Blog Talkers Talk #67

Be honest …

What is your most important goal in life? Why? (Please elaborate) How do you propose to get there? (Or how did you accomplish it). What sort of sacrifices will (or did) you have to make in order to achieve this goal? Once you’ve accomplished this goal, how will this change your life?

An interesting question with no one clear answer from me.

Depending on the time in my life, my important goals ranged from being married and happy (no, that didn’t happen, thank you very much for asking) or procuring a position that would enable me to have few money worries and let me be creative and happy with my work. (That actually did happen — it just took me 3 decades to find it.) At another point in my life, I was striving for Super Mom-dom — I wanted my daughter to have everything that I didn’t have growing up — and, again, no that didn’t happen either.

You see, I have this obsessive gene in my DNA that in a way sabotages my attempts to do something. I have had to give up many things that I initially enjoyed but ultimately hated because perfectionism would rear it’s ugly head and eat away at me until I would just toss whatever I was doing aside and run in the other direction. Screaming.

I spent forty years trying to please other people — or maybe a better way to phrase it is, I spent forty years trying to make other people like me. After that forty years ended, so did my marriage and a few years later, so did my totally unsuitable job. The next few years were devoted to raising a teenager, getting her through college, and finding my soulmate and building a life with him and the teenager.

So with all of this in mind, I would say that right now, my most important goal is to do all that I can to make sure that there is peace in my life and eluding the highs and lows that have been trying to take me over all my life. Finally taking care of myself has been long overdue and I’ve been happily just rolling along with no clear cut goal in front of me. Right now, it’s what I really want. I have a Sweet Baboo that loves me very much, we have a home together that is everything I ever wanted, the “teenager” has morphed into a Darling Daughter with a wonderful husband and adorable GrandDolly that I love with all my heart. Life is good. I’m not going to poke at it.

SIL’s Sockies Finished

SIL’s Sockies Finished

Originally uploaded by mlm7154

Not blocked, but finished. SIL tried them on tonight when he picked up GrandDolly and they fit great. I had made them a bit bigger so that he could wear a lighter pair underneath. He’ll be using these just for house socks, not wearing them with his boots. The heel looks a little flat but it’s just because they’re not blocked. A nice beginning to Finished Objects for 2008!!

Socks for Son-in-Law

He said that he wanted orange and green yarn for his socks, and that’s what I found for him. I had him try on the cuff just before I started the heel flap and he liked how they felt on his skin. He has sensitive skin, doesn’t like itchy or tickly anything. I’m using Plymouth Yarn’s Galway Paint color 805. Usually one skein will make a pair of socks, but he wanted a higher than usual cuff so it will take more. Just a couple more chores around the house and I can sit down for awhile and perhaps even finish this one. Although it’s nice enough outside right now, we are in for a “weather event”.  How big and how much is anyone’s guess.

My Girls — Pretty in Pink

Hats and sockies finally finished!! On to other projects!!

 

Behold the GrandDolly’s Roll Brim Hat!!

Either I’m getting better or the patterns are getting easier. (She bows in appreciation of the applause) This adorable little hat took me just about 5 hours to make, including frogging the last 1 1/2″ of the hat twice and changing the top to an i-cord (which was also my first attempt at this technique) instead of a topknot. One more hat to go for Darling Daughter and I can kiss this yarn goodbye!!! Come to think of it, maybe that’s why I was able to finish this hat so quickly!! As lovely as it is, I am getting tired of looking it and can’t wait to move on to something else — perhaps a nice pair of socks for me and I still have a scarf that I started awhile back that I haven’t made a lot of headway on……..

The pattern for the hat came from a pattern generator at a site called The Diet Diary/Knitting Fiend — both names are mentioned in the url — but at any rate, click here to visit this generator and a host of others that she has on her site. Lots of great stuff to read and get lost in. For me and my way of knitting, the instructions through the generator are more clear and easier to follow. I kind of went my own way on the top and I think it came out pretty well.

Sunday Scribblings #77 — Collector Personality

I have always liked the idea of collections. I collected plates that I thought were pretty back in the 70’s when yard sales were first coming into their own. Yard sales were a super way to fill up spaces in your home with items you normally couldn’t afford. After collecting plates for a few years, I tired of them and sold them in my own yard sale. Ditto for books (I had all of Stephen King and Richard Bachman’s books) salt cellars (usually only footed larges, but smalls if they were interesting looking). Displaying things that I had collected gave me a feeling of pride, for some reason. Oh well, I was very young (well, youngish anyway) and defined myself by the material things that I owned.

When I was moving into my own apartment after my separation and subsequent divorce in 1994-95, I wondered why I needed to have all this stuff. I really didn’t have the space to display them and I had come to a point in my life where clutter was distracting and upsetting. I wanted peace and serenity in my life. I decided that I needed to start a huge “pare down” of everything that I owned. I leafed through all of the books that I still owned, reading snippets here and there, then put them in a box and donated them. Ditto with sugars and creamers that I had still in boxes. I realized then that the best thing to do with my “collections” was to not even look in the boxes, just put them back into the car and take them to the Salvation Army, which was exactly what I did. I opened up the hatch of my 1986 maroon over grey with grey fabric interior and sunroof Ford Mustang (can you tell, I just ‘d that car!!) folded down the back seats and packed it all in, then added more boxes to the passenger seat and floor. I had to tie the hatch down with rope to keep everything inside, but I got it out of my life. Can I tell you how empowering it was to be shed of all of this chaos? It was certainly a bright, bright sun shiney day!! Looking back, I can see that what I was doing was subconsciously giving myself a fresh start, but then I just saw it as less stuff I had to wash and dust, giving me more time to heal and move on.

My house with Sweet Baboo is much calmer, no collections to be seen anywhere. My life is at peace and when I come home at night after work, I don’t feel like I want to tear my hair out in frustration because the house is cluttered. However, I am still somewhat collecting.

While I was sewing, I couldn’t go into a fabric store without coming out with something. I must confess, I bought many, many fat quarters just because I liked the hand of the fabric, or the color caught my eye. I was never sure what I would do with it, I just HAD to have it and I usually found some project or another to work them into. I still have lots and lots of fabric that I know that I should part with, but I’m having trouble purging it just yet. Knitting is my newest enchantment, and I’m happily buying yarn that I love the hand of or it has a color that catches my eye…….. plus all of the gadgets and notions that go along with the craft.

Okay, time to turn the car around and get back to the interstate before I get totally lost.

The collections that I have now are small, take up very little room, and don’t need to be dusted. I like to collect knitting patterns from the internet. Free ones, of course. I also like to collect websites with images on them giving me ideas for things that I may or may not want to knit in the future. Ditto with sewing patterns, although I don’t sew very much anymore. It’s just force of habit.

My strangest collection is collecting and using colloquialisms to amuse the girls at work. Because of the difference in our ages and the fact that I was brought up in a different part of the country, they haven’t heard a lot of the expressions that I use. A couple of the other ladies are my age so they usually know what I mean. For instance — off like a prom dress — play it again Sam — pot calling the kettle black — preaching to the choir — Lucy you got a lot of ’splaining to do — Captain, she can’t take any more. If I hear a phrase that is familiar to me I will often write it down and then work it into conversation to see if they know what it means. It’s just a fun past time that hurts no one. My very favorite kind.

Would you like to try your hand at scribbling, Sunday or otherwise?

There are lots more scribblings to read HERE

Sock Update

Darling Daughter’s socks are finished (YAY!!!) I used Regia Silk Color yarn Color Orange 185. Jen at my LYS told me that I should be able to get a pair of ankle socks out of 50 grams and she was right. See that little glob of yarn at the top of the photo? It’s about 40″ of yarn that was left after I grafted the toe. It’s self striping yarn (I self striping yarn very, very much!!)

I used KA bamboo needles (which my arthritic thumb ’s very, very much also!!However, I’m not parting with my other needles yet because I think that different needles and different yarns will drag/slip differently and I will have to experiment. Many thanks to Heather at Keeping Me In Stitches for mentioning yarn repeats in self striping yarn in one of her posts. I paid attention and made lots of notes about where I started and then started the second sock the same way. It seemed to match very well until I got down to the toe, then the pink seemed to never end — but nobody will see it anyway.

So now that the bug has bitten, and after much musing about Sweet Baboo’s too short socks, I am now starting another pair for him and keeping the short ones for myself. (There were boo boo’s in them anyway) I just started these in a worsted weight yarn (they will be heavy but our floors are cold in the winter) Universal Classic Worsted Tapestry colorway Midnite Blues. Really pretty yarn but still guyish!!

I’m using Crystal Palace DPN’s which slide just fine with this yarn, but they are 8″ long and I’m afraid that I’m going to poke my eye out. Oh well, I’ll just skip on down to Woolworks again and see if Jen has some 6″ DPN’s in size 5. (Sigh) Such a bother. Check out the cuff!! Long Tail Cast On at it’s best!!

Sweet Baboo’s finished socks

They didn’t turn out too bad — however, I have a cute Sweet Baboo story to tell you.

I finished the socks, wove the ends in and proudly presented them to him (I was so impressed with myself!!) and he proudly put them on. I sat on the other end of the sofa and looked at his feet — something didn’t seem right. I went over and looked at the bottom of the sock — the foot was too short by about 1 1/2 inches!! The heel doesn’t even begin to fit right. I told him that I would have to rip out the toes and extend the foot a bit longer and he says “no, that’s okay they fit fine, I really like them” and I said “no, they’re not fine they don’t fit correctly. Why didn’t you tell me that they didn’t fit right when I finished the first one” (which he tried on to make sure everything was okay). To which he replied, “I didn’t want to hurt your feelings by telling you that they needed to be longer”. Gee gosh, how can you get mad at that? But I’m still going to rip out both socks!!

Darling Daughter’s sock

I am SOOOOOO loving this self-striping yarn — it makes me look like I’m doing all kinds of fabulous stitches and yarn changes when all I’m doing is a stockinette stitch. I had knitted about 4 inches total for the foot and got ticked off with the laddering on the sole, so I frogged it back down and added a needle and it seems to have eliminated that problem. I’ve been knitting at work and the ladies that I work with can’t believe that I haven’t done myself an injury with all of the knitting needles I have going at one time. I can’t wait to finish this pair and go on to another one!! I’ve made way too many trips to the yarn shop and now have balls of yarn all over my sewing room, which will soon be called the knitting room. I’m going to have to have a sale of all of my fat quarters — I can sell my fabric to make more $$$ to buy more yarn. I will have to decide if it is more lucrative to sell them on ebay or just run an ad in the paper.