Moving On - My Sanity Projects and Sort of a Bullet Journal Attempt

I know myself well.  I often read recipes and then somewhat follow the directions, tweaking here and there, usually not for the best outcome, unfortunately.  If it has onion, surely it must have garlic, right?  Not always.  I do the same although I fight myself (fun to watch) with crochet and sewing and knitting.  

Does it not strike you that knitting is more "high class", more "artistic" than crochet?  If one knits, one is creative; if one crochets, it used to be for toilet paper holders that were the giant skirts of dolls that look like Scarlet O'Hara and Granny Squares forever.

Actually, the little Scarlet O'Hara dolls are kind of cute and the colors are nice.  I am SO not a fan of pink of any kind.  Salmon-yes, coral-yes.  When pink light rays hit me, they drain all the power out of my body for the will to live.  I just don't like pink.

To tell the truth, I like Granny Squares, but then I never pretended to have class or be elegant in any way.  Look at these colors on Pinterest - and this is only half a page.  It makes me want to end this post and sit surrounded by hundreds of balls of colorful yarn while I crochet one square after another.

 

I think crochet has "graduated" to the same status as knitting, or almost has, anyway.  And then there is Tunisian crochet and Motif Crochet and more.  There is always more crochet and more yarn.  And occasionally knitting.  If I want to try to be elegant.

So, without further ado, and no more wasting time on the deep subject of the artistic legitimacy of crochet vs. knitting, here are some of the things I have been working on burying myself in to retain my sanity.

This above is a pattern called, "Bear's Blanket", and while I did not buy the "kit" to make the $700. (WHAT??!?) big blanket (I value my life), I am SURE I have not spent nearly that much on trying to buy similar colors of cotton DK yarn over the internet.  Right, honey?  Don't ask hubby to tell you the story about the car battery we really needed, and lots of yarn came in the mail that week instead.  Just don't.  But it never added up to that crazy amount.  Yikes!!  My idea of a good time?  A book of 500 granny squares and me making one of each in a different color set.  This could take the rest of my life, and I'd be happy.  Please ignore the icicle Christmas light - I have a disease love of color and things that light up, so combine them and I am in Heaven; so yes, I have Christmas lights permanently on my giant wood THING with cabinets.  That huge cabinet IS coming with me to Idaho, though.  I love it to pieces and got it at a garage sale for $50. years ago.  My husband and his friend nearly killed themselves trying to wedge it into my 10' X 10' yarn hoarding, book collecting, sewing, safe place office.

I've got lots of squares made that might not match the colors I need for the blanket - just a little too much enthusiasm on my part, but one can always use another Granny Square.  The "blue thing" is an almost finished scarf that will have buttons when I have completed it.  Hopefully it will look somewhat like this:

Finally, I found a pattern for the type of doily I like - square with block holes in it.  I didn't realize this is all just a pattern of double crochet.  But get that pattern wrong, which is ever so easy for me - and it just doesn't look right.  I also had a ball of discolored cream thread from the1930's that belonged to LaVerne, a friend of mine that passed away some years ago.  She was my Christian mentor, and I got her Bible study books, old wooden spools of thread, letters, old photos and the ball of cream thread left over from making her wedding dress.  It was still in the braid shape that you have to open up and roll into a ball or it will get hopelessly tangled.  I unbraided it last Friday night and wrapped it around the top of my desk chair to keep it straight, and then took a solid 2 hours to roll it into a ball.  Since the yarn is discolored, some darker, it looks like it is multi-colored now in several shades of cream.  It has a history and I am not letting it go to waste.  

Here is what the doily pattern looks like in light cotton yarn versus the cream thread from 1930's.  I have never crocheted thread before and it makes me half blind, but I love the outcome even as I squint at the stitches under the strongest light I can find.  Doesn't it look cool with the dark and light all mixed up in the pattern?  Even if you don't think so, I LOVE it.  So there.

And not to get boring, but here is a knitted, yes I said knitted, wash cloth in purple.  I love it and probably will never use it, but it's purple, and it's a square, and it's knitted.  Enough said.

Last, but not least, the Bullet Journal.  Sort of.  This was invented by a man called Ryder Carroll to keep orderly bulleted lists by date and page number in one carry-everywhere book that encompasses to do lists, events, appointments and life.  I'm afraid mine is a little messier than his, but as we are all told, we must make it "ours", and it is ok to be weird  different.

Since, in addition to a yarn fetish, I also have a pen and paper and notebook hoarding tendency (every year when school supplies are on sale, I have to be physically restrained from office supply stores and the sections in other stores that suddenly have SCHOOL PENS AND PAPER).  So over the years I have bought - let's just say many - various types of notebooks and - let's just say a lot - of pens of various types, including fountain.  Yes, I'm that kind of person.  Sigh.  So, being prepared for the creation of a journal by having every type of notebook known to man, I chose 3 1 and got to work preparing it with page numbers, index and calendar pages.  Then I ruined it by having an "Idea" page not attached to a date, but it DOES have a page number, hence it is findable.  Whatever.  I love it. And my pens are ready.

Do you think I have enough pens?  Don't, whatever you do, look in the top drawer of the desk.  Just don't.

Also?  Don't look in the bottom cabinets of the huge wooden THING in my room.  My sister did when she came to visit and promptly burst out laughing uncontrollably.  I very rightly protected the vision of my Collections from her eyes and shut the cabinet doors. 

The colored paper tubes holding the various groups of pens?  Those are ex-toilet paper cardboard rolls that have been covered with colored paper in my favorite colors and glued, cut and folded.  It's just another facet of my insanity creativity.

I hope you enjoyed this look at my projects, my calming devices and what makes me happy.