A cold afternoon
Fire crackles and warms the cat
inside – the wheel spins
I am no poet
Exercise in short writing
This is just a test
****************
Kold eftermiddag
Ild knitrer, varmer katten
indenfor Рrokken g̴r
Når man vil øve
sig i at skrive koncist –
Jeg leger poet
Once again I’m going to contradict my own decisions, I guess it’s even becoming something of a rule. I said I’d knit small items rather than sweaters or begin to weave tapestries. Right. As it happens, all of a sudden I’ve become fat, no change in my diet and I’m moving more than last year, but still, here is the cold season and my closet is filled with sausage skins. So I have to do something about that, and I have yarn long ago dedicated to this anyway. It’s going to be much faster than losing the lard, even at my knitting rate, I’m not exactly from a family of fast metabolism.
Last year I began my reversible sweater, and made it all the way to starting the sleeves. But it was juuust an inch too tight all of a sudden, the neckline too, whereas the sleeves were too wide. The raglan method I’d invented worked in theory, it just didn’t look very good, and – the whole thing was a bit short too. So I decided to start over, change the design a bit accordingly and then it never happened. Well, now it has. I’m actually DONE! Sewing in the ends invisibly doesn’t count. I’m on it already. Needs a little wash to even out stitches too. And I suppose I need to get Mimi padded up to match my current proportions!
Next up are two hopefully quickies in the same yarn from Drops, two colourways. One I’m knitting with a strand of slate coloured alpaca, it was destined to become a Forest Nymph dress, but I can’t wrap my head around cables and shortrows at the same time just now, so it’ll be another raglan and then I’ll just keep going until I run out of yarn. The other one will be a sideways garter thing real simple on large needles because I only have 6 skeins. Just for an over the top of everything else in the cold, could become a vest actually, I’ll have to swatch. Possibly I could knit with a natural Mulberry 6/1 single that I have stashed somewhere? Any other ideas how to stretch the yarn?
The remainder of the blue yarn I thought of using for a two sided hat, with some of my handspun on the outside, the blue is absolutely non-itchy but of course not as warm as wool and I have very delicate ears, so it needs to be fairly windproof.
Further projects I probably shouldn’t even begin to think about, knowing my track record of sticking to plans. Feel free to hold me accountable for these however! 😉
And to make it a WIP Wednesday too, here’s some of my current reading material.
På trods af min erklæring om ikke at strikke trøjer mere, er der alligevel hele 3 på pindene til denne vinter. Jeg er simpelthen blevet så fed i løbet af året, at det meste af mit tøj sidder som pølseskind, selvom jeg bevæger mig mere end året forinden og spiser det samme!
Den blå omvendesweater jeg begyndte sidste år er sådan set nærmest færdig, den måtte strikkes om, da den også var blevet stram. Og så improviserer jeg lige et par hurtige med noget Drops jeg har liggende, den ene farve skulle egentlig have været denne model, men jeg kan ikke koncentrere mig om at lave vendestrik og kabler på samme tid, så nu bliver det bare en top-down raglan indtil der ikke er mere garn.
Og så må jeg hellere lade være med at lave flere planer, for jeg overholder dem jo alligevel ikke.
Og så vil jeg strikke en dobbelthat af noget hjemmespundet udenpå og rester af det blå trøjegarn indeni, så mine sarte inderører er beskyttet og min sarte hud ikke bliver kradset af ulden.
I’m slowly getting back to hands on tasks, and I’m determined to break a barrier or two before the year is over.
It’s funny how I can happily mess about with painting abstract backgrounds / washes forever, and then I get stuck. Or any idea I might have doesn’t work out – probably because I’m so scared to ruin it that I overthink, and then paint over the failure with a new background. It’s quite clear I have a performance anxiety here that I don’t experience with photography, probably because I can’t trust my hands to be able to do what’s in my head, the craftsman part of it. And we all know how that part is achieved!
 
It mostly happens when I paint without a plan, which is what I’ve been trying out for a while. Just picking a set of colours and see what happens. Of course, it could be that I’m simply not suited for the so called intuitive approach. I do have several complete illustrations in my head, but they don’t even get started apart from some very preliminary sketches or even just descriptions. And I have a feeling they’re kinda blocking the doorway for any new ones…
So I’ve decided to just make them, force myself to begin – and if they’re no good, I can make them again. Totally new experience to me, I never did the same image twice. Or rehearsed them.
As for the backgrounds sitting in a pile, I’ll try to put anything on there now, even if it’s not what I think is my usual topic matter. For instance, even though I love gardens and take copious photos of flowers, I never considered myself a floral painter. But I quit resisting when all this canvas wanted was some poppies – now I just have to work on them a lot, as you can see they’re going through multiple stages before being even close to a sketch. (I was interrupted the other day, as usual. By the same person who interrupted me with the same painting a month ago, when I was doing the background! I just hope it won’t be another month before I get back to it – last time I completely forgot my actual plan with it. And well, the famous thumb and all…)
I don’t really wish to paint from life – that’s a camera thing for me. Painting is for the world inside my head.
I actually have a third hurdle, as if the first two weren’t enough. I never painted or drew people. I never take photos with people if I can help it, even as a tourist I wait until everybody is out of the frame before I click. But it appears that some of my “illustrations” have people in them. Which means I have to learn from scratch and develop a “style” if I want these images to live. It’s not going to be easy, I’m no good at people in any aspect. I even avoid mirrors.
I’m still not certain whether this new thing is really coming from me though, or if I’m simply influenced by all the mixed-media art journaling I’ve been seeing around. So the figures may or may not happen.
And that’s what I’ll be dedicating December to. No more touchy feely I’ll bloody well do what I feel like-a-day. I’ve got a job. Not like pretending to make art, no, this will be deliberate and planned destruction. Because I am in the mood and still nothing happens, as opposed to not really feeling like it but thinking you should.
I don’t know why I persist, but it seems I have to give it a go. And yarn. Silly, useless, colourful string. I always have my Adobe studies to fall back on if my hand acts up. And plugins..
All I know is, I spent many years doing just tedious jobs and nothing creative at all and I don’t like the person that turns me into – I don’t think anybody else does either. So I need to keep giving this as much space as possible, because even if it sounds like I struggle, it really is the only thing that keeps me alive. It doesn’t have to end with painting – after all it’s been on the shelf for 20 years while other crafts are more recent and perhaps more likely to yield “products” I’m happy to call finished. But just as I always considered myself a horse rider even when I didn’t ride for a decade, I still have this image of myself as someone who paints. Weird, huh?
According to the stats here on WordPress, hardly anyone clicks my photos, whether I make thumbnails or bigger. Especially if I make “nice” photos, like my garden galleries or the Photoshop paint effects, I think they look best at their largest size of 800 px or up – but I’m wondering if it’s really a waste of space?
If you don’t click – why and does it have something to do with your screen size, or isn’t it tempting enough?
If you do click – I wonder why it doesn’t show? It’s not that I’m hunting viewers per se, it’s just interesting to find out what people like the most and what motivates you.
I would really appreciate it if you’d comment or vote – and everyone please click the enclosed photo, tell me that you did, so I can check if it registers. Thanks!
[polldaddy poll=7582284]
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Ifølge statistikken her på bloggen, er der næsten ikke nogen som klikker på mine billeder for at se dem i fuld størrelse, heller ikke hvis det er små thumbnails. Især hvis jeg synes jeg har lavet noget pænt, som fx. mine havegallerier eller de Photoshoppede falske malerier, så synes jeg de vinder ved at blive forstørret, men måske er det spild af plads?
Hvis du ikke klikker – hvorfor og har det noget med din skærmstørrelse at gøre eller er det bare ikke fristende?
Hvis du klikker – er det jo sært at jeg ikke kan se det. Det er ikke fordi jeg jagter point, det er bare sjovt at vide hvad der motiverer folk og hvad de synes bedst om. SÃ¥ jeg vil sætte pris pÃ¥ hvis du gider kommentere eller stemme. Hvis du ogsÃ¥ gider klikke pÃ¥ billedet og fortælle at du har gjort det, sÃ¥ jeg kan se om det bliver registreret, sÃ¥ bliver jeg rigtig glad.
Mid November, and yes, there are still a few things out there to forage.
I trimmed some wild rose bushes that were reaching over the riding ring fence, so while I was at it I picked the fruits off. I got this idea from Rima (you have to scroll down a bit) that I wanted to try – didn’t pick all that many as it was a bit awkward cutting with my left hand, but enough to give it a go I hope. Scratchy work too without gloves, but I can’t feel what I’m doing if I wear them, the downside being that you feel rather too much when you don’t 😉 I also put some of them in a stew that evening because I’d forgotten to buy mushrooms, but frankly I got impatient with scooping the seeds out, so I’m unsure if they actually added to the taste. Will try with bigger ones next year if this turns out like it’s supposed to – I’m wondering if it won’t all just mold. I’ve done it with fruit, sugar and rum, but never just sugar.
I also picked a tiny batch of woad to get more colour onto the fleece I dyed a couple of weeks ago, it still works fine, if not as strong as in summer. Some of the locks were so pale they were almost grey, but now at least they’re more like faded jeans.
Got the reddest of the apples off the lawn, made G peel them and yes, managed to get my winter supply of apple sauce done (I like it on oatmeal instead of sugar – and I have a great recipe for marzipan/apple sauce buns too). Only had two vanilla pods, but it turned out fine. I put the jars in the oven afterwards, the canning procedure means it can last for years just in a cool cupboard. I don’t use pretty photogenic jars, I just recycle whatever we buy. My kitchen is far from pretty either, more like shabby 70’s homemade. But you can cook in it and I have a new drumcarder!
The kale is of course fine in the cold, I use it both in salads and warm, sometimes I make pesto. Hopefully the caterpillars are done nibbling their portion? New recipes are welcome if you have any favourites.
Dug up the last potatoes, well, G did, and while there are not a lot I think it was a fine harvest from 9 plants, and a good size too. 3-4 kg at least.
I’ve been pressing leaves to use in collages, they got squished a bit more than I planned, paper thin and brittle, but at least they are bone dry. I hope they regain some colour if I cover them in acrylic medium, much like varnishing rocks does.
And now I think I can safely say that we’re moving into winter soon… There’s blue on the temperature curve for next week!
Her lige inden efterÃ¥ret slutter, er der stadig et par ting at hente i naturen. Hyben – som jeg vil prøve at rÃ¥sylte til saft ved at lade dem stÃ¥ i et glas nogen mÃ¥neder. Jeg tænker mug, men læste om det et sted; og da jeg alligevel skulle befri min ridebane for vildtvoksende rosengrene sÃ¥ blev det sÃ¥dan.
Jeg fandt også en lillebitte smule vaid til min råuld, ikke helt så god mere, men virkede dog godt nok til at give mere end gråt.
Ãblemos af nedfaldæbler, manden fik lov at skrælle. Jeg kommer godt med ægte vanilje i, det smager super pÃ¥ havregrød. Eller i familiens marcipanboller, som jeg ikke kan spise fordi de ikke bliver gode med glutenfri mel.
Gravet kartofler op har han ogsÃ¥, næsten en hel murerspand af bare 9 nedlagte kartofler, og pænt store ogsÃ¥, det er da ok udbytte. GrønkÃ¥len trives jo i kulden – nogen opskrifter I har lyst til at dele? Bruger det bÃ¥de i salater, som pesto eller varmt.
Og så har jeg presset blade til collager, de blev lidt fladere end jeg ønskede, papirtynde og skrøbelige, men i det mindste knastørre så de ikke rådner. Jeg håber farverne liver lidt op igen når de får en gang malemedium på toppen.
