Craft Rage

Knitting while watching "Blades of Glory" last night I dropped a stitch. I should have seen it coming (if you can excuse the pun, please do), I had the lights off, I wasn't paying attention to either activity and I'd consumed a 'slightly' over-large dinner so was sprawled skewed on my side, whale style. Uncomfortable and irritable is not the right attitude for almost anything other than perhaps voting and deciding on one's funeral arrangements. But I digress.

So I don't immediately notice I've dropped this stitch because ball #2 of the originally cute and fun wool ("Snowball" from Lincraft. I would link you through it it, but even their web site sucks) has turned out to be a ball of scraps and so far I've had to re-join it 3 times in the first 4 rows. Cue gritted teeth and irritation spiking into unfocused anger. So I was trying to check that my knot hadn't come undone and inadvertently gave the dropped stitch a nudge and BANG down she goes about 5 rows. Shit. I fumbled it and another 2 rows gone. Oh man. Lots of fiddly stuffing around will have to happen in strong daylight if this project is going to be salvaged and it is already late. Weeks late. It was going to be a gift, then a belated gift, now, now I'm just a shit friend who couldn't get it together to finish a simple project.

Having learnt from dealing with my Father and Microsoft products that there is simply no use in cursing and railing at an inanimate object, I put it down. Mid row, mid stitch, mid cluster fuck. Walked away.

Craft is pitched as something that is easy and fun. Magazine TV shows, soft cover coffee table books, catchy little projects at the back near the recipes and crossword puzzles or the odd feature article about some gorgeous design savant who only wears moccasins and silk and here's something you can try at home.
Well the reality is that most projects are an exercise in salvaging the beautiful vision from the miscalculations, errors, accidents and monumental fuck-ups that we the unskilled, we the incapable, we the deluded perform upon the project. These usually start in the infancy as we chose the materials but always always appear and manifest in the execution. Most of us have crappy taste or no visual eye for matching patterns and colours and create truly grotesque items even we can't bear to look at. From the garish colours to the badly constructed angles and fully creepy eyes or lopsided mouths. We spawn horrors. I spawn horrors.

I suck at this. I am ashamed that I persevere and, sin of all sins, give my pitiful pathetic mewling aberrations as gifts to my suffering friends. I'm sorry. Actually, it's just me... I'm certain that it is just me. After all, my friends make things, and they're beautiful (the things and the friends in this particular example). Some of them are complicated and technical (things) and all of them (both friends and things again now) are excellent. So it must just be me, and a secret workshop somewhere designated to create Crap Craft for resale in op-shops. Maybe I should go and work in that secret workshop. Maybe that's my true calling. My chance for redemption, for a meaningful life.

Or I could just sleep on it. After all, not every day can be a Monday.

A year in Review. Ish.

It's the last day of the year. OMG so many things that just didn't get done, and the house is a sty and the family are descending in T minus 85 minutes and it is 40 degrees. I've sloshed out of the tub of cold water I was quelling the heat induced nausea in, and reeled around the house wondering if I should put my mobile in the fridge (do you think when it is so hot that all the interior surfaces of the house are at greater than blood heat it's a good idea to put important pieces of tech into a cool place?).

But I digress.
So what exactly did get done in 2008? Well, there was 52 weekly paycheques collected. Pass Go! Thank you very much Sheltered Workshop. 59 books read (Percentage trash approx 80%) which is not great, but not really despicable either. 14 hours spent doing yoga - that's pathetic. Really pathetic. Weight lost - unknown. Gave up tracking that in August. There's a lesson in that, if only I could understand it. 10 films seen at the cinema (it feels like less, but at least I made it into double digits - enough to stay moderately in touch with popular culture). All bills paid, all contracts fulfilled, all obligations met.

87 blog posts, 18 ooo words for Nano and enough emails to paper the moon.

Best experience was seeing Neil Gaiman in May (thanks everyone who made that special treat happen) at Kinokuniya and Kev saying Sorry.

Look it's not much of a review, I know that. I'm grateful for all the good things that happened and that my house is flood-proof and the widow-maker has only crippled the clothesline. Not bad for a year of natural catastrophes. Everyone in the family still has their limbs and air travel is still possible. Frankly I'm stoked.

May 2009 bring everybody more nice moments (I'd like more hugs this year) and less crappy shit. Yes, that is a tautology, sorry.
May your sovereign state stay solvent.