Mine was probably pink with polka dots some days, others speckled multi colors like that of a Jackson Pollock painting. Wild and uninhibited would be the nature of many imaginations.
How many of you can say that you were born with a wild imagination? I would be one of them. I was always told by my Grammy and other relatives that I had a wild imagination. My thoughts and ideas just seem to spring from nothing. You know, somewhere in the back of my brain.
If I ever get a brain tumor, which I hope I never do, I hope it never attacks that doorway in my brain that releases all the creativity that wants to roll faster than a cheetah on a speeding railway train track.
Maybe you haven't touched the handle on your door yet. Is yours one of those old antique handles? Or is it just simply gold, black or white? I always remember some door knobs that seemed to have a rubber knob on them. I can't remember where this was, but somewhere in my childhood someone had rubber doorknobs.
Your doorway is beckoning you. Waiting with baited breath to hope that you will open and discover sheer bliss.
And then comes the moment of our releasing the energy from our doorway of imagination. Sitting in our wicker chairs, couch or any other private sanctuary where we come to create. We have to have the right setting for our creations. If you haven't already done so, try to find a place that you can come to every day and get motivated to be in the process of making something.
To dive right in is just about the right thing to do when you want to create. You can't just wade in and wait for thoughts to come. You need to jump those waves and get fully wet. Go under water. You're creations will thank you for it.
And if something gets a little over worked, at least you can say that you tried your best. And then look at it this way. You can always cut it up and use it in something else. Paint over it. Hack it up and use it in a collage. Think before you throw it out.
Recycling is a great way to also create. Think about what the uses could be for all kinds of things. There are artists out there that only use recycled stuff in their artwork. Last year I went to visit the Shelburne Museum in Vermont and one of their exhibitions was using recycled art and collage. Someone had cut up their income taxes and other stuff and had all these little pieces rolled up and it looked like a large place mat or something like that.
I tried rolling up a few magazine pieces for making paper beads a few weeks ago. You can roll it on a knitting needle and then you glue the last few inches. I don't think I liked it very well. Well, first of all, I think you have to modge podge it and then paint it. But, I just don't think I want to do it.
Imagination just seems to evolve into something tangible. Something real and awesome. It's like when you write a novel, things just start to write themselves. It's really crazy how I can start to write a chapter. Let's say I started to hand write it and then I go to type it up. It's when I start to edit and re write it, that the chapters seem to just come alive and suddenly this conversation starts to take place and suddenly I have jumped into the minds of the little children in the Glorious Money Tree novel and it's like they have their own voice.
And yes, I am writing it, yet at the same time it's as if I'm writing some concoction that has already occurred somewhere inside my brain.
Do you sometimes wonder if destiny has already been written out for us? Maybe we're just manually processing things that already existed in the darkness of our creative thoughts. Maybe it's something that we had thought of long ago and it is just manifesting itself into some new and wonderful creation.
Sometimes artists repeat certain things that seem to speak out really loudly to them. And very often the case is that we spend our whole lives trying to search for the very thing we already knew from the beginning. And our style seems to remain a constant that is ours and it just get's fine tuned over time.
It's funny how our minds work.
Well, I'm going to finish up with trivial thoughts as Julia will be waking up soon and the laptop will be under her control for a while.
And back to the knitting, scrap booking and anything else that tickles my fancy. This week I have filled a box of scrapbooking pieces that I had paper punched this week. I've set aside the paper punches for the most part. I'm waiting to buy a few new punches and I want to save some of my paper for that.
And I've got a bag of scrap paper from all the punching the paper pieces. One of these weeks coming up, I think I will be making some handmade paper. I bought some wooden embroidery hoops at good will and some at yesterday's yardsale. So now I have all my supplies for that. I use an old photo tray and large kitchen baking pans (lasagna pans) for dipping in the hoops. The paper pulp gets poured into the trays and then the finished paper dries in the tub for a day or so. Then you just peel it off and do what you want with it.
My first batch I think I will toss in either dandelions or mint and see what happens. And then I will see if my paper punches will work on the handmade paper.
Paper making can be the most inexpensive craft to do. It's largely made up of recycling stuff and is definitely a good budget craft. The only expense is the hoops and the mesh that you attach. And of course a blender.
I've also started to sew up a few of those yo yo circles I patiently cut out last winter. I've got quite a bunch of them. The girls have been using some of them too. And I am suddenly thinking that I should start sewing a bunch of them up to make that yo yo quilt or throw that I was thinking off. And part of my reason for going back and doing this is so I can get them out of this lovely fabric box that zips up. I would maybe later like to use the box for the collage and scrap booking and it might be nice to have a finished throw blanket.
Jennifer Jo Fay
Copyrighted July 28, 2012
Here is the scarf that I knitted earlier this week. In the background is some knitting that Mollyanne started to do. She probably will be leaving it and won't finish it. They are still at the age where it seems hard to knit and they are still learning. Although Julia does pretty well with the finger knitting. This scarf knitted up in one day. I used double strands of baby blue and yellow yarn to do this one. Earlier this month I had bought a bag of yarn at a yard sale for $1 and it had a bunch of skeins of this stuff. It's virgin wool and nylon. It was fun to knit up and I used the cable pattern that I have been using in the bracelets and other headbands. I like the tassels at the end. It is the first scarf that I applied tassels to.
I am thinking soon that I need to find another cable pattern to try out for the bracelets, etc... I don't want to just do one cable pattern. But this one I have in my head. I don't even need to look at the instructions anymore.
Simple Cable Pattern
Cast on 15 sts.
Row One: Knit across row.
Row Two: Knit 3 sts, purl 9, knit 3
Row Three: Knit 3 sts, slip 3 sts to
cable needle, knit 3 sts, knit 3 sts from
cn, knit to end.
Row Four: knit 3 sts, purl 9, knit 3
Row Five: knit across row
Row 6: knit 3 sts, purl 9, knit 3
Row 7: knit 6, slip three sts to cn, knit 3,
knit 3 sts from cable needle, knit to end.
Repeat these rows 1-7 to desired length.
Closeup of my cabled headband. This was made with a thick wool yarn and I added a very thin strand of pink wool yarn from a large cone that I have.
Closeup of the scarf.
The bracelets felted. I finally decided to wash a bunch of the items for felting. I like these little bags for tossing in the bracelets.
The two head bands. Cable pattern. They washed up well and fit snuggly and aren't too tight.
I started to print up a few things yesterday, but I need to go buy more ink. For some of it, it didn't matter if it printed up right or not. Two of the things I printed up were an outline of a bird and a butterfly. For the bird, I also shrunk it down to be two different sizes. This will probably be my template for cutting out my birds out of different scrapbooking paper.
I was thinking I would buy the bird punch, but I'm not sure if I will. I'm sure that I could even draw my own.
Two of the ribbon bracelets I whipped up this week. The red one is a mixture of a metallic red yarn and some of that trellis ribbon yarn that matched it. I bought the red metallic yarn at a yard sale earlier this spring. The blue one is some ribbon yarn from a grab bag that I purchased on ebay. What an awesome buy. $5 for the lot of seven skeins of different ribbon yarn plus the shipping. The blue ribbon and this other ribbon match really well. Not the blue, but the other color was originally $15. It was lovely to work with this yarn.
I also wanted to try out a different pattern with this one. I found a lace pattern that I had hand written in a little journal when the boys were little. So I tried it out. It seemed to work a little bit, and then suddenly, I noticed that my stitch count had changed. So for the bracelet, I just winged it and stopped the lace pattern and applied the cable pattern, and then alternated back to the lace pattern.
This little journal I have is a pink plaid pattern on the cover and I have had it since Sean was one years old. I have hand written lots of stitch patterns and other stuff that I wanted to do. In it I also have some collage pieces that I had glued in and there are also a few of my Nana's slipper patterns with her hand writing that I had glued in.
Well, here are the balls of ribbon yarn now. They are getting quite small, but I bet I can get a few more tiny bracelets from them.
Close up of one of the winter headbands. These are a little bulky but would be nice for those cold winter days.
A pretty bracelet that I need to sew up. I used some twine in it that I had bought earlier this year probably with the beaded jewelry in mind. I think it looks nice with these two colors.
The most recent yo yo pincushion I sewed up and a little pile of yo yo circles. I might whip up a few of them today.
A piece to a pocket book or an ipad cover that I whipped up last night with bulky yarn and double strand. I did a row of knit two together and yarn over to get the holes in case it is the top of the pocket book. Today I am knitting the other side which will be a different color bulky yarn. I am thinking it might be a neat little patchwork pocket book with different colors. I am thinking at a later point, I will be picking up stitches along the side of the pocket book and will be knitting from that to make it bigger. And then last night, I got thinking that it might be fun to try embroidering a little design on parts of it. Maybe just embroidering little dots or something real simple.
Well, my post is done and I am waiting for the kids to wake up, so I can yard sale for a tiny bit. And tonight is my sleep over night at their house. So, later today, I might be finding myself listing more outfits and other stuff on Ebay. Knitting and crafting and doing some simple little drawing designs in a notebook to get back into the drawing mode.
And I think popcorn should be put into today's agenda.
I had to get my memory card back from Mollyanne a few days ago. Earlier this week she wanted to borrow my memory card to make her videos. Last year, I bought a little video camera and I ended up letting her have the camera. And she and Julia got new memory cards for Christmas and now, she has lost her memory card. It made me a little nervous to let her use mine as now, it is the only one that I have. I should hunt around their house some day and see if I can find their other memory cards. Earlier last year, I had given them each one of mine and I think those got lost too. Sean has a bunch, but those are his.
I've got a second one, but it only works in my under water camera.
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