words words words

Have you ever felt like everything you ever wanted to say or do is bubbling right under the surface and yet you can't touch it? There aren't words or paint or fabric or paper enough to say it? Or maybe it's just that you can't find the right words, paint, fabric or paper?

I feel like I've stared at this screen, at pieces of paper, through a camera lens...all day long. I picked up needle and thread and tried to express it that way. Over the past few days I've tried crayons, a paintbrush, pencil and pen. Nothing's working. Paper and glue even. Nope. When I was an infant my mother read Shakespeare to me. I could read on my own at three years of age. Books and journals have given me comfort at every stage along the way. Yet I can't find the words right now.

Artistic expression was always encouraged. We had crayons, pencils, clay, paints and markers and pens. We wrote plays and performed them in our backyard for the neighbors. I don't remember how young I was when I learned to hold needle and thread and to stitch a picture on fabric. It feels that it's something I've always been able to do. And yet...and yet, right now I cannot finish a book. The doors of the cupboard that holds my art supplies are open, colored papers, threads, pencils, ribbon, yarns, paints and flowers spill out. Half abandoned ideas and projects fill the dining room table. None of it is working. None of it is helping me say what I want to say.

What the hell is going on with me? Indulge me for a minute while I wonder if it traces to childhood (and really, you have no idea how much I hate the possibility of that) My parents gave me every which way to express my emotions and yet there was a time when I really needed someone to listen to my words, to look at my art and to see, to feel what I was trying to say. No one understood it or heard it or maybe they just didn't want to and ever since I sometimes slide into this feeling. This feeling that everything is right there, just right fucking there and yet...it's not. What's the good of creating or saying something if no one hears it? And if I've felt that way since I was a child, does it stem from that moment? Or is this just how it feels sometimes? Sometimes you won't be able to express yourself. And that? That sucks.

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Crafty Bitch

As promised to May, my craftiness-on display. Forgive the crap photography, I had no natural light to work with today.

First up is Demi by Kim Hargreaves in the Rowan book, "Vintage Knits". My swatch was dead on, but the knitting is turning out much smaller than the dimensions indicated in the pattern. Should I stop? Or hope that blocking fixes it? I'm loving the pattern and it's fun to knit too.

Carolina from Rowan 39. I adore Kid Silk Haze and this sweater is just too pretty. I have the main body knit and am now on the lace sleeves:

Library Capelet a free pattern from Lion Brand. Knit in the humble yarn Homespun I think this is going to be a fall favorite with jeans

Branching out from Knitty. I work on this at work when it gets really slow and boring.

And some charity knitting to round it out. An Afghan for Afghans in sturdy old-fashioned wool.

Moving along to cross stitch I give you Jane Greenoff's River Thames Sampler. Will be 31 inches long when completed. Holy cow...

Valentine Stitchery's Sense & Sensibility Sampler. How cute is that owl??? I'm doing this over one on some linen that I had kicking around. Cannot remember the color name.

Now under the heading "I Must Have Been High"...John Clayton's Paris also done over one. Stupid, stupid, stupid decision...but it will look AWESOME if I ever manage to finish it.

I've also got a quilt going for a dear friend's daughter--that is my completion goal for the holiday weekend. Collage work? You're just going to have to wait on that. Enjoy the weekend mes amis!

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Insomnia

It's back. And has been for a few months now. This time around my doctor is unwilling to give me anything for it so every night I wake up in the wee small hours (what a fucking torture song) and lie awake until I get bored of that. When bored of that I fire up the laptop and attempt to amuse myself online-trouble is a lot of my online friends have moved on, had children and rarely post or I've become bored of them. Painful truth there. Or, let's be honest here, they've had kids and I find it painful to read about. I find a lot of joy in the children in my life, so please don't misunderstand me. It's just that not having children is not where I thought my life would be at this point. Nothing has turned out the way I imagined. I'd say life is unfair, but it never promised to be otherwise, now did it?

Tonight I'm particularly troubled, I woke up to racing thoughts of love and loss and a life in a mess. No way to spend those wee hours. They're lonely these hours. I miss my friend. In these hours I don't care that it was an unhealthy relationship-I just want it back.

ANYWAY...in other news, besides obsessing over lost things, I've signed up for National Novel Writing Month and it's all Nicole's fault. I have a vague idea of where to start, but there's still two months before the kick-off so I have time to change my mind a million times over.

I've gone all ADD with my craft life. Five knitting projects on the needles (two of which are Rowan so therefore complicated as the circles of hell...), 3 cross stitch projects (one is almost a yard long and I'm only 12 inches in, the other two are over one-obviously I want to lose my eyesight) and I'm also trying some collage work. For years I've been collecting bits and pieces for collages that have lived in my mind-I'm trying to translate them to reality. Tough going on that, but I find it satisfying so far.

So that's me these days-mourning a loss, trying to sort my life and failing miserably, crafting like a maniac, and trying to write to keep up with the racing thoughts sometimes. I can hear it now, "Read a book!" Yeah well, you try to read a book when your brain is full of noise. I can't seem to concentrate enough to make it through a book these days-it's slow going. I have three on my nightstand at any given time, all very different and none of which will hold my interest. I'll find I've been rereading a paragraph over and over while my mind wanders to the mess I've generated in my life. And YES, I've told this to my doctor. Jenny Gill being unable to read is a bad, bad thing. If you know me at all, you know that much at least.

Love to you all, thanks for reading...

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