Plodding Along

It's been a slow week in terms of Things I Can Photograph, but I did finish a class sample.

I made this design, and stitched three units a couple of years ago, but I didn't use so many colours, I didn't make stripes, I didn't use fringe beads, and I did it in grey and black. I never finished, because it was just as blah as could be, so it went into a dark corner.

These are odd little shapes; one gets the feeling some complicated origami-type folding was done to get them this way, and they look surprisingly good on the wrist, making a chunky but not clunky bracelet, if that makes sense. Because each shape is beaded, and is hollow, and because you don't need superhuman thread tension to get them to keep their shape (moderate tension will do. Sloppy will not), they're just soft enough that they're actually comfortable to wear. Count me surprised (in a good way).

I'm also working on something I said I wouldn't (it'll be ready for the camera shortly) which is taking long enough that I want to be doing something else, so I did.

I made a little pair of earrings for my Etsy shop.

I realised that I haven't finished a single handspun thing since before last SOAR, and it's about time. I have a stalled handspun sweater (it's in thin yarn and is at a tedious stage and then it'll require sewing up, and I haven't been in the mood for quite a few months) which really doesn't count, so I started something new, something I can get my teeth into.

Something for which no swatching is required, except very minimally to determine if yarns are compatible, and that's more along the order of "Whoops! That didn't work. Guess I have to rip and do it again with a different yarn" which is really my kind of project.

And to appeal to my frugal streak, I can use up odds and ends of yarn, since it'll be constructed piecemeal, using various modular techniques: triangles and mitred squares and the odd stripe, either knitted on or knitted-to (in which the current knitting is joined via a knit 2 together on the last stitch).

Planning is minimal and is eminently suited to changing one's mind.

So far I've completed two cuffs and am working on the bottom band, and I haven't been able to find enough yarn of the correct grist, so I'll probably end up double-stranding here and there, or else (not my first choice) having a Main Colour (I have twelve ounces of deep purple that I'd rather use for something else. I'm not certain exactly what, only that it's Not This).

As I said, I can always change my mind.

They say that cats are fastidious creatures, usually in reference to food intake and output (these are good areas in which to be fastidious), but it turns out that they (at least at the kitten stage) also like to point out lapses in housekeeping by exploring small spaces, getting samples of the dust bunnies, and spreading them over your clothes as you're about to leave, just in case you don't believe them.

Yesterday was her first vet visit, which was fine except for the travelling in a cat carrier part. If she had a wider audience, I'd be awaiting trial for Cat Right Violations, because clearly I'm a severely deficient human being if I could bring myself to subject her to such impossibly heinous torture.

Fortunately she'd rather nap.