The window is open and through it I hear birdsong. Oh, sweet hope for Spring.

This weekend has been a bit odd for me, mentally. Saturday I spent the entire day feeling like a ghost (thank you, sleep deprivation); I felt so faint, so colorless that it was almost surprising and somehow wrong to see that I cast a shadow. If my mind is so distant and disconnected from the world, after all, what right can my body have to be so monotonously concrete?

The longer you stay awake, the more life becomes a dream.

Today I’ve simply felt uncomfortable in my own skin- not mentally, but physically. It’s as if someone took my brain and moved it into another body, indistinguishable from my own to all but myself. This part’s a little too long, this one a little too sharp, this one tight and this one itches funny. Rather strange, that- perhaps it has something to do with being sick recently? Damn you, influenza.

If this sounds like whining, please know it’s not intended. The loss of inflection, of tone and cadence on the internet is something I have not quite adjusted my style of communication to- were I speaking to you right now, my voice would sound not exhausted and beaten, but quietly speculative. All these myriad sensations of life are still a marvel to me, even the ones that I categorize as "bloody weird".

But enough philosophical jabber (I get philosophical when I'm tired. You have been warned). I’m here to introduce you to my new knitting project. What of my old knitting projects, you ask? Shhhh. I’ll finish them eventually, promise.

So here we go. My best friend bought me a present, and it is this:

Grapes and Oranges

What is this, you ask? A thrummed mitten kit! All winter I’ve been dreaming of a pair of these things (my circulation and usual core temperature both resemble the living dead more than a healthy 22-year-old girl, so my hands freeze fast), and the fact that Spring is stirring beneath the dead grass and frozen soil does not damper my excitement in the least. It just means I’ll have to knit fast is all.

(I can hear you people who have read me for a while laughing at that “knit fast” comment. Shh again.)

I love the colors. I’ve grown a real taste for vibrant colors in the last few years, and there’s no point I crave them more than on those cold winter days when I’ll use these mittens.

This brings me to a recent post on All Things Lilliput. Frequently I’ll stop and ponder the things that make me smile in my day-to-day existence and, inspired by said post, I figured I’d let you in on a few today.

1. Mittens!
2. The relatively warm weather we’ve been having, and the promise of Spring to come (and Spring break, the week after this one- woot!).
3. I got to take a nap today. Naps are awesome.
4. Grapes. Big fat red grapes.
5. I’m keeping this one to myself, but trust me, it’s good.

* * * *

Final comment: I have a goal and it is this: one project per week for the next month. I will define what constitutes a project, as something like “get my photo book up to date” is impossible, while “get the San Francisco pictures into the photo book” would suit a week's timespan perfectly. That shouldn’t be too hard, right? Further goal: blog about all of ‘em. One post per week. Minimum.

Hold me to that one, okay?

I think I'm going to write a manifesto for this blog, and maybe a few other things. Seems like a good dawn-of-the-year activity, no? A manifesto is defined as a statement, a public declaration, of personal intentions and principles- something I've always thought was important to keep clear and straightforward in my own mind, whether I take the time to write it out or not. It helps to clearly know what you want, what you're doing, what's driving you; how can you accomplish your goals if they're nebulous and unformed even in your own imagination?

Also, Manifesto is a cool word. I like words. I like words a lot.

What little gems do I have to unload upon you today?

So-called

Hey look, knitting! The pattern is My So-Called Scarf, and it's being made as a (very) belated christmas present for a friend. The "very belated" is because knitting such a cool pattern in plain old black is boring, and I am very bad at boring when it comes to my own hobbies. It's a hobby. Its purpose is to be interesting.

Still, even while boring, it's pretty and an easy stitch pattern. I may have to make my own next (in an interesting colorway, of course).


So-called, Redux

I've got a few thoughts on this next project. First off: when a crafting trend appears in Michaels, you know it's been played out. So it was with the centerpiece for this necklace.


Trendy

Second thought: I've never let what was popular or unpopular dictate what I like (is NOT liking something because its trendy really any better than being a trend-whore?), and damnit, I like birds. I mean come on! Extant therapods! And seeing as my wardrobe is largely devoid of these painfully popular icons of craft, I think I'm allowed a single necklace without turning in my "creative and original" card.

I figured while I was riding one trend to its inevitably messy end, I might as well take my first try at another: asymmetry. Never done it in a necklace before. Still not sure how to make it look good.


Don't Need Your Symmetry

Third thought: as I'm sure many of my fellow craft bloggers know, taking a picture with the self-timer is a fine art. I am no fine artist. Witness my many failures to bring you the utterly mediocrre shot below.


Screw it! This works.

Yeah. Some day, when I'm rich, I'll have a personal photographer.

I have today and tomorrow off and then Spring semster begins. I plan to touch on all of the following projects and activities in that time:

-Clean the house. All of it. Include in this further getting-rid-of-stuff. Focus particularly on cleaning up desk and/or project room. Also, clean up blog if there's time.
-Work on sea serpent painting (oils)
-Work on land fish painting which you haven't seen yet (gouache). It's an experiment- I recieved the gouache supplies for christmas, and quite like the medium so far.
-Continue embroidering a shirt of mine, for to make it awesome.
-Go to a movie or two.
-Post all the random stuff I keep tossing up here to the store
-Give the art journal some attention
-More pictures to ye olde picture book, in preparation for the batch I'm going to order from this last trip
-Upload the pictures from this last trip (and any other pictures I may want) to the place from which I order them, which is typically Snapfish.
-Go to the gym today. Monday will be a rest day.
-Finish my Mp3 player's quick thrown-together case, for to wear to the gym. I dropped it a few times too often whilst lifting yesterday.
-Find my !@%$^# DPN so I can knit those #@!$^& gloves. I have a knitting itch, and I need that lost DPN to scratch it
-Finish a letter to a penpal and get it in the freakin' mail already.
-Maybe play a little with black and white and/or color accent photography. It's been on my mind.

Damn, that's a lot. No time to lose!

The crafting community is amazing, and the internet its greatest showcase. From forums to blogs, from to businesses to zines, the imagination and ingenuity on casual display is extraordinary in vision, in execution, in quality and in sheer, unending volume.

And then there’s me. Watching a myriad of exquisitely inspired internet crafters I often feel the outside-looking-in sensation of the woeful underachiever. I look upon the creations of my crafty idols and see vital forests choked with growth, rich gardens of heartrending beauty, overflowing vitality. Myself, however? The sporadic grassy knot, yellow and crisp-dry and clinging to a emaciated sort of existence amidst a vast wasteland of blasted dunes. I’m sure I have readers who sympathize with the feeling; if not in the crafty sphere, than in some other area of your life (academically, perhaps?).

Here’s the thing about despairing one’s inadequacy compared to the masters of any field: that way lays madness, because it is totally, utterly and completely unfair (not to mention absolutely irrelevant). This is an important realization and talisman for any crafter. How much harder are you on yourself as versus everyone else? Why? Does someone else’s success degrade your own in any way, shape or form? Does brutally attacking your own confidence really make you do better, or might you succeed more if you gave yourself positive reinforcement, rather than going after your spirits with a proverbial chainsaw?

Here’s a good rule of thumb to start with: never treat yourself in a fashion you wouldn’t treat your best friend or deepest lover.

It seems to me that people often deal unfairly with themselves, imposing impossible standards and expectations, ignoring the good to revel in and magnify every failure. Perhaps people fear that looking at their own being without the razor of unfair, unabating criticism in hand is self-indulgent, even selfish. It’s not. I’d go so far to say that wallowing in self-criticism, two steps from self-pity, is about as self-indulgent as it gets. It takes no effort to perceive failure. The hard part is understanding –and working for- success. So I have a desert where others have rainforests- I would be remiss in my duties as a biologist if I didn’t tell you that the desert is as fascinating, vital and ultimately beautiful a biome as any other. (Ecology homework? What ecology homework?)



Both your time and your energies, physical and emotional, are limited. Why waste them when there’s so much glory not only in the world and in others but in your own short life, your abilities, and your infinite potentials?

All this pseudo-metaphysical rambling serves largely to make me feel better about my lamentable progress on the so-named Lottie Gloves:


Progress

Every stitch counts, though. Onward!


A Dapper Design

I love Cherie Amour, enough so that I immediately opened handpaintedyarns.com and looked at what colorways they had available. I can't afford any new yarn right now, but the dreaming is a lovely thing.

Ysolda's Urchin also tempts me- I've been wanting a beret lately, if only to see if I could pull one off. What do you think?

* * * *


Bloom

I have a confession to make, and I'm sure I'm not the only one out there who has fallen into this trap: I spend more time reading craftblogs than crafting. It's an age-old problem (if by "age old" you mean "since blogging caught on in the dawn of Web 2.0"), and did I not carry about this little addiction, Corvus tristis would certainly be a much more creative sort of creative blog. Alas, there's so many wonderful ideas and people swarming the lofty halls of the internet that even when I swear to myself I'll only read a blog or two and then go work said reading inevitably grows to consume my free time (and, stuffed full of new inspirations and encouragements, I can hardly feel appropriate guilt). I bring this up today, however, because I have found a solution: podcasts.

With podcasts, I can get my internet-crafty hit while still leaving my eyes and fingers free to, y'know, actually make stuff. It's genius, I tell you.

Thus far I've downloaded and listened to episodes of the following:

For the Science Geek in Me

-Skepticast - They interviewed Bill Nye. Need I say more? Bill Nye! I owe that man more than I can articulate, as far as the early development of my scientific passion goes.
-Skepticality
-MicrobiologyBytes
-ASM's MicrobeWorld

For the Crafty Geek in Me

- Sticks and String - I swear, if I ever go to Australia, I'll be too busy listening to the accents to hear what anyone actually has to say.
- Material Mama
- Craftypod - Their latest, on crafty overload, has definently given me food for thought.
- CraftLit - Which combines crafting with literature, including a chapter or two of an audiobook at the end to be discussed in the next episode. Great to craft to.
- Crafty Chica Podcast
- Cast On
- Knitcast
- Knitting News Cast
- Pointy Sticks
- Craftcast
- Stash and Burn
- CraftSanity
- CRAFT and MAKE Podcasts -from the creators of awesome magazines and blogs: podcasts! Most are pattern or project specific, and looking through their archives, I've already chalked a ton of them onto my "to do someday" list.

Misc

-Creative Writing Podcast (which does not so much have a creatively written name, but hey!)
-AccordionNoir - You may remember I mentioned a man with an accordion who I met in Seattle. His name was Rowan, and this is his podcast.
-MSF's podcast. This is what I'd like to do for a few years once I have my degrees (and if they'll take me before I get my grad degrees). Even if I do go straight to grad school, I'll work with them some day: I plan to go into research and will thus spend a lot of time in sterile little labs far removed from the actual effects of the diseases I work with, and I want to know the reality of infection first from its front lines.

Predictably there are more on my list, including NASA's podcast, lots of BBC and NPR 'casts, and really whatever has managed to catch my eye. I've been finding these through handy dandy google, and browsing directory sites like podcastingnews.com. There are more that I've forgotten, and some of those which I've linked to appear to have "pod-faded" long ago (which does nothing to damage their utility to me, hence their still being linked, but which means suscribing to an actual feed wouldn't accomplish much). I don't think I've listened to enough episodes of any one podcast to throw about actual recomendations and reviews, but if you're wondering "what's she doing?", there's your answer.

How about you? Do you follow any podcasts? Do you have any you'd like to vouch for, crafty or no? The more great podcasts you throw my way the more I craft and the more interesting this blog will be, so give it a shot: feed my new internet obsession.


Bunny + Flower = Cute

While thusfar my belated discovery of the joy of podcasts has breathed new life into my crafting efficiency, I sense a pitfall ahead. Knowing what you do of me, can you guess what it is? Not searching for them, though that eats time (and I keep coming up with new ideas for podcasts to hunt for: ooo, history! Epidemiology! Bookbinding! Cool new music! Blogging! Steampunk! Writing! Stories! Arr, thar be erotica off the port bow -tis what I get for lookin' for stories.); not even keeping up with or blogging about them. No, this time trap is much more dangerous: I want to make one of my very own.

Luckily, I'm prevented from launching into yet another hobby I have absolutely no time for by a lack of essential equipment. This is doubly lifesaving because, just as some unfortunate folk have faces destined for the radio, I have a voice perfectly suited to the glory of silent film. Alas, I'll have to stick to blogging.

I have not found victory in the world of knitting this season; indeed, I have backslid without even telling you. The Endpaper Mitts were frogged for hibernation months ago and the yarn has been hidden deep in my stash, branded with the discouraging mental tag of “someday, but not today”. Calla has finally resurfaced (see, told you my great stuff clean-out would come in handy), but I’ve lost my place in the pattern and have felt no compelling urge to sit down and figure it out; again, it’s been tagged "someday, but not today". In fact, I failed to employ a set of needles all summer, not even to write out the long-promised Strawberry Hat pattern. Something knitterly in me had burned out.

Don’t get me wrong, I still loved the craft: I dawdled on Ravelry and kept up with new books and patterns, tagging awesome project after awesome project with the sadly ubiquitous "someday, but not today". But, relaxing as they may be, in my world rumination and idle contemplation aren’t worth much without results.

For some odd reason, I felt guilty giving up on projects. Then I realized that, Jesus Christ on a cracker woman, this is a hobby. And with that I shushed the "must finish what I start" guilt, put away those projects which had burned me out and cast on for a new one: a simple, easy project which could ease me back into the yarn pile, as it were.

Something Simple

According to the pattern these are "Mikado Ribbon Fingerless Gloves". Seeing as a) I’m not using Mikado Ribbon yarn, b) I plan to make modifications to the pattern, because I have skinny wrists and want a good fit and c) "Fingerless Gloves" describes approximately a bazillion knitting patterns on the internet and beyond, I have decided that I get to rename said pattern. I dub them “Lottie Gloves”. All you see in the picture I knit in a single afternoon this weekend, whilst gazing rapt at the computerized dead guy in my VH Dissector program. This is rather fast progress for me, and thus I’d say my "new project!" prescription for the knitting blues has worked: the part of me that wants to knit, as versus just think about knitting, is rubbing cobwebs from its eyes and squinting into the new dawn, Cashcotton firmly in hand.

Now if only I could knit rather than study. Wish me luck on the anatomy exam.