Slow?

july4

So, is summer generally a slow time for blog reading and/or writing? Is everyone outside, bored, hot, “undefinably passive”? It seems everybody is off to pursue their offline activities instead which probably is quite healthy. Unless they’ve moved on to Twitter, she sneered. I tried and I don’t get it. There’s just no way I can sit here that much just to catch one-liners and promotion. It seems if you leave for a few hours you miss all the action.

Continue reading “Slow?”

So…

lilac

This is another one of those days where I have a number of blog drafts sitting around, but can’t get to the end of them because stuff is missing. (I can’t tell you of a loom I did not get to buy for instance because somebody else beat me to it) But I need to keep in touch or I’ll go missing entirely I think, there’s definitely something to staying in the flow, not just with art, but with blogging too. The more you do, the more ideas happen as well.

Busy week here preparing for an insurance inspection, ditto meeting and generally a very tiring May. My journal has ONE page in it, that’s how little I’ve been “me” instead of janitor/general manager/headache monster. Trying to reset myself now, mentally and physically, by doing very little, my brain is boiling a wee bit. Definitely hoping to get back to work on Monday, and I know I’ve said that about some previous Mondays as well, but this time I mean it or I’ll murder somebody. I don’t even care if they deserve it. šŸ˜‰

Anyway, we were out of dog food and old ladies get special low calorie senior kibble, so I had to drive to town today and decided to try a marathon run of my long accumulated shopping list. No more room on the whiteboard. Only forgot to look for two things and didn’t get one other which was not available, so all in all I feel very efficient and also accomplished enough to relax about granting myself some me-time. So much for resetting, but I did that most of yesterday at least and haven’t done much else today either. I may not be able to get artsyfartsy on weekends, but I think tomorrow will be for a couple of projects where I just have to point. Rhubarb pie might happen.

so02

Only yesterday I was thinking about how it would be nice to have various shades of bright thread to make scrap blankets/quilts from old clothes. Well, first stop on our tour was getting a new cover for painting on the dining table and what did they have at the checkout counter? A little junk basket of very marked down threads… Thanks a bunch!

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Second score was a new hedge trimmer. The one I’ve been using for the last 12 years is a bit weak and I often have to hack my way through if I need to trim close. My arms, shoulders and back just aren’t up to the job anymore, so we agreed last year that I’d get a better one. Tried various types and the really good ones were also too heavy, so I hope I’ve found a good medium variety. Why doesn’t the large person in the household cut hedges? Because he is not a garden freak and I’d go bonkers having to supervise the job. He could theoretically use this one too, but it wouldn’t work the other way round; which means I’d have to be a major nag to get it done. Not my favourite situation at all. And, well, I kinda like doing it. Especially after.

so01

I’m going to try fishing line for helping with my selvedges in weaving. Do you think this will be strong enough? I obviously didn’t have a chance to pull it before buying…

I also bought a piece of wood. Maybe another day I’ll show you what I want to make from it. It amuses me no end to prance around the hardware store, try things out and pick what I want, with a guy in tow just carrying the stuff!

so03

My saori jacket is not making a lot of progress, oodles of design errors and remakes. I was picking out buttons the other day, haven’t found the perfect set, but decided on “good enough”. This pile I received from Melanie in Toulouse along with chocolate and two lovely scarves, how’s that for a score!? Maybe some day surprise packages will go out in the opposite direction, but for now that’s a secret.

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And that’s about it from the cottage this week. The lilacs are looking spectacular at the moment, but so far I’ve forgotten fresh photos of them. Lucky for me, they look just the same as last year. I’m going to try my very best to be a little bit interesting in the near future.

Audience

On Thursday I asked what you would like to see on my blog, mostly in terms of images. The response was underwhelming in numbers of actual commenters (thanks to those of you who do, I always enjoy your replies), so it doesn’t represent any kind of average (or perhaps silence is agreement), but it raised a question for me:

What do you do if you have an audience and they want something different than you do?

The snarky reply would of course be that there will be a new audience for a different content, but blogging for me is all about communication and not so much marketing myself as being “interesting”. Otoh I want to be me, I can’t see myself getting excited about the things some people expect or like if they’re not on my own list of interesting. I like to take pretty pictures, daily snapshots don’t really give me a kick unless they describe something in the text (not even then – but sometimes you need them). Such as documenting my dinner or the view from the car window – nah.

There’s the subject of being the only one who thinks what you write is interesting, I guess there would probably be instant feedback on that one, so we don’t go there. šŸ˜‰

I’m still in the process of finding out what I’m doing with this and whether to weed certain things out. Do I want many+short or few+long? (ok, you there at the back shouting few+short, zip it!)

There’s no denying this blog is a “project”, I’m exploring various things about me, you, on and off the record. It’s not just a coffee club where we chat about the latest celebrity gossip. (there might be cake – if I can figure how to make one that is gluten free, non-fattening and still tastes GOOD. Because we do like cake. Alas I don’t have any pictures of it.)

everyday01

An everyday image. This is how I heat my office! And a small rock collection. Incidentally the one in the middle could be a weaving pattern, I have just the plant dyed yarns to match. Office chair anyone?

We removed the electrical heater in the kitchen to give me a safe outlet for the computer. The fuse for the kitchen goes if we use too much machinery in the garage! (well, one specific piece actually)

yarno2

Next week I’ll be contradicting myself entirely and document some of the things I’m thinking about doing, as per request. Useless sketches and all. In one or more installments. How long to you want them? šŸ˜‰