Craft Gluttony

My latest endeavour is to teach myself how to knit! I remember knitting as a child with my Granny but I haven't knit since then and I never got past making scarves but here I am again trying to knit. I went to Michael's the other day and got myself some knitting needles and some yarn. I picked up the cheapest needles in the entire store for some reason and I now realize why they were the cheapest. They honestly border on useless and I don't even know what I'm doing yet! LOL! I think they're metal and the yarn keeps on falling off. I'm not very good at rescuing lost stitches yet and so I end up pulling the entire thing apart! Yowza! However, the yarn I got is incredible! I picked up a bamboo/silk mix. It's honestly gorgeous! If you've never felt bamboo fabric then you really have to because it is DIVINE! I found a really cute sweater pattern on the internet but I swear it's in German. Is knitting terminology German? Just kidding! So the sweater pattern got put aside until I can understand "knit-speak". Guess what I'm doing instead? Yes indeed I'm making a scarf! Winter's coming and I love scarves and wear them often so it will be practical and a good beginner project. I'll post a picture when it looks like a scarf. :D

What else have I been up to? Oh yes! I am working on my writing skills. I'm trying to write more and type less so that my handwriting looks better. I have a dream of having my favorite books handwritten on beautiful paper with a beautiful italic fountain pen and then personally bound. (I know this is insanity at it's best! There's a reason why I haven't started yet! LOL!) That was a nice segue into my next endeavour...I want to learn how to bind books. I've been looking at it online and it doesn't look too earth shattering. I was thinking I could make a nice cloth bound journal for my Mom for Christmas!

I also joined an artist book club. What is that you ask? Well, a bunch of crafty people have gotten together to read artsy books and inspire and support each other. We're reading "The Vein of Gold" by Julia Cameron. It's meant to be the companion to her other very popular book "The Artist's Way". It's really interesting and the exercises that she gets you to do are pretty neat. I've learnt a lot about myself! Why is it that you can see the patterns and idiosyncrasies in other people but you can never see them in yourself?! As part of the exercises she asks you to keep a journal. No problem! I've kept a journal for ages. Here's the difference though: she asks you to write in the morning and to write about anything that falls into your head. ("Today I must remember to..." "So and so drives me up the wall..." "My dish clothes are smelly...") By writing in the morning I have a whole different tone to my journal. It's no longer a catalogue of daily events. Now it's actually about what's in my head! It's so much more interesting!!! I highly recommend it!

Well, that's all for today. Sorry that this post had everything in it but cross stitch. I'm still stitching... Lissandrea looks great! I'll post a picture of that one soon!