Change your feeds too.

Populuxe.ca

I’ll be slowly adding and updating that website, and probably changing the layout further as I’m unsure how much I love the quick little sign I made.

Either way, the skeleton is there, and the updates and all bloggy goodness will be there from now on!

Hope to see you all there.  If you subscribe to the site, please subscribe to the new site via its RSS feed.

So, I went ahead and registered myself a domain name.  I will be getting the hosting part down tonight, and hopefully will have something to show for it by Sunday (albeit not much probably).

Who’s going to follow me?

That’s right, that’s two of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s books! Also a super-handy tool to estimate my yardage of the yarn that I spinn and two Laura Secord chocolate bars! Thanks so much Melissa, you certainly did spoil me!

I’ve been sort of half-heartedly knitting the past few days. Mostly because I’ve been thinking, and having good talks with those with lots of insight. That’s never a bad thing, even if you hear things you don’t necessarily want to hear from people you love and people who only have your best interest at heart.

That being said, I have plans. A few plans that reach their tentacles out into a few different areas of my life. Most recently though, and in the online world, (as in ongoing right now because we’re talking about it), Penny and I are discussing the changes for our beloved Nervousness.org. We’re excited, but that’s all I’m going to say right now.

As for other areas of my life, writing, knitting, photography, spinning…. I’m looking into reaching out more into those a bit. No details on that either. I’m sort of being vague, I apologize, it’s just that there’s nothing to be detailed about yet.

Needless to say though that elusive creativity I was spouting off about before seems to be coming back into my life. Maybe it never left, but it sure felt like it took an extended vacation for a while.

This has led me to look within myself as well.  What makes me, what makes me creative or uncreative, what inspires me or uninspires me.  The answer is: I don’t know.

I’ve become increasingly frustrated lately with several creative factors in my life.  I know that only I build walls, yadda yadda yadda, I can do anything I put my mind to, etc.  Sometimes however it seems like even if I took a sledgehammer to those walls they wouldn’t budge.  I could stare at a piece of paper for hours until my forehead bleeds and yet nothing would come.

Other times I’m walking down the street and it just strikes me all of a sudden and I do everything I can to stop myself from physically running home.

Sometimes I have all the best intentions in the world, and yet the finished product isn’t the same that I had in my head.  It’s like my hands and my brain won’t communicate (a game of telephone gone horribly awry).

I’m just typing out loud here.  Pictures later, I promise.

How is everybody’s long weekend going?

1. It’s not about speed; and
2. My wrist has been bothering me and that makes it hard for me to knit.

Not to mention, I do have that pesky honeymoon camisole redux that I’ve been working on for a month. Not to say that the pattern is pesky or the fact that it isn’t a fun, easy, and quick knit. But you know sometimes you start something and you’re so excited, then your mind changes and it just goes on the backburner? I love this cami, I want to finish it, but it’s hard for me lately to stay on any projects that are large.

Funny I say that as I begin to create something that will become massive and neverending – but really that to me is a thousand little projects – each unfinished skein is a project and once the skein is done the project is done until I join the next one.

But enough jibber-jabber, here’s the progress photo:

I need a name for the project. Badly. But I’m so poor with titles, it might take a while. Do you have a suggestion? Leave me a comment.

I plan on hurrying up that cami over the next week and hopefully finishing it. Not only will it be one thing I can check off the list, but also I’ll have a wonderful new cami to wear.

That all being said, today I woke up in a foul mood.

Okay, that’s actually a lie.

I woke up in a fine mood, but thanks to a series of unfortunate events first thing in the morning (before the caffeine had hit my system) that turned my mood sour before I had even left the house. Currently I’m feeling a little better, but my industrious project for the day has been striken from my list of things “to do”. This is not because it got done, but rather because I don’t have the patience to finish it.

See, I’m a collector of postcards. I send and receive postcards from people all over the world with the aid from a few online communities (Postcrossing, Postcardx, etc.). I’ve been collecting postcards for a few years now and have amassed quite a collection. Today I decided it’d be a good idea to scan all of the postcards and save them.

Less than halfway done and two hours later, I’m cursing my scanner for not being faster and my poor computer set up (due to the lack of a desk right now) for the pain in my neck and the fact that I’m nowhere close to being done. So that’s it, I’m not scanning my postcards. They’ll just have to stay in the analog world.

They actually generally live on my wall in a wonderful and large collage, but since the move of cities, I haven’t yet had the chance to put them all back up. That’ll get done… at some point.

I’ve prattled on enough. Now it’s time for lunch, and possibly and old movie. If I feel the urge, I might get to sewing that skirt today.

It was an incredibly weird moment (have you seen the movie?  If so you get it.  If not, you should see it).

Tomorrow: knitting updates, and Kelly tries her hand at sewing from a pattern for the first time in her life (in order to make wearable clothes).

The themes: knitting as memory, knitting as art, knitting as unstoppable.

Knitting as memory – each thing that you knit is a snapshot of you at that point in time. It is a piece of work that demonstrates not only your skill, but your favourite colours and you at that exact point in time.

Knitting as art – Knitting can be whatever you make it. Something to warm a loved one, something to share, something to create just for the sake of creating it. To me, it’s art.

Knitting as unstoppable – Once you become a knitter I’m a firm believer that you don’t ever stop. You’re a knitter for life, even if you may take a break for a few years.

What I intend to do is give every odd-ball a home that I can. I want to create something huge, in a freeform knitting style, made completely out of oddballs and the ends of balls/skeins/hanks/whatever. That yarn that you have sitting in your stash that you have no clue what to do with because there isn’t enough to do anything with, I want to take and incorporate into this huge piece of work.

If anybody decides they want to donate they’re odds ‘n ends, I will take tags and affix them to all the areas of the freeform knit with the name, address (email or otherwise), and location of the person that donated that yarn. I want the whole world represented here.

I have already started on this project with my own odds ‘n ends. There will always be knitting done on it, and I never plan to actually bind it off or have needles not on it. I want to continue on with it until I’m 80 years old and sitting on a veranda with this massive piece of work.

If you’re interested in helping out, please leave a message here with your email address. The comments are moderated, so if you don’t want your email address on the website, please just say so in the comment and I will edit it out.

Thank you in advance to all of those who wish to help.

It’s still very small, but here’s the beginning:

This is going to be image heavy. You’ve been warned (although I can’t imagine there are many people still on dial-up?).

Above is the wonderful gift from my SP 2 that I received a while ago. Pictured are green hand-dyed silk hankies, a new spindle, and some wonderful brown fleece, which has since been spun (see below). Not pictured: chocolate which I’ve eaten.

Skeins that I’ve spun! All are 2-ply. Left to right: 100% fleece (thanks SP!), 50% corridale/50% fleece, and the last two are 100% corridale. All were done with a drop spindle because I don’t have a spinning wheel. Yet.

The beautiful merino roving I got from a local store. They have racks of this stuff in so many colors. They also have silk, mohair, and corridale. I love it. They sell it per 100g so you can get as much or little as you want.

100% wild silk also from the same store mentioned above. I couldn’t even capture how awesome the colours are, but you get the idea.

Perdita – Lilacs, from Knitty Summer 2006. I’m in love with these and now I can’t stop making them. This is made with 100% hemp yarn that is locally made.

The cool thing with living in an artsy fartsy town is that there are lots of local artisans making some cool stuff.

Also, stay tuned for a knitting project that I’ve started working on in an update tomorrow.

Well, without my camera I feel as though I don’t have much to say on here. I think my form of communication has always been best via visual means. Perhaps that’s why I motion with my hands when I can’t find the words.

Anyhow, I started a new job, blah blah blah. Not a bad little job. It’s right across the street which is very nice. I’m the purchaser and general art-store junkie for a store. I get to look at and buy stuff and get paid for it, awesome? Yes. B. recently got a new job as well, one that he really wanted, so we’re all pretty set up in the job department.

Also, I was patient but refused to be patient anymore. See, there’s this rental place here, and they have something like 18,000 different movies (seriously). So when the second season of Carinvale (my favourite show of all time) came out on the 18th of July I assumed they would have it. They did, but they refused to rent it. See, there was nothing wrong with their copy, the owner just didn’t want to put it out because he had not recieved season one yet and didn’t want people to “ruin it for themselves”.

To that I said “but I’ve seen season one, I will give you money if you let me rent it now”. (this is where I will add that I’ve seen season one many times and have been dying for season two for about two years now).

Still, no.

What is so wrong with a business that they refuse to take your money? It’s baffling to me. So I ended up having to find other means of watching it, and finally I’ve seen it all. Damn you HBO for cancelling it and leaving so many loose plot points. What am I supposed to do now not knowing what the hell will happen? Bastards.

Now that I’ve let that steam off a bit, today is my day to “do stuff”. Not fun stuff, no (although I will fit in possibly a viewing of “Sin City”). Laundry stuff, kitchen stuff, stuff stuff. Stuff that I’ve been leaving until I had a day off (that’s today).

You know you’re a full-fledged adult when you’re day off entails you to do errands all day. Of course, I’m not yet a full-fledged adult (and quite possibly never will be, at least in that sense) and I’m sure I’ll put off some stuff until my next day off (which, fortunately, is only another day away).