boring is good sometimes
Apr. 10th, 2012 12:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ironymaidenquilting 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.
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.
