Tuesday 19 February 2008

Artist's Way Week 8

Crumbs, can't believe I'm starting week 8 already. It's about time, this week, and it's not what I was hoping for - well, hardly surprising when what I was hoping for was a magic wand to give me more hours in the day! The chapter is more about the long view - about not putting off until retirement what you can do today (when you can find a sliver of time to do it in), or making excuses because you're "not young enough". The main message, I guess, is that you can do and be crazy at any point in your life, lol. I think I have been putting some things "on hold until K is at school", which is bonkers really, when you consider that I'll be trapped somewhere between the school run and giving more classes (and perhaps other committments too). I'll have even LESS time then than I have now!

There is a writer in me somewhere as well as the painter and musician, and that's now scrabbling to get out as well. It's definitely a "proceed with caution" book, this one, because it opens up so much in you. That's what it's meant to do, of course, and whilst I think it's brilliant it is also frustrating not to be able to hole up alone in a shack for a month to let it all out. So I guess you have to become a brilliant specialist in time management, if nothing else. I have to keep looking back at how prolific I was last year and thinking that with a bit of organisation, I can easily fit in everything I want to do; I have a darn good baseline to work from, really.

Since finishing the monster feet, I finished crocheting the "scarf" I was making - unfortunately the yarn wasn't a good match so it was too short (and lumpy besides), so I turned it into a sleeping bag for one of K's dolls, who is now most cosy. I am working on the hat instead and this has six rounds left to do on it. It is quite easy - I know where the mistakes are (miscounting, not hooking the right part of the stitch) and it still looks decent, so I will finish it anyway and probably have enough of the yarn left to do it again! I've really enjoyed learning it this way and it shapes up very quickly - I reckon it'd be a great gift to make for friends' kids and maybe even sell a few (what are the rules on selling things you've made from someone else's pattern, anyway?). It even has an adult size...I don't think I'm that brave but it may be worth a go! I fancy making it in strawberries-and-cream colours for K again, even though I'm no fan of pink.

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