Yarn in my Pocket

76) All spun up

The lovely, blended rainbow I blogged about three weeks ago has become a lovely spun rainbow:

I'm really proud of myself for getting it all spun up so promptly, and also of Woody for being such an awesome yarn-model.  Marnie's pups (especially Panda) are so hilariously accommodating in this regard, I just had to try it for myself.

I've only just noticed I've got the two rightmost skeins of yarn the wrong way round.  *How* I managed to take a photo like that without noticing, I've no idea.

Next phase: wash and block the yarn, then warp up the loom and weave!  I'd love to have the loom warped by the end of the week, which pretty much means I need to wash the yarn tonight.  But I haven't managed that, because I've been cooking soup.  It's soup season again!!  Tonight's special: Spinach, lentil and yoghurt.  Yarn blocking tomorrow, then.

There has been a lot of spinning round here lately; far more spinning than knitting, truth be told.  Katarina has been finished and worn, and even got her final blocking yesterday, and I have swatched for and started a new project (a variation on Moor [that's a Rav link, folks], from Rowan's "Yorkshire Fable").  But the knit-lust is notably absent.  The long, pressing queue of Things I Must Knit seems to have evaporated.  The Things I Must Sew list is even shorter.

I'm cool with this.  I think I have sufficient sweaters - or at least, enough that it's not worth starting a new project without thinking how it's going to fit into my wardrobe.  I do need some new skirts/trousers/shirts, but again, I need a Plan first.

Recently, I have been thinking more and more about self-sufficiency. Sufficiency, as in 'sufficient'.  Enough.  I don't need a wardrobe stuffed to the gills with sweaters, however well made they are.  Stashing vast quantities of yarn that I don't have an immediate need for is not in line with my light-consumer ideals.  I am currently losing weight (there!  I said it!); with any luck, I'll be down to my pre-shingles weight by Christmas, and maybe my optimum weight by my birthday in March next year.  It doesn't seem like a good idea to invest loads of time into tailored garments that I'm going to grow too small for in a matter of months;it certainly isn't a good idea to make garments that are currently too small in the hopes that they'll fit correctly 'eventually'.

I'm certainly not going to stop knitting any time soon (or spinning, or weaving!), but I think this might be a good time to think about what I want to achieve, as well as how I want to be spending my time.

Meanwhile, isn't Woody a doll??

64) Re-entry

This week has flown by; it has been busy, and tumultuous, and exciting in ways I really didn't expect.  The hounds were very happy to see me return from my very-long weekend; Kita was able to finally relax properly, instead of waiting for me on the front door mat:

My weekend away included a phone call, last Friday lunchtime, to offer me a new job.  A new *office* job, in the same field that I'm currently working in, but with more freedom, more responsibility, more creativity.  Fewer contracted hours, but possibly more time actually working - we'll see.

What this means, is, hopefully a more fulfilling day job, but also more focus on my day job.  Did I mention creativity and responsibility?  Whilst working for other people??  Scary.  I don't know whether I'll be able to keep freelancing for pattern writers; I will certainly keep dyeing.  It's also had my brain in a whirl, and this morning, I had the weirdest, almost vision-like epiphany-moment as I was driving to work.  It was so compelling, so worth my continued thought, that I even turned off my audio book so I could ponder it more directly.  (This is major.)

It is weird, definitely.  And rambly.  And definitely qualifies this post for the 'navel lint' category.  Anyone who comes here for the wool, the garden or the dog photos is perfectly free to click away now.  Anyone who wants a glimpse inside my brain is welcome to keep reading.

So.  I suddenly saw myself as a being who is waking up, such as after a long hibernation, or perhaps as one emerging from a chrysalis, which also includes a sense of transformation.  An especially lovely bit of this was a sense that the extra weight I'm still carrying (not loads, but some) can be seen as fuel for the rest of the transformation, just like a seed carries energy with it, or an egg.

The CFS that I've suffered for almost four years now has, in truth, felt like a hibernation at times; it has slowed me; changed my habits, my way of being, my thoughts, my metabolism.  I used to be such a morning person; now, I'm more like an early bee than an early bird.  You can get me out of bed early, but it takes me ages to get warmed up and off the ground!

But over time, too, I've cocooned myself in a whole bunch of beliefs and thoughts, some of which were and probably still are true, others are self-lies, or self-deception, others pure fantasy.  Somewhere in there, there's a childish belief that I'm going to somehow be whisked away to a glamorous existence where work is unnecessary, and that whatever I do to bring in a paycheck now is temporary.  There are all kinds of beliefs there; about my 'right' to have as many hobbies as I like, and an infinite amount of time to pursue them; about my 'duty' to be the best at (or at least very good at) everything, always (or no-one will love me); and there's a long, twisting thread of self-doubt, all knotted together with a rather strange perception of how others see me, and a belittling approach to my standing in the adult world.  As I write this, I'm seeing that thread particularly clearly; it is dark brownish-red, and shiny, and branched, with knotted lumps in it.  It's rather beautiful, actually; forming a strong, supportive net around and right through my chrysalis, but also restricting my growth, and threatening to cut into me like a too-small tie around a tree. It is holding in that collection of stale, papery beliefs.  And oddly, there is a marked contrast between the thread and the papers.  The papers seem to represent a high level of self-belief and arrogance, but in a child's world.  The thread holds them in, keeping me warm, safe and asleep, and stops me breaking into confidence in an adult world.  It's almost as if I'm waiting for someone to hand me a certificate stating that yes, I am now a grown-up, entitled to my opinions.

So this thread forms a structure for my chrysalis, my safe place, and now I'm seeing how restricting my safe place is. Some of those beliefs actually stop me from achieving happiness: one of them seems to be telling me that I've 'sold out' if I'm happy in a 9-to-5 job.  Although, you know, if I look deeper, I think that's really a well-disguised fear.  I'm scared that I'm not actually any good at that sort of job, and if I try hard, I'll just get my heart broken.  Wow, that's a strong phrase, eh?

Now that I've found my chrysalis, and I'm pretty sure I don't want to stay here, what do I do next?  No-one is going to hand me that certificate; I need to go and write it for myself.  No-one opens a chrysalis to let the butterfly out, either, or provides an alarm clock for hibernating bears.  I need to struggle a bit: stick my neck out, take risks, in order to break free and disassemble this chrysalis.  Some of those papers are precious, though.  What do I do with them?  Well, maybe I can make a scrapbook out of those precious pieces.  The rest of them... well, in real life, I recycle paper I no longer need, and I shred any pieces with dangerous information on them.  So maybe I need to find an equivalent way of dealing with these old 'psychological' papers.  As for that net, well, I did say that it looks strong and supportive.  I wonder if I can refashion it into something strong and comforting without being restricting?  A hammock, perhaps?

23) Why you shouldn't be too smart at school

When you are at school, you are given the information, then lead through the examples, then sent to do the exercise.

• You get the lecture, then make the notes.
• Volumes of rotation are explained to you before you get the math exercise¹
• You read the essay before answering the comprehension questions

If you're a "good" student, you don't have to ask again to complete the exercise.  Asking is Bad.  No- not true.  Asking is not bad; if you need to ask, then asking is definitely good!  But there's a hazy subtext floating around there somewhere that suggests that *needing* to ask is Bad.

I am slolwly learning - after how many years? - that this is not how working life goes.  In working life, you are asked to Do Stuff.  If this is stuff you've done before, all well and good.  But no-one gives you the little lecture before they hand you the exercise; you are expected to either work it out or ask for help, as appropriate.  Not only is asking now Good, it is often Necessary, and what's more, it's suddenly up to you to figure out when this is.

This is a major struggle for me.
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¹ Actually, not always.  My teacher messed up with this one; I figured it out and then answered the questions anyway.  At the time, I was very proud of this.