
up to fail if I tried to use it. I want to enjoy myself, and that does
require being more organized about my hobbies, but I'm reluctant to set
any goals right now. Is this a mistake? I don't know.

Not in the mood

On Wednesday, I took the 191 to meet P and go to the book reading by Neil Gaiman. I did enjoy it, but I wasn’t really in the right mood. I’ve been trying to write a story as my commuting project this week, and maybe I was hoping for words of inspiration from Mr Gaiman. I find it hard to write, and I’m not good with words and spelling, but I do amuse myself by thinking up stories. I suppose I’m trying to take that a step further.

And another reason I’ve been writing on the bus: I can’t remember how to crochet. My flower was a bit too free-form. So I need to find a how-to guide to stir the memory of what I was taught as a child.

Anyway, it was interesting to hear how Mr Gaiman read his work, using voices for characters that wouldn’t have been in my head if I had just picked up the book. I like to think I have a high level of literacy and cultural fluency, but I do often miss huge, important elements in books and stories. I tend to just see the surface and not look any deeper. I still enjoy reading and I find it very engrossing. But if you need to write a book review, don’t ask me for help.

And it was nice to sit in Whitworth Hall and admire its well-heated neo-gothic style.

10,000 hours

As I was getting ready for work this morning, P was sipping tea and listening to the Today program. He told me that Thought for the Day mentioned something about how great achievers in sports and the arts all had around 10,000 odd hours of training before they were truly great at what they did. This would equate to 20,000 bus rides to/from work, or 10,000 working days, or 2,000 work weeks, or 44 and a half years of work. As I hope not to be working when I'm 81 years old, I think I can say that bus crafting will not make me one of the leading artists of our time. Especially as I haven't been organized enough to have a craft project with me since coming back from holiday.

I've been thinking that I've been living wrong. There have been good things: the holiday was brilliant, then a bit of urban foraging when I picked a delicious apple on the way home, and our successful small ikea-hack of adding a mirror to our wardrobe. But then there was the great mildew infestation (which P has dealt with), and we still don't have a fully functional space station, I mean kitchen. And though I did wash dished for 30 days straight, I’m still now back to letting them pile up again. So I’m feeling like my effort has been misdirected; not completely out of balance, not even teetering, but not right either.

Notes about the cloth & culture NOW exhibit

Even though I wasn’t enthused and energized about walking to the Whitworth Art Gallery (my monthly bus pass expired while I was on holiday), I really enjoyed the exhibit. I may even go back and buy the catalogue.
Stuff I particularly liked:

• Neat ‘maze’ of a string of wool staked out in a wood and a meadow- but wrote down the wrong information in my notes. I think it was one of the Estonian artists.



• Lina Jonike’s Architectural Monument: lovely image, and the embroidery- satin stitch on only some of the flowers- contrasts and integrates. Could this be applied to printed t-shirts?



• Krista Leesi quilted 007 logo, For Your Eyes Only. Interesting gender issues with the fabrics- did she design those too? Must tell Eleanor at the office.



• Auste Jurgelionyte’s animation in felt, The Action. Very playful. Intention was to not make something solid.



• Brilliant button leaves, Passage of Time by Mitsuo Toyazaki. I didn’t pick them up, but I did find 3 buttons on my way home. The seasons are changing.



• Jun Mitsuhashi, Murmur of Rain, Shadow on the Water and Passing Rain. I would love to have breakfast at one of these tables. They are like Paul Klee’s They’re Biting (Sie beissen an) in 3D!

In other news, the tangle is now a ball of string. I took it on holiday and while P enjoyed the scenery on the train ride down to Ashurst, I sat and untangled. I finally finished it on the second day of our vacation. I have tried to crochet the flowers, but I’m finding it hard to do. I think I understand the instructions, but I’m not sure what I’m doing with the thread. This may take some time.

The holiday in the New Forest was fantastic! We had lovely sunshine for taking photos, and the Barn was a brilliant place to stay. We got weekly bus passes for the area, and combining the bus with long walks in the forest worked quite well. Still at the end of the days I was too tired to do any crafting or writing.

And then I get back home and see these crochet flowers by Linda Permann (from a link on In a Minute Ago). Grrr- so cute, but I don’t even understand the first bit of the instructions. I think I need to stick with something simple, or even more simple. Or extremely more simple. Keep it simple.