In Spite Of

It seems I'm either agonising over an impending deadline, or basking in the bliss of a near future with no deadlines, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it is more often the former.

And so it is right now.

I have what feels like a double deadline; which is to say two deadlines with almost identical requirements separated only by a week: proposals for a national beading show which require actual finished accompanying samples (as opposed to pictures only) and then the next set of classes for the local bead store, which also needs samples.

Then there was Nancy's necklace which suffered a minor setback after I thought I had finished.

I tried it on. It was chokingly short. As in, it felt almost as though I was choking.

I wasn't sure I'd have enough beads to make it long enough. I did, barely. I'm pretty sure that Nancy's neck is thinner than mine, which might have meant that the length - or lack of it - wasn't as dire as I believed, but that wasn't The Plan, and so it had to be lengthened.

Now it's up to the USPS.

I'm quite pleased with the concept over here: a large, long bead with a big hole that really doesn't want to be strung horizontally, but still has some play (read: you can fiddle with it) hanging horizontally.

I'd also like to try the same concept with a few large-hole sterling silver beads.

As I was looking for a donut (see the picture after this one) I found a two-inch section of something which at the time I deemed a horrible failure, but loved the colours together (a marbled lavender with what they call a gold-lustre bronze but which is a transparent lavender bead with so much bronzing that it's transparent only when you hold it to the light) so I didn't cut it up, saving it for future inspiration.

That future is upon me.

I'm glad, because it led to the above bracelet (which would work really well as a necklace too) which combines peyote and herringbone stitches without annoying thread joins and ends. The next sample will use contrasts instead of a monochromatic colour scheme.

This may be sad, because it's a reworking of something that's not new, but the happy part is that I only need the one sample, as I've already taught it locally, and I try not to repeat unless I have requests.

I would enjoy this extra-long (five whole days) weekend even more if I hadn't been so gung-ho with the new workout DVD. I do know that I have a bad back, and I do know that I'm no longer twenty-seven, but honestly, I felt fine until I got vertical this morning, and then not so much.

Guess my plan for working out vigourously every day while not at work isn't panning out so well - my exercise regimen is pretty much exclusively limited to non-work days only, and today I just blew one of them.

I have enough trouble dragging myself away from whatever I'm doing so as to approach the possibility of getting enough sleep for work the next day that I'm quite certain getting up an hour early would necessitate a post-prandial nap, and the new Employee Handbook specifically states sleeping on the job as grounds for if not dismissal, then certainly a severe reprimand.

I kid you not. It actually addresses the issue of sleep.

And then I'm too tired/hungry/disinterested when I get home in the evening. It's not as though I even slightly love exercise: I don't. I think it sucks that it's so good for you, keeps you healthy yadda yadda. I think it just makes it feel as though it helps you to live longer, because trust me, fifty-five minutes of sweating in front of the TV passes way more slowly than an hour of House with my knitting and some chocolate, even with commercials.

Still, a nasty back isn't my first choice for Things To Enjoy On My Time Off.

And the DVD player is suddenly all weird: the screen is shifted about forty percent to the right and wrapped, so what ought to be the outside edge of the picture now forms a vertical bar more or less down the centre of the screen, and the picture is cut in two pieces. I'm not very impressed with that either, especially since the part of the rest cure for my back rightly includes watching movies in a relaxed and reclining position while I do some gentle knitting, and now the movie part is proving challenging. Luckily I spied (and can work) a PS2.

Speaking of knitting, it's all I can do to not start Yet Another Knitting Project.

I'm burning to make another knitted skirt, which will be even cooler than the other one (allover hexagons in more colours than people expect to see me in) if not as bright. Also modular, partly because knitting on twenty thousand stitches per row would probably unhinge me at best, but also because I just LIKE modular knitting.

I really want to do it in five or more coordinating shades of sock yarn, but that just might send me over the edge, as well as necessitating a severe Stash Expansion. Let me say that it's not that I don't have any sock yarn (I do), or even enough sock yarn (I do), it's just that I don't have sufficient quantities of enough coordinating sock yarns to make an entire adult-sized non-crotch-revealing skirt. I do have some yarns that I could dye, I suppose. If I had to, but I'm not so keen.

[An hour or two later].

I just had to experiment a little. I gleaned useful information, both in terms of colour (I need to dye) and gauge (we're talking smaller needles unless steaming does more magic than I'm used to).

Stay tuned.