boring is good sometimes

[ironymaiden]

quilting is unforgiving at most stages. if you miscut fabric you can certainly reuse it in another project, but not in this one. get a seam allowance too wide or too narrow at the piecing stage, and the top won't come together. block pieces have to go in a certain order. there are right sides and wrong sides to fabric, points and patterns to match. one can unsew, but i can say from grim experience that you can only poke a row of holes in something so many times before you destroy it. then there are issues other than the fabric itself...your sharp blade won't ever be sharp again if you find a forgotten pin with it.

so for me at least, it takes laser focus. steady hands. the ability to plan several steps into the future and hold that in my head. and i haven't been able to do that for months. i've ruined a few things. i'm not an absolute perfectionist, and i learn best from making mistakes. but damn, i hate destroying materials and tools.

in some ways this applies to painting models and baking as well. plus i have a love/hate relationship with baking since i'm healthier when i don't eat baked goods. while experimenting with sugar-free and lower carbohydrate materials is interesting, it also comes with a high cost (the best sugar substitute IMO is erythritol...$.52 an ounce vs $.38 a POUND for granulated sugar) and failure rate.

i've been feeling lost without being able to quilt. i've lost track of when it was that i last Made A Thing (my attempted handmade Yule gifts were scrapped due to design flaws, learning to use a drop spindle was just sad, my last batch of baked goods both tasted bad and had a lousy texture).

i learned to knit as a teenager. (i took classes because my mother knew that attempting to teach me herself would lead to fighting.) but i never finished many projects because it was so damn boring.

* * *

i was knitting in the hallway at Norwescon this weekend while waiting to get into a panel, sitting beside a woman probably twenty years my senior who was making tiny lace hexagons at lighting speed. after she inquired about my project, i mentioned that i stopped knitting previously because it was boring. to which she replied "and now you knit because it's boring". yes.

a couple weeks ago i was buying yarn to take to PA for my mother. and i desperately needed a thing to do with my hands, a thing i could do on the plane when my kindle was supposed to be turned off, and in the hospital. that's when i realized that i should just get some yarn i'd like to look at and knit a scarf and it's not like i needed to do anything with the product. and so i made a ribbed scarf on the trip, and it was a sort of thumb-sucking. no thinking, just meditative motion. make a mistake, pull it out. the yarn is unharmed, it's safe to try again. after the scarf, i made a shawl. and i knew by the time i had started on the final edging that it was too small (because of course i didn't use the size of yarn or needles that the pattern called for) and there were mistakes i wouldn't tolerate that had made it past various attempts to fix them. i finished it off anyway to practice the lacy edge and the cast off. then i frogged the entire thing. i'm starting over with new gauge math and more experience.

i look like a bandwagoner, but whatever. i've decided to stop giving a shit and enjoy the only creative thing i seem to be able to do right now.

Comments

[shadawyn.livejournal.com]

enjoy the only creative thing i seem to be able to do right now

Indeed, this is most important!

***

My sisters and I were at a quilting shop in Port Gamble this weekend, and they tried to enable me (and I remembered our conversation at that quilting shop in Lakewood). I managed to resist, if only because quilting means a whole new set of tools and supplies XD I haven't any sewing supplies more than an travel mending kit.

Someday for the quilting, I think, but first weaving. There's a place in Port Gamble that does classes and loom rental.

[mimerki.livejournal.com]

I want to say supportive things, except that they are sounding sort of annoying and condescending instead of supportive and loving. So envision a loving, supportive thing here, instead of whatever idiocy I might actually spout?

<3

[ironymaiden]

done :)

[writeswithyarn.livejournal.com]

I failed drop spindle, too. And I don't have the patience/sewing skill for quilting, though working on that is high on my list of things to do if I ever actually have, say, a month off... and enough geographical stability to build up a bit of a fabric stash. That's the other thing about quilting: it's material intensive. I mean, knitting is too, up to a point--serious colourwork knitters have (and need) yarn stashes that rival quilters, and even average knitters like me tend to acquire yarn slightly faster than they use it--but you can get by with just enough yarn for the project you're working on right now.
Yes, it's boring--it's my twitchy fingers while I think, or read, or watch a movie. But it's also not boring; I make sweaters and socks and huge lace shawls. I suspect lacework might appeal to your perfectionist nature, while still remaining within the realm of do-able, or at least correctable, under the circumstances.

I have a skein of undyed laceweight wool that could use a good home. And once you're done knitting it, you can dye it.

[ironymaiden]

I have a skein of undyed laceweight wool that could use a good home. And once you're done knitting it, you can dye it.

i would like that.

[writeswithyarn.livejournal.com]

Email me with your address? pedantka at gmail

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

I've never really been into fiber arts or other sorts of crafty-goods-making (save some embroidery when I was a kid), but I get it. It's why I write and cook and make vids and play games that involve making or building things. It's a source of control over the world, and a reminder that, when everything around you is breaking down, you have the power to build (at least some) things back up.

[ironymaiden]

this. and that's why i need the making of things to have some measure of success, or i'm not actually getting my bit of control over the world.

[e-bourne.livejournal.com]

You should never have to buy yarn. Or a pattern, not really, as long as we live in some reasonable distance because I have a yarn-shop's worth of yarn and taking some away is really A Good Thing.

Assuming you like any of the yarn.

Yes, it's good to be boring sometimes. And know that it can't be broken.

[butterflydrming.livejournal.com]

Less of a bandwagon than the cool kids table.