Plus she's Scottish, and, honestly, how can you not love a Scot?
I kind of want to be her (except for the stroke, of course) or at least have her artistic skill. Alas...maybe someday.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Knit Crush
I'm not sure how, but I came across this lady (textisles.com) and she is amazing. She inspires awe in me because she is a wonderful designer, a beautiful writer, apparently a very good photographer, and she's recovering from a stroke so she's not even 100%
Plus she's Scottish, and, honestly, how can you not love a Scot?
I kind of want to be her (except for the stroke, of course) or at least have her artistic skill. Alas...maybe someday.
Plus she's Scottish, and, honestly, how can you not love a Scot?
I kind of want to be her (except for the stroke, of course) or at least have her artistic skill. Alas...maybe someday.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Motherhood Manifesto
I've been reading a lot of mom articles lately and in them I've noticed a theme; it seems that mothers are plagued by guilt, lots of guilt, with a good dose of self-hatred mixed in.
My question is why? What is going on with that? Women who are clearly intelligent, moral people with a multitude of abilities sit around and feel guilty about, it seems, pretty much everything. If they have a job they feel guilty for not staying home, if they stay home they feel guilty for not having a job and not using their education. We feel guilty for having a dirty house, but then we feel guilty for taking time to clean. We feel guilty for not breastfeeding; we feel guilty if we let our babies sleep with us, and we feel guilty if we put them in a crib. We feel guilty for not enjoying every second of parenthood (to that I say: poopy diapers? Really? Aren't we expecting a lot of ourselves?)We practically feel guilty for breathing.
Well, I decided I'm not doing it. I'm not feeling guilty. I'm not feeling inferior. I'm not playing that game. Here's why: I'm pretty sure I'm going to mess up my son somehow and give him a complex about something, but I don't know what. All I can do is hope I get the big things right and manage to raise a healthy, and moral person, who can make wise choices. If I worry about every little thing I won't enjoy his childhood and chances are I will make it miserable for him as well. Besides, most of the things we feel guilty about aren't really problems at all. All of the ladies I know who are mothers are damn good parents. They love their children and provide them with rich, wholesome environments to learn, love, and play, breastmilk or none. We're all doing the best we know how to do. No one sets out to screw up their child.
I think we, as women, need to go a little easier on ourselves and let go of the guilt.
My question is why? What is going on with that? Women who are clearly intelligent, moral people with a multitude of abilities sit around and feel guilty about, it seems, pretty much everything. If they have a job they feel guilty for not staying home, if they stay home they feel guilty for not having a job and not using their education. We feel guilty for having a dirty house, but then we feel guilty for taking time to clean. We feel guilty for not breastfeeding; we feel guilty if we let our babies sleep with us, and we feel guilty if we put them in a crib. We feel guilty for not enjoying every second of parenthood (to that I say: poopy diapers? Really? Aren't we expecting a lot of ourselves?)We practically feel guilty for breathing.
Well, I decided I'm not doing it. I'm not feeling guilty. I'm not feeling inferior. I'm not playing that game. Here's why: I'm pretty sure I'm going to mess up my son somehow and give him a complex about something, but I don't know what. All I can do is hope I get the big things right and manage to raise a healthy, and moral person, who can make wise choices. If I worry about every little thing I won't enjoy his childhood and chances are I will make it miserable for him as well. Besides, most of the things we feel guilty about aren't really problems at all. All of the ladies I know who are mothers are damn good parents. They love their children and provide them with rich, wholesome environments to learn, love, and play, breastmilk or none. We're all doing the best we know how to do. No one sets out to screw up their child.
I think we, as women, need to go a little easier on ourselves and let go of the guilt.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Hmmm...
...It seems I have been absent from my blog for quite some time. Well...so it goes. It's not that I haven't been knitting, I have, I've just been busy, and tired, and in a bad mood because it's winter and dark. I hate the dark. I could handle the winter if it wasn't nighttime ALL the time. Winter in the sunlight is pretty; it's sparkly and nice smelling with crisp fresh air. All of the sparkles and freshness kind of makes me happy, but you can't see the sparkles at night. Stupid nighttime.
Winter tends to make me want to hide in my couch-cave and drink too much but at least it also makes me want to knit like crazy. Which I am doing now. I have three big projects and still seem to want more (but I'm containing myself and focusing on finishing).
The first project is the biggest project I have ever undertaken: my master knitter certification. Right now I'm working on knitting the swatches for level one. So far I have four swatches and one that I need to re-knit because I made an ugly mistake. The blocking on the first four is done and it was a nerve racking process, well all of it is really. I keep wondering which swatches I'll get back. I think I'm going to go forward with the assumption that I will get all of them back and then I won't stress about it too much. So that means I have 12 more swatches left plus the questions and report. I'm hoping to get through level one by the end of the year, well really earlier but the end of the year is more realistic.
I also have two sweaters I'm working on. That's right, two. Yes I think I might be a little crazy but it's working for me right now. The first sweater is this one (this is the bottom):
Hopefully in the end it will look like this (this is the top, pretty right?):
-from Interweave Knits
I'm also working on this one:
-from Interweave Knits
For these I'm motivated by the cold. It's cold and I want to be warm. Plus having two at the same time means I know I'll be warm at some point and I always have something to knit even when I run into a roadblock on one. (Which I did and is a story for another day)
Winter tends to make me want to hide in my couch-cave and drink too much but at least it also makes me want to knit like crazy. Which I am doing now. I have three big projects and still seem to want more (but I'm containing myself and focusing on finishing).
The first project is the biggest project I have ever undertaken: my master knitter certification. Right now I'm working on knitting the swatches for level one. So far I have four swatches and one that I need to re-knit because I made an ugly mistake. The blocking on the first four is done and it was a nerve racking process, well all of it is really. I keep wondering which swatches I'll get back. I think I'm going to go forward with the assumption that I will get all of them back and then I won't stress about it too much. So that means I have 12 more swatches left plus the questions and report. I'm hoping to get through level one by the end of the year, well really earlier but the end of the year is more realistic.
I also have two sweaters I'm working on. That's right, two. Yes I think I might be a little crazy but it's working for me right now. The first sweater is this one (this is the bottom):
Hopefully in the end it will look like this (this is the top, pretty right?):
-from Interweave Knits
I'm also working on this one:
-from Interweave Knits
For these I'm motivated by the cold. It's cold and I want to be warm. Plus having two at the same time means I know I'll be warm at some point and I always have something to knit even when I run into a roadblock on one. (Which I did and is a story for another day)
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