NoNoWriMo

As the season changes again from early autumn glory into endless darkness, I feel myself changing gears too. Not just in my activities as I’ve mentioned before, but also inside. It’s not yet noticable to you perhaps, but my blogging gear feels different somehow. I want to say other things, and differently, but how or what exactly hasn’t emerged yet.

November appears to be a silent month. A cold, grey, muddy silence, that is, when the winds aren’t howling with rage. Inside and out. Perhaps I don’t really want to say anything, but haven’t realized it yet. Or I do, but why?

I thought this was going to be a writing winter for me. Not any kind of monthly challenge or reporting to anyone; just because I felt like it and my thumb still can’t knit or the various other things I’d planned, but it can type, sortof. Or I can type without it, rather. But I could be wrong. My creative channels are static at the moment so I find myself on the sofa with Neil Gaiman, who appears to have fiber optics installed.

I may be back eventually, you’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you. 😉 It could be tomorrow, or next year. I don’t even have a pretty picture for you today, you’ll have to go find one yourself on the other blog. Could be false alarm too, and I’ll continue my regular nonsense before you can blink an eye!

And no worries – I’m not any kind of depressed or such. Just odd. Probably a normal reaction when you have to adapt to an unwanted situation. From extreme high to wallowing in the mud!

Books this week

pod

  • Joanna Rubin Dranger: Miss Remarkable and Her Career (Frøken Mærkværdig og Karrieren) (comic book – billedbog)
  • Katharine McMahon: The Alchemist’s daughter
  • Brené Brown: The gifts of imperfection : let go of who you think you’re supposed to be and embrace who you are
  • Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Creativity : flow and the psychology of discovery and invention
  • Garbor Maté: When the body says no : understanding the stress-disease connection

Do we sense a certain theme here? 😉

And next up was supposedly Chaucers The complete Canterbury Tales, but what happens when you order via online libraries is that you risk getting it in original old English…. Fun and understandable enough, but not quite what I feel I have the energy to study at this point in my life. So I’ll have to find something else until my next batch is delivered. Or I could try not to read if I finish “Creativity” and GASP do some painting instead! Haven’t knitted in a while yet either.

And then I look sideways at the mess on my desk (needed a box used for temporary storage, so all the contents got poured out), there’s a book someone lent me about synchronicity. “The Power of Flow”. So I guess I’m good for the rest of the holidays. 😉 I also have the C.G. Jung version somewhere in the back rows of my bookcase.

danishNår man bestiller via bibliotek.dk får man nogen gange ikke helt det man regnede med – som fx. Canterbury Fortællingerne på middelalderengelsk. Jeg kan godt forstå det, men det er en smule anstrengende og helt ærligt ikke lige noget jeg orker at studere pt. Enten må jeg gennemrode reolerne eller ligefrem holde læsepause, uha! Der ligger jo noget strikketøj og venter. Men så fandt jeg lige her til sidst en bog nogen har lånt mig: “Flow – den strømmende kraft. Synkronicitet og meningsfulde tilfældigheder.” Jeg har også Jungs version et sted.

Book break

Sometimes I need to zone out from real life, and now apparently is one of those times. So instead of being busy doodling in my repurposed books (I’m planning for 7 with each its own theme, but I only have 5 so far) I’ve been reading and not much else. These breaks are usually very univited, I’d just figured out that acrylic paint doesn’t work in the books because the pages stick together and my promarkers don’t work well on gessoed pages. Doh. I’d tested them on acrylic only… So I splurged on a little box of pastel chalks just yesterday to force the flow, but alas, it’s not how it works. My body reminds me not very kindly, that I’m not really in contol 😉

pastel

This weekend I’ve been through “Labyrinth” by Kate Mosse and “People of the Book” by Geraldine Brooks. On the table are “Of Marriageable Age” by Sharon Maas, an equally brick thick book by a Danish author and “The untethered soul” by Michael Singer (so, it had a horse on it…). I may have another browse thorugh Hugh MacLeod’s “Ignore everybody And 39 other keys to Creativity“. On order from the library are Kate Mosse “Sepulchre“, Felix Palma “The Map of the Sky” and Anne Lamott “Bird by Bird“. I hope that will be enough to see me through to the other side!

ubundne bogensfolk labyrint herskere sepul The-Map-of-the-Sky ignore bird_by_bird_lr

Bogpause

Pause fra mine hjemmelavede skitsebøger og pause til at læse. Trænger nogen gange til at bare stene og lade verden gå sin egen gang uden mig… Ikke af lyst, for jeg vil egentlig hellere fortsætte med mine projekter, men kroppen tager over og bestemmer noget andet.

Her op til og i weekenden har jeg læst “Labyrint” af Kate Mosse og “Bogens folk” af Geraldine Brooks. Nu venter “De ti herskere” af Christian Mørk, “I giftefærdig alder” af Sharon Moss samt “den ubundne sjæl” af Michael Singer og på biblioteket er bestilt “Sepulchre” af Kate Mosse, “The Map of the Sky” (den er vist ikke oversat endnu, men “Tidskortet” er) af Felix Palma og “Bird by Bird” af Anne Lamott. Så håber jeg at jeg har nok til jeg igen dukker frem af tågen! 😉 Jeg skal jo i gang med at lege med mine nye pastelkridt som jeg købte i går, dels fordi jeg ikke kunne få de sprayflasker jeg gik efter (som man bl.a. kan bruge med skabeloner til at lave art journaling baggrunde), dels fordi jeg har fundet ud af at akrylmaling ikke duer i bøger, siderne klistrer sammen, og mine fine dyre tusser tegner ikke så godt ovenpå gesso. Doh. Jeg havde kun testet dem ovenpå, ja akrylmaling!!

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Jeg har et spørgsmål til de danskere som evt. læser: vokspapir, hvor finder man det? Det skal være mere vokset end bagepapir, altså så man kan bruge det som mellemlæg ved sider som ikke er helt knastørre uden at det hænger i.

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UFO begone

Sat myself down for some prescribed quiet time and attacked my UFO pile in between reading. It’s sooo great to be able to cross out things on a to do list! And good to not run around trying to do ALL the things, just attack one at a time, never mind the others for the time being. I really, really must practise slow living since I probably won’t be able to master slow thinking…..

Didn’t manage to get done yet, even though I have several knitting projects just waiting, tempting…

So what do you do about sleeve syndrome?! As soon as I get there, I just lose all my steam. Knit summer tops you say? But I’m such an icicle, I need my heavy sweaters… I could do the sleeves first, but I tend to have length issues when I do. I need to set up some sort of reward system perhaps? I feel really silly working on one project, while my mind is all buzzing about another one that I’d rather be doing. Not very zen. I wanna be zen! So what do you do when one sleeve turns out too thin, the other too wide (not on the same garment thank goodness) and the body has stretched in width (on the garment that has too thin sleeve – but will the sleeve grow too?). You get REALLY bored!

This is just the very short immediate list. Oh boy, you should see the other one!

  • Sleeves on orange sweater
  • Sleeves on blue featherweight cardigan
  • Blue reverse sweater
  • Felted bag
  • New soft collar for ugly scratchy sweater

I felted the sweater, which I didn’t remember had no sleeves. I’d meant to use those sleeves for the shoulder strap. It also shrank A LOT. Well, that’s what felting does, stupid… So, now I have to knit some kind of strap, then felt THAT, before I have my bag. Which incidentally won’t be big enough for its intended use I think… Anyway, not the quick and dirty project I had in mind! For some reason, second hand stores here don’t have any wool sweaters, it’s all bleeping acrylics. I guess it’s a good thing though, I don’t need any storage space for felted items-to-be-turned-into-cool-stuff. I may just cut off the buttons and save those, you know. I know a cat or 3 who would love a new sweater.

I need a magic wand to finish these UFOs. And not one of those with a knob and a number on the end.

And now to go frog the too wide sleeve. In laceweight on 3 mm needles…. Wax on, wax off….. Yes, I did read that book up top. All looks so simple on paper, yes? Actually, maybe I’ll just keep knitting and accept what I get.

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Projektbunke-projekt

Så blev det lige tid til lidt stilletid, læs og strik, få has på nogen af de halvfærdige ting (så jeg kan starte 10 nye, ikke?). Jeg prøver at øve mig i at gøre få ting og gøre dem færdige frem for at rende mellem 25 forskellige projekter og få stress som jeg plejer. Jeg kan tilsyneladende ikke tænke langsomt, men måske jeg kan lære at opføre mig langsomt.

Det er ikke helt lykkedes mig at blive færdig endnu, selvom jeg har adskillige strikkeopgaver som ligger og frister! Jeg ved ikke helt hvad der sker, men så snart jeg når til ærmerne, længes jeg bare efter nye projekter. Hvilket er skørt, for ærmer tager jo ingen tid i forhold til kroppen, få dem dog overstået! Og hvad sker der så? Jo, selvfølgelig bliver det ene ærme for smalt og det andet for bredt (dog ikke på samme trøje), i min iver for at blive færdig. Og så tager ærmer pludselig meget lang tid, især med mønsterstrik som man er blevet rigtig, rigtig træt af. Nogen som har en tryllestav til låns? (ikke en af dem med numre på) Ja, og selvfølgelig er kroppen på det smalle ærme vokset i bredde helt af sig selv, men kan man forvente at ærmet også gør det?!

  • Ærmer til orange sweater
  • Ærmer til blå cardigan
  • Blå omvendt sweater
  • Filtet taske af sweater
  • Strikke ny blød halskant til kradsende, grim, men varm trøje

Dette er den meget korte liste – I skulle bare se den lange… Mht. at filte en taske, ja, jeg havde overset at der ingen ærmer var på trøjen, de skulle have været brugt til skulderstroppen. Så nu skal jeg pludselig til at lave en skulderstrop af noget andet, det tager lige mere tid end beregnet. Eller også klipper jeg bare knapperne af og gemmer til noget andet og giver trøjen til kattene.

Nå, det blev så til en rapport om, hvordan man IKKE bliver færdig med sine UFOer… I gang med at trevle ærme – i lacegarn på pind 3. Zen, tænk zen…. wax on, wax off.

Hm. Måske få projekter slet ikke giver mindre stress end mange?

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