Monday, April 21, 2008

The power of the list

Don't you just hate the web sometimes? I get so inspired by all the lovely craft projects that everyone seems to do, but I *just don't have time for them*!!! How do these people manage to knit endless baby jackets and work out patterns for Jack Sparrow socks? Or take hundreds of gorgeous pictures of all the beautiful tulips they have time to grow in their garden? Or bake bread and cupcakes and make vats of butter icing?

I've been driven to start a list of Projects - To Do When I Have Time. I must say I love lists. There's a magical quality about a list which makes things happen. For instance, on the new list of projects is 'dye own wool', which means take some Aragon Yarns wool in the natural colour and hand dye it using some MX Procion dyes I bought off the web, ooo, about a year ago. And guess what? Last weekend I did it! And it took my list about three weeks to make it happen. Yay for the list. Another thing is sock knitting, and I'm over half way through my first sock at the moment, including stopping and ripping it to shreds when I realised the gauge was all wrong, and starting again. Note to self - always, always do a proper tension square, no matter how boring it is.

So what else is there to do?

1. Bake bread (I found a great recipe for twice risen bread on someone’s blog)
2. Double knitting (since I saw a pattern online for a blanket supposedly knitted my Mrs F D Roosevelt)
3. Scrapbooking (OK, this was a real live book that has inspired me again, but there’s lots online for this too)
4. Lace Knitting (too many online patterns to count, but I don’t want to make a granny style triangular shawl, so still looking for the ideal one)
5. Order some cards from moo.com (which will involve trailing through all my pics for ones I like best). Moo seems to be everywhere at the moment – including with the lady with the tulips.
6. Design more patterns – including a lot more felted items, as our wool seems to felt like a dream.

So, I challenge you guys to write a list and see what happens. Leave it lying somewhere you will see it every day. Let me know if it works for you too. Good luck!

(And yes, before you say it, if I didn't spend so long reading other people's blogs, I'd have time for my own projects. What do you think I do at work all day?)