Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Thoughts of a designer

The ground was covered in frost, crunching softly underfoot. Frozen puddles blended in with the walkways, making them hard to see and dangerous. The morning air bit at fingers and noses; breath came out in puffs. The coffee in my cup had been brewed a while ago. The splash of half and half the barista had added wasn't enough to mask the bitter taste of coffee left standing too long. But at eight in the morning it was the best I could do on campus grounds.
Swirls of steam curled out of the cup as I carefully popped off the top. And then, I saw it...

GLOVES! Oh my god I need to make some gloves with swirled designs all over it. Like steam rising off the cuff or something. And then I plopped the top back on and pranced off to class.

And that is pretty much how my brain works most of the time. Especially when I think about designing something new, or when I decide I want to try a pretty new pattern. My mind is kind of all over the place like that.
In other news I'll hopefully publish a new pattern in the next couple of days or so. My testers are taking entirely too long in my opinion, so I might just publish it without waiting for the last three people to finally get it together. I suppose I shouldn't be too miffed since they are doing this for free, but for goodness sake, even with Holidays it should not take someone over a month to knit a pair of mittens or fingerless mitts. Ridiculous...


Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Imma be a teacher!

I went on a mini job hunt the other day, stopping by all the local businesses I frequent to see if they were needing any help. So far nothing. Then again I shouldn't have expected any different since the holidays just wrapped up, so a lot of places are letting their seasonal employees go. But when I stopped by my LYS (local yarn shop) I was told that she does need some instructors. So after a lot of thought I decided to give it a go; if it doesn't work out I can always just tell the owner that I'm not cut out for instructing people.

I'm getting stuff together to teach a color work class, and I'm getting excited and nervous all at the same time. There is no date set yet, and I pretty much get to decide what day anyways, since the owner told me to get back to her with what time would work best for me. But while I'm browsing through patterns I can't help but wonder what people would want to practice with. My first color work project was a pair of Totoro mitten for my little sister. Mittens...so I'm not exactly the best person to come to when it comes to simple projects. But I'll figure it out and hopefully come up with something interesting. I can always practice on my sister-in-law I'm sure...she knows the basics, how hard can it be to teach her how to knit with two color at the same time?


Friday, January 4, 2013

No-Years Resolutions

Every first of the year I make resolutions; work out more, eat healthier, drink less, make more friends (I hate people so that usually doesn't pan out), be an overall better person.
This year I didn't. I did not make a single resolution. I never keep them anyways, so why the hell bother? And so far, I'm doing better at my no-years resolutions then I do any other year.

For example, today was the third day that I struck up conversations with total strangers. Now if you know me, you'd know that I hate talking to strangers. Maybe it's a combination of being told "don't talk to stranger" when I was little, and classmates teasing me for my accent when I first came to America (children can be incredibly cruel) that has deterred me from taking to people. But so far, I have struck up conversations on three separate occasions, with three separate people. Mom even asked "what's wrong with you?" today when I proudly announced I talked with someone for nearly 10 minutes in line. Lines are amazing places to talk to people.

School is going...well? I feel like I haven't learned anything yet,. Then again it's only been three days. I should probably give it a little more time, huh? OH! I did learn something actually; I now (sorta) know what all the stuff in a legal citation means. Like when they have the case name and then a bunch of numbers and abbreviations. Yay for learning. =3

Bug has been getting hardly any use out of her. I spun up some very pretty roving that BIL got me for Christmas (well, I picked it and ordered it, he paid for it) but had to stop because I only have 1 bobbin left and I need it to ply together some Targhee I'm working on. That should be my hint to buy more bobbins I s'pose.