And then I said no. I am not going to beat myself up about this. I know this happens. It is not a real problem and I am not actually upset. I think, in fact, that I’ve soldiered quite bravely on in the face of some disappointing problems that require fortitude to correct. You see, sometimes when I encounter a problem, I solve it by just getting rid of the problem. You have to admit, it is a type of solution. However, when the problem in question is something you’ve spent hours or days working on, it’s not so easy to just get rid of it. Actually, I think it would feel physically painful to try to throw something away like a sweater I crocheted.

The red sweater is a good example of this. After my last post, I sewed up the sides.  As I suspected, the sweater does not fit – the arms are too small and it requires decreases in the yoke. I am going to have to rip out the entire yoke, detach the sleeves and start on this part again. I do not want to. It makes me want to throw a two-year-old’s tantrum. But I will finish. Later. When I’m not so irritated that just looking at the problem makes me feel a little, ok a lot stabby. It’s a long version of that “count to 10″ recommendation for people with tempers.

Then there is the case of Jeremy’s Mountain Hat.

First, I made a mountain crochet chart. The chart is awesome. Then I made a beanie crown. The crown was … meh. Then I started making the rest of the hat, and encountered HAT FAIL. (1) I didn’t like my color changes, and (2) somehow I lost 10 stitches around. That’s right. I went from 72 stitches around to 62. The yarn that I’m working with is bulky, and when you carry yarn, sometimes the stitch the color changes on ceases to look like a stitch, so I ended up accidentally skipping it in the next row. I thought I was losing my mind.

PLUS -(3) the crown color yarn is slightly less bulky than the other two yarns, and I’m using tapestry crochet (where you carry 2 strands of yarn) for the pattern part. Ergo – there’s a significant fabric difference between the Not-as-thick-single-strand-crochet of the crown and Thicker-two-strand-crochet of the pattern. It was not attractive.

So I frogged the whole thing.

I going to start over. And when I’m done, it will be a thing of joy and beauty.

Just you wait.

Ever since Andy Warhol made “ideas without skill” fashionable back in the 60s, it seems to me that popular culture has been playing a game of “skill limbo”. How low can we go? How badly drawn can a cartoon be and still be considered a cartoon? How many drum machines and sequencers can we stack up to avoid having to learn a real instrument? How much plastic surgery does it take to make acting skills unnecessary? I really don’t know the answers to those questions. Every day is a new horror.

But when I see someone who has both an idea AND skill, I’m reminded just how doggone powerful and dynamic a creative artist can be. I’m sick and tired of accepting “half a loaf.” (Boing Boing)

I wonder, sometimes, what value we place now on skill in the current crafting arena, the arena that’s visible on so many blogs and internet stores today. Is it enough to have a good idea? How necessary is it that skill be involved as well to render an idea well? I wonder about the cross-section of skill and art as well.

There is of course value in that I can pick up an X-acto and try something new one day – because we all have to start somewhere, sometime. In the middle is my own sewing and crocheting, which I’ve practiced for years but still, I’m nowhere near satisfied with the skills I have. On the other end of the continuum are people whose practice of a skill go back years. My grandmother, who has been sewing and quilting her entire life, whose seams are a marvel of precision and her garment fitting a thing of wonder. The 70-year-old crocheted potholders I have that astound me with their intricate attention to detail, evidence of a long life of practicing fine handiwork.

I think about the sweater that I am struggling to finish, the hat I’m now making for my brother, the needlework that I do, and I wonder myself about what value I place on my own skill. Do I turn away from the hard thing or persevere, hoping to add another aspect of a skill to my arsenal? Do I place enough value on my crafting to put in the work it takes to be really good at something, to really understand how it works and be able to use it as a tool for expressing my ideas?

Just some things I was thinking.

p.s. The mountain in question, as guessed correctly by my brother who has been there, is Denali. Because Denali is awesome.

p.p.s. This hat I’m making for Jeremy also features mountains.

It was fun. Papercutting. It was nice to think of something and do it in one day. Most of the things I think of take a lot more time. It looks nice with light behind it … so I’m trying to think of a way to mount this so I can have space in between the two layers and allow some light to filter through as well. I sense a trip to a framing store coming on.

While I was doing this one, I was talking to my brother. He saw the final and liked it, so I said I’d make him one. I figured I could handle something a little more complex on time 2. His request was expected – he also has a usual theme that he requests on a regular basis, and it’s not flowers. I’ll give you a hint, his email signature is “I fear flat planets.”

Can anyone guess what mountain this is? If you follow the picture to Flickr, you will see, but if anyone can guess that would make me happy that I got it sort of right. The inspiration for my original pencil sketch was a great photo by birder7 I found on Flickr. This one also does well being backlit. An Jeremy, once I figure out the frame, I’ll send this to you.

Papercutting is fun, if a little hard on the fingers holding the X-acto knife. Next time, I’ll investigate using a thimble on my forefinger. All those tiny trees! The backgrounds are watercolors. I’m not sure if I’d like these as much if they weren’t transparent colors.

Since this wasn’t exactly the theme I had in mind – I have a scene in my head I’m not sure how to execute – I think I will try a couple more (once my finger recovers) and see if I can really manage to put on paper (or cut out of paper) what I was thinking of. Ooh! Just thought of another one too …

The one that I naively believed I would finish it before it got cold. HAHAHAHA. Yeah that’s funny.

This picture is from a week ago.  Somewhere around this point you start working on finishing it, at least that’s what you think. And that’s all nice and everything, and of course I figured my sweater’s a bit different because it’s a pullover instead of a cardigan. Except a few days later I figured out there’s really still a lot more work to do. Neverending.

I’m pretty convinced I’m going to spend at least 30 hours on this sweater, only to discover when it’s done it won’t even come close to fitting. *sob* At which point I may give up crocheting clothing for myself.

In the meantime, I’m getting to watch plenty of Doctor Who while I stitch.

So you know I finished the One Skein Scarf, and mentioned the hat, and said it was all part of a hat/scarf/mittens set. The set comprises the scarf, the Applejack Cap and Lion Brand mittens made out of 3-year-stashed Homespun Prairie. Voila!

I’m pretty happy with how it all turned out. The hat was supposed to be looser than this, but since I (a) used a smaller hook to make the stitches smaller to make it warmer and (b) used bulky yarn instead of worsted, you can maybe see how I’d end up with a different hat than the pattern makes. I added stitches to it to compensate, and also added length to the hat so it would cover my ears. After all, what’s the point of a warm hat if it won’t cover your ears?  Actually, for acrylic, all this stuff turned out very warm.

The making of the mittens was an odyssey. I started them the day we left Iowa (the 26th) and made the ribbing, then continued the next TWO DAYS OF FREEZING TRAVEL through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. It was very snowy in Iowa and Missouri. Made for exciting travel. All my pictures look sort of dream-like, because I couldn’t keep the condensation off the windows. Here’s where I was just south of Kansas City, Kansas. My toes felt totally frozen.

I made both mittens at once as I went along. I knew if I just did one, the other would never get made.  Here we are in the spectacular Flint Hills in Kansas. It’s amazingly … I don’t know. Not much there but cows. The Flint Hills are a unique place. You know that super green and huge blue sky with hills desktop in Windows? I think that came from this place. In winter, it just looks scary-barren.

I’d managed to get a pair of warm slippers in Wichita, which gave me enough energy do all but the fingers by the time we’d gotten to Northern Oklahoma, near Ponca City (where I used to live). We thought we’d be able to make it home the first night, but a 2 hour traffic jam and icy conditions meant we stopped for the night in Oklahoma City.  Mittens going well, though.

Somewhere south of Ft. Worth, Texas I was mostly done with a thumb and was finally warm again! It was about this point I gave up on following the pattern, because the pattern had long since begun to seem stupid. It wasn’t wide enough in the hand, for one thing. So I just kept going and made them to fit my hand exactly.

By the time we got home to Austin both thumbs were finished. I needed to finish the fingers for the last three inches, and sew ‘em up. Two weeks later, I was done. It was frustrating to make mittens with this yarn. The thread-like core kept snapping when I tried to pull a seam tight. All I can say about it now is that my stash is smaller, and they’re very soft mittens.

It was an interesting start on non-beanie hats and finger-wear. I kind of wanted to try the patterns out on a yarn I hadn’t spend a lot of $$ on, so I could do them again but better. Now if I can only remember to write up what I did!

But if you DO have a Ravelry account, I’d suggest you drop by the Bobby Awards. I have to say that crochet is well represented among the entries! My two favorite crochet designers, June Gilbank and Robin Chachula, are both in there.

Even if you don’t feel like voting, it’s worth looking through because of the sheer creativity of the patterns and projects.  From the cabled sweaters, to the 4,000 stitch wedding dress skirt, to the yellow sweater for a Lobster, to Barbie’s toilet (paper cover)…  AND THERE’S A CATEGORY FOR GEEKIEST PATTERN.  I had a hard time picking favorite avatar … Picard/Riker with wool hat? Shatner? “Sorry no cat photo available?” Snape knitting? – ah the choices!

Did I mention the squirrel hat and the cat thong? There’s just too much. You have to go look for yourself.

P.S. I love that the Ravelry folks name so much stuff after their dog Bob.

{My brother, Jeremy, making honey walnut wheat bread.}

I’ve had any number of blog posts appear and disappear out of my head in the last few days. Mostly they disappear into the mashed potatoes that seem to be clogging up my head (hey Mom, you know that cold you had?). But basically, what I want to talk about boils down to three things: (1) mittens, (2) food prep and (3) family holidays. Not necessarily in that order.

{Lovely misty freezing weather in Iowa.}

Let’s start with the mittens though. I can’t seem to finish them. I’ll have you know I worked on an awesome traveling blog post about making mittens, only to find I wasn’t too pleased with what I was doing. Then I never seemed to have the time to sit down and work on them again, and finish. So here I am! Still mitten-less! This chaps my hide, if you’ll pardon the expression. I PROMISED MYSELF HANDMADE FUZZY MITTENS, and here I am still NOT with the mittens. Finishing them is my real goal for the week. Before it gets too warm to wear them.

{Jeremy’s bread, which I just finished off tonight along with my mom’s cranberry bread yesterday.}

Let’s move on to family holidays. I did what I’ve done many times in my life, and went to Iowa to my grandparents’ house. I love this ritual, and it’s something I remember doing for most of my life. It is a far drive, and I sacrifice other things to do it, but it is a dear and important tradition to me. This is usually the only time I see my maternal extended family during the year, so I make an effort to make the trip each year. I wish I could kick the a** of my paternal family to do the same periodic gathering sort of thing.

{It turns out my mom’s good at un-knotting tangled skeins of yarn. Thanks for those tangles, Wesley!}

On a side note, I got lots of great stuff. You? I gave almost 100% handmade things. It was definitely the season of felted pins. I did not make stuff, however. I will probably do something masochistic like that in the future (like some other crafty bloggers I know), but not this year. Once again, I failed to send holiday cards also. Meh. One day. Maybe I could send Memorial Day cards? Halloween?

{Denmark cemetery. You know, the old kind of town cemetery, dating to the 1800s, behind the church in the small town.}

This year I was in charge of the holiday food. Nine people from Tuesday to Saturday. Granted, I love to cook, and I don’t mind cooking a lot, but I’m used to cooking for two. This required meal planning. I love me some planning! I had charts, and I had lists, and I had recipes and I had … well, let me just show you:

See what I mean? I put notes and stuff on Flickr, too.

{I didn’t remember to get french fried onions for the green bean casserole, so I layered stuffing over the casserole instead, and it actually turned out pretty well.}

I was happy to have my grandmother (who is 83) sit while I did the work this year. She’s not good at just relaxing, but we tried. There isn’t a whole heck of a lot I can do for her being so far away, so it was good to do. Everyone else helped me out, and we all got fed on a regular basis. Usually my uncle Dan or my aunt Miriam do the cooking, but there’s no reason for me to sit around like a fence post. Uncle Dan helped with the meat a lot, which isn’t really my thing anymore.

{The day after Christmas it snowed. A lot. And Jeff drove on this to get us from Iowa to mid-Missouri. Good times! Actually, the glare from the windshield makes it look extra bad.}

The whole holiday was nice. Crazy family, crazy drive … oh hey. Did I mention there was a snowstorm on the way back to Texas? Jeff drove. I crocheted mittens. My mom got bored. It took two and a half days, but we made it in one piece. And THAT, my friends, is the mitten story. But it’s not today’s story.

I liked all my projects, so all of them are my “favorites” but Audrey’s sweater is the one that really tugs at my heart.  Not listed here are my grandma’s birthday card, the framed corkboards or the hat and gloves that I’m 99.9% done with that match the one-skein scarf.  I didn’t really include much for food, I think I’m going to do a separate one for that.

Looking back at the year via my iPhoto library and through this blog was interesting. I got a new computer, I tried to walk/hike a lot more, the cat turned 2, there was a huge fire at our apartment complex, I went to SXSW again, I got a promotion at work, traveled all around California, went to Iowa as well as to various places in Texas, I met Alton Brown, we published a few side project websites, I nearly made it through another November NaBloPoMo, and of course we moved into an apartment half the size of our former one.  On the much more somber side, we lost our dear, sweet Audrey, and a few months later decided to honor her memory in our own way by adopting Wesley. It’s been an eventful year.

Miriam Cooks A Lot | Circle-in-a-Square Granny Square (tutorial) | unfinished Red Wide-Neck Sweater | One-Skein Scarf | unfinished silk and linen quilted jacket | Owl, Redux (tutorial)| Owls, Part 1 | Birches Quilt |Bay Leaf Wreath | African Violet Jewelry Case | Flower Afghan | Audrey’s Sweater | Miriam’s Lake Blue Sweater |  Jeff’s Blue Beanie | Experiments in Thread Jewelry | Yarn for the Project Queue

The Flickr Pictures:
1. Happy about Tacos, 2. Row5, 3. Unfinished Sweater, 4. One-Skein Scarf, 5. Unfinished Silk Quilting, 6. Tiny Little Owl, 7. Hugging the glass, 8. Birch/Aspen Finished Wall Quilt, 9. Laurel Detail 1, 10. Pot of Violets, 11. Flower Afghan, 12. Audrey’s Sweater, 13. First Sweater, 14. Jeff’s Blue Beanie, 15. Shapes, 16. Hmmm

Hope you and yours have had a nice day if you’re the sort that celebrates Christmas!

We left right at sunup, so even though this was the shortest day of the year I was still able to get in a good few hours of crocheting on my hat. I just have the brim left now. I’m telling you, by the end of this here trip, I will have completed a hat/scarf/mittens set.

This was the hat right about the time we crossed from Oklahoma into Missouri. And Wesley (who has been a perfect doggie angel on this trip) wishes you a happy Solstice too!