Sweater swatches
Started this post months ago, and you know what? It is done enough. To distract from it not really having a conclusion, I have included swatch pictures…Â Ooooh, pretty. A preview of my first sweater, from the Pumpkin Ale pattern! (Which is currently a lovely vest, in other words, has no sleeves…)
I’ve been Writing Things Down rather than Typing Things Out lately. I love the sound, the smell, the feel of a pen’s scratches on paper, and I sometimes need it as an outlet. Words feel overly official once typed out, so I have this weird fear of acceptance when thoughts aren’t a mere scribble. Books and journals and binders provide me a sort of tactile comfort, much like yarn.
The notebook I use as a knitting journal is well labelled and organized; the start date and purpose printed clearly on it’s cover. It supplements my ravelry project pages with details of swatches, yarns, needles, gauges, equations. I expect it will be the first of many, though future ones will probably be in a binder and include the swatch squares. It fills me with glee. I have turned 33 since my last post, and feel like I am finally unlocking this girly, organizational skill-point that many women have inherently. Admittedly, this organization has become a requirement, what with the extra books and the yarn and project explosions.
The writing journals have an entirely different fate, a purposeful disorganization. I’ve been filling pages with a deluge of thoughts for most of my life, and for a long time I thought I was writing what equated to letters to no one. I have referred to my journals as a junk drawer rather than a diary. Thoughts get thrown in when I really don’t know what else to do with them. They can’t be neatly categorized, only grouped haphazardly, a collection of dejected associations. As a teen, thought-flow filled cheap, spiral bound notebooks while any hardback journals were saved for my more poetic musings. (Which are, for the most part, terrible, but have a few surprises.) I later started to collect so many beautiful books that I couldn’t write in just one; now I have one or more in almost every room. It seemed random until the realization struck that I have been writing to myself – my future self – all along.
Whenever the need to write strikes, I find the nearest journal or notebook, and look at the last entry. It has sometimes been years since the last entry (all are dated), yet I usually find the words I need. Whatever my struggle, my thrill at the time of writing, it ends up being topical for the future writer. I suppose it makes sense. If one keeps putting stuff in junk drawers all over the house, there is bound to be something helpful when the nearest one is opened.
to be continued…hopefully… 🙂
Purl Gamer 