Tag Archives: random yammer

Aug11

Those days when your eyeballs hurt

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Somehow my full day of housecleaning evolved into me goofing off all day and getting a sunburn and a migraine and then goofing off some more. Which is unfortunate, since I invited a friend over for tomorrow, and she’s never seen my place.

It started out innocently enough. I had a couple of things to take to the flea market stall I rent, and when I got there I realized that ermagerd! the outdoor flea market is this weekend. And of course I had to make the rounds, where I did score some epic crafting type stuff. Oldish yardsticks with advertising for $2, $3 and $4. Shutters for $5 each. A couple of pairs of jeans for $1 each, which I got mostly to be nice after I picked some stuff out of the same people’s free bin. (Including some awesome, though completely broken down, cowboy boots, which I plan to alter like mad.) Oh, and a wheelie bin that’s probably meant for gardening but will be good for schlepping things down to the basement via the hill outside and not the stairs. Also chatted with some people and enjoyed that thoroughly. Though it was a beautiful day and not too hot, I got a little fried, and after I came home and put stuff in the garage, I sat down to catch up with a friend on the phone and cool down, and by the time we’d talked for 1 1/2 hours, I was reeling a bit from not having had lunch. By the time I finished eating, a migraine had set in already, and so I napped a while, and then have mostly lounged and eaten ice cream.

I am partway through a craft that’s a bit of a quick one, and maybe it’ll be postable tomorrow at some point when I’m not madly grabbing up things and hiding them somewhere, or hanging out with my friend.

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Aug5

Craft dinner

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I have no idea what that subject line relates to. Crafts. I have none.

That’s about 50% busy-ness, 50% sloth. After a mid-day thunderstorm yesterday, today was an absolute gem of a day, about 75 degrees and sunny with some fluffy clouds. I had a friend in town all weekend, so today we went out and wandered around the indoor flea market. (And I continued my run of selling stuff even when I didn’t think I had, and more than making the rent on my space.) I found some craft and home DIY items there, and then we went to an outlet store and I got an oversized shirt to try a craft project on, 2 books that will provide excellent fodder for some fiction, and a car organizer thingie. We ate a late lunch and then we parted so she could head home. Came back kinda knackered, so I haven’t done much but read and have a phone convo with my brother.

I know exactly what it is I want to do, I just haven’t given myself the push to do it. Hope to have something done by tomorrow if I can light a fire.

Work week is going to feel long. My coworker is on vacation all week. Making something will really improve things, so I need to get my head in the right place.

(Jeez, this wasn’t even entertaining….)

Aug3
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Twice in a couple of weeks I’ve had dreams about bags — once it was a weekender bag, and once it was about shopping for a bag for my daily schlep. Now, I’m not a gal who lives for the latest handbag, and I wouldn’t dream of paying thousands — hell, not even hundreds — for a designer bag. The idea just boggles my mind. I just buy one that perfectly or somewhat adequately fills my stringent requirements (hard to pickpocket, for one), and generally use it until it wears out. So what’s with the I Dream of Bags all of a sudden? Don’t know. Is there even a category in the interpreting dreams books?

Anyway, I’m taking this as a sign that I should do something bag related for a craft soon. Make one (I have a craft book on that!) or tart one up that I already have… We’ll see what calls my name.

ETA: WordPress bloggers may know the little writing quote treats you get when you finish a post. When I finished this one, it popped up with “Dreams are illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you.” — Marsha Norman. Universe affirming me, or just kinda creepy?

Mama’s got a brand new bag

Mar9

There should be a German word for this…

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And maybe there is.

That feeling you get when you’re in the middle of a project (or six) and you think about it at random points during the day and how the minute you get home you’re going to dive right in. But by the time you get home, all the energy and urgency has been completely sucked away. I often blame it on my commute, but I ended up working from home yesterday due to an eye infection that needed another day of treatment before I wasn’t Eye Goo Mary in the workplace, and I STILL lost my energy.

Though maybe that was due to another factor. I did start something last night, a project that will involve cutting down the front of a tunic I’m making into something else. Instead of doing the sloppy free-hand thing, I measured to the halfway point all the way up from the hem, being super careful about it … and it doesn’t look even! ::shakes tiny fist at the Universe:: So that sapped my will to cut the thing and possibly botch it (also considering the whole eye thing makes me tired and cranky, not the best state of mind for doing irrevocable things). So I contented myself with getting out the seam ripper and undoing the crossover neckline so I can find the center at the neckline.

So I don’t quite know how to proceed. Just find the center at at the hem and power on up to the center at the neck, and ignore the little dots I carefully placed? Or cut along the dotted lines and ignore the ones that seem off-kilter?

I feel like I should rewatch that episode of Farscape with the alien dudes (everyone on the show is an alien, including the Earth guy, which is why I like it) who keep shouting, “WHY SO DIFFICULT?!”

Because dude. Why so difficult?!

Feb19

Caution: Falling Stnadards!*

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Many of the writers I know have probably heard this story: The poet William Stafford wrote a poem every day, first thing in the (very early) morning. Someone one asked him what he did when he found himself unable to produce, and he said, “I lower my standards.”

Which seems like a good philosophy to have when embarking on a year of crafts, too. So I’ve lowered my standards for today. The activities I was planning to undertake in a great blur of motion have been postponed for varying lengths of time. It’s not so much I’m lowering my standards for today’s craftiness, but I’m giving up the thought of cramming about four projects into one day so that I can have the most perfectly awesome guest room/craft room when I have a houseguest in two weeks. I went out yesterday and did some shopping and walking around with my friend, and the foot that has been giving me trouble has been hurting nonstop since then (even the spellbinding Ira Glass didn’t manage to make me unaware of the skeletal rebellion going on). So the sanding, priming and painting frenzy I planned is off. I do need to make room for the kitchen table and headboard I’m getting delivered on Tuesday, and I will write a post about my project of the week and I will take some photos to submit to the art show that already has my application. Even that seems like a lot right now.

Fortunately I have some projects coming up that are perfectly doable while lounging on the couch.

*Hahaha, just saw my typo on the header line. I’m keeping it!

Feb14

Cuidado! Hay pterodactyls!

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You know that Doctor Who episode where time has been borked and there are flying cars and pterodactyls and Winston Churchill and Cleopatra, because history is all happening at once?

Yeah, kind of like that. At this stage it’s not one week, one craft. I have a whole whirlwind of projects I’m in the midst of at the moment, on top of the item I finished last Friday as a birthday gift but haven’t posted yet.

Those items would happen to be (because I know you are burning to know):

• Dyeing several silk scarves as gifts to internet strangers, which I will be posting about soon.
• Finishing a “sweater surgery” knit scarf I keep fiddling with and rethinking
• Working on funky and functional storage for my craft room/guest room, which I hope to have finished before I have a guest soon, and which may account for more than one project
• Infinity scarf/necklace project
• A geek craft project, which I shall not describe just now
• Birthday present I should be working on this very second.

Plus I need to:

• Send photos for the art show I’ve applied for.

Plus I want to:

• Experiment with a cool new idea for that art show.

I expect things will sort themselves out eventually and time will become unborked.

I feel like I ought to post a picture for you all, though. Chosen at random:

You can never go wrong with a cat picture.

Feb12

Chaos!

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One thing that drives me nuts about crafting: I’ll be searching for something I need for a project and won’t be able to find it where I think it is, but I’ll run across something else and think. “Huh. What’s that doing there?” Without fail, 2 weeks later I need the thing I did run across and now I can’t remember where that thing is.

I am currently wanting to find two groups of objects:
1. A small group of metal pieces and parts from the found objects box at the arts center where I hang out. I chose them because they have personality and I thought they’d be cool in an assemblage. But now I’m thinking they would make good objects to use for rubbings to make robot designs on some silk scarves for Wiscon. (Wiscon is the feminist science fiction convention that’s been going on yearly in Madison, Wisconsin for 35 years. It attracts some very cool people, and I’ve participated for the last few years in the art show there and you should go.)

So while looking for the still-at-large robot bits, I ran across:

2. The ball-bearing shower curtain rings that glide smoothly on the rod. I took them off when I got some that looked snazzier, and put them someplace that makes no sense. And now that I bought a shower curtain to use as a window curtain, I want those curtain rings. Haven’t yet started the search, but it will probably be epic.

Ironically, this post was written in a fit of frustration at a time when the blog wasn’t happening yet. I ran across it while getting ready for my first project post. Both items, by the way, have been found and are in use or are about to be.