Saturday, June 30, 2007

fly by

Reading:
Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. Terry Pratchett crossed with Franz Kafka.
Also reading:
a stack of back issues of Textile Fibre Forum which was not a good idea cos the brain has gone into meltdown. It's the same if more than a couple of mags arrive in the same week. Can't handle the sensory overload. Mind you filling in forms of more than one page has been known to have the same effect.
On the hook:
ACKrylic Ripple Baby Blanket in aqua, lemon, cream and mauve. Being done as a favour to a good friend who will be gifting it to yet another friend of hers in August. Don't think she realised that it would be 25 hours plus work. I strongly suspect that she asked me to do this rather than a quilt because she thought this would be faster or easier in some way. Could've whipped up a far more creative and unique machine pieced and quilted cot quilt in a similar time frame.
Listening to:
the Project Spectrum red/black/metallic CD that I won from the delightful Chris over at Stumbling over Chaos . Almost all artists that I was unfamiliar with and some not my taste but I'm enjoying discovering new sounds.
Waiting for:
the bag I knitted this week and felted last night to dry.
I didn't show you any in progress photos in case I buggered it up which is always possible when you are making things up as you go especially when the somewhat unpredictable 'art' of felting is involved. At least with a bag, the finished dimensions aren't critical. It will fit SOMETHING... but just to be on the safe side I didn't knit the handle on. Figured if I made it separate and it was too long I could adjust the placement. As it turned out, I think the length is just about perfect so I COULD have just knitted it straight on... but if I hadn't done it this way... well Mrs Murphy's Law would've almost certainly come into play. Figures. More about the specifics of size and yarn when its done.
Oh and I also knitted up a black alpaca version of Coronet. Quite a nice knit and I only made a couple of smallish changes mostly to deal with the fact that I was using a thinner yarn, and that for some unknown reason, I didn't feel like knitting it in the round. Can you guess what Coronet taught me?
No?
Well, basically, it taught me that my beanie wearing days are definitely behind me. I look like shite in it so there are no modelled photos of the FO
and Nadie doesn't wear close fitting hats.
So now I have to either a] figure out who it WOULD suit [ DS#1 would look great in it but maybe alpaca's too girly for a 32 yr old male ] OR b] I have to unsew the seam and then frog it. Would've been easier if I HAD knit it in the round. Bugger.
Watching:
the first eight eps of the new season of Dr Who courtesy of my darling daughter and the BBC. Don't worry, there won't be any spoilers for the rest of you... oh and I've got the whole series of Torchwood too.
Thinking about:
the next quilt project and psyching myself into cutting up some of my bestest hand painted and sundyed fabric.

9 comments:

Bells said...

Neverwhere is the only Neil Gaiman book I've ever been able to read. I just haven't been able to get into any others. Have you seen the TV series of it? It's not bad. Kind of weird, which is what you'd expect, I guess.

Oh lucky you having all the Dr Who and Torchwood DVDs. I'm looking forward to episode #2 tonight - like a pleb, I have to wait for each episode.

catsmum said...

Gaiman... yes I agree. Don't much care for some of his other stuff. Going to try the Short Stories next though ... Fragile Things. Not sure what I'll make of them because I'm not usually big on the short stories.
Watched the BBC series on DVD a couple of weeks ago ... brilliantly cast but creepy.

Rose Red said...

Love the procrastinators unite button!!
Maybe you can put the coronet into the "gift cupboard" - you never know when you might need a last minute handmade gift for someone!

Anonymous said...

Another vote for Gaiman - in fact I both read Neverwhere and watched the mini-series last week :)

I couldn't get through the "Sandman" stuff - just a little too out there. But please allow me to reccomend "American Gods" which is the first Gaiman I ever read and is a tremendous piece of work.

Chris said...

I'm glad you found some things on the cd that you liked. :)

I highly recommend the book American Gods - it's a great read. Trivially, Mr Gaiman lives near Minneapolis-St Paul, MN, US.

Sheepish Annie said...

I've also only read NeverWhere...I enjoyed it but couldn't seem to work up the enthusiasm to try anything else. Unlike Terry Pratchet who is a favorite of mine!

Sounds like you have a great deal done, in the works and looming on the horizon! Good to know that you are keeping busy and out of trouble. :)

Val said...

Coincidence: a friend just mentioned to me today that she's got all the issues of Textile Fibre Forum going back years. I had never heard of it before, she said I would find some of it useful for the crafts I do. So am I in for a major meltdown?

Re beanies: just returned from Adelaide where they had a display of the wildly funny beanies created during the annual Alice Springs Beanie festival. Great to see! I'm always very grateful for my plain old beanie while camping up on our block near Castlemaine. Bet it's been cold lately, eh?

catsmum said...

cold? Well yes nothing under zero this week so that's a bonus :] and some rain. Not much. Certainly not like the floods in Gippsland. Just enough to make the goats grumble.
Definitely hat/gloves/scarf/ jacket/leggings weather though.
as to the textile fibre forums. Don't take more than a years worth at a time or your brain will explode.

Laume said...

I liked Neverwhere. Have you read The Anansi Boys yet? They're my two favorites. I'm looking for a copy of Stardust so I can read it this summer before the movie comes out this winter (or is this fall?)