Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Seems Jim Croce was right

There never seems to be enough time to do the things you want to do once you find them....

There’s just too much to do. I know I say this a lot but it’s still true. I don’t sit around and do nothing. I never just do nothing (although I probably should). But there’s still not enough time.

I’ve got my mystery stole going (here’s what it looks like so far). It's not properly blocked but you can get the idea. When I’m working on it, I don’t want to do anything else (include sleeping). I’m also trying to test out my fisherman’s knit sweater and get my sock pattern finalized for the fall Lincoln Land Community College class. At the same time, I’ve got this new yarn from South Dakota that’s mocking me continuously. I started a swatch with the Malabrigo because I want to try to use it for the circle sweater (I’ll show you in the next post). I think the flow of colors will look really interesting in the circular pattern.

Of course, I also got some wonderful Trekking Pro Natura sock yarn (75% wool, 25% bamboo) that is almost jumping on the needles all by itself. I also find myself drawn back to a fair isle sweater that I started back in the spring that I need to rip back about 2 inches because I missed a turn.

On top of that, I’m spinning some wool for a gansey sweater. I’ve already got a little over half of it done in singles with a light/medium brown. I ran out of that so now I’m working on some medium brown that I’m going to ply with the lighter color to get (hopefully) a nice tweed. Here’s what they look like separately. Right now I’m in the process of pre-drafting my darker wool so when I get to the spinning part, I don’t have to work so hard. This wool isn’t processed quite as nicely as the other was so pre-drafting is also helping me weed out some of the second cuts and noils, too. When I’ve got the fiber in my hands, I don’t want to be doing anything else. I just want to get the wool pre-drafted and sit at the spinning wheel and spin and spin and spin.

Then I’ve got my watercolor class. I’ve been a little frustrated because I haven’t really felt like I’ve been able to take time to really take time over it. It takes time to look, to observe, to see. I’ve got quite a few pictures I want to start but need to take time to make some choices.

I’ve been doing more beading, jewelry-making and wire work but, again, it takes time to get things set up and carry through with most of what I want to do with the beading. I have a few half-kilos of seed beads that I want to do some purses and a wall-hanging with. (Yeah, who knew seed beads come in half-kilos! Did you know you can buy crickets by the half tube? You pick these things up.)

Now it’s not like I waste of lot of time doing silly stuff like cleaning my bathroom or vacuuming my carpets, although I do lose 8 hours a day going to work but that’s sort of unavoidable. But there are just so many things I want to do and learn and there just isn’t enough time.

On top of this, I’ve decided I want to learn Danish. No particular reason, I just never did it before. It really isn’t like I need something else to do (see above). I’ve been working on brushing up my Spanish and building my French. Not that I think I’ll ever use Danish or become particularly fluent because I probably won’t. But I could. You never know.

I remember from a young age that I never wanted to go to bed. I think I was always scared I would miss something. I’m not quite sure if that’s the cause of my night owlism or just an early symptom. Not much has changed. I’m still scared I’m gonna miss something because there’s just so many blinking things to do!