Slow But Steady Progress

I've worked on the next session of the Collage Breakthrough course (Lesson 3) over more than one day. We're still using 3 pieces of paper representing all three values and either two patterned and one quiet or two quiet and one patterned paper. This time though, we were encouraged to overlap the various shapes and not fill the 4" square totally, leaving blank areas to add "finishing touches". Still having a little trouble working in my green scraps on all so settled on the ones on the right side working together differently from the ones on the left.

So what are "finishing touches"? These are circles or Asemic writing done with gold, black, or white paint onto tissue paper so that their placement can be auditioned before gluing down. She shows how the excess tissue paper can be scraped away if you don't like the look of the shadowing effect. Well, I watched the video of the technique but had no desire to do pages of the three different colors and decided I'd deal with it later. In the meantime, I viewed how others in the class were doing this and could see how effective adding a gold accent that filled part of the blank areas and spilled over onto the collage was. Still didn't want to mess with making these. Then a lightbulb went on; I remembered a translucent plastic shopping bag with gold swirls and stars that I'd used on an art journal spread. Oh yeah! A quick answer to my problem. I quickly cut out a swirl to audition how it would work and it would work great.

I held off on finishing up this step as time was running out for watching the last of the videos before they disappear after tomorrow. Each lesson is a 30 minute recorded class followed the next day with a live one hour Q & A and demo session which is also recorded to watch later. You can guess which I do. So this week has been devoted to the two lesson 4 videos and the two bonus lesson videos plus one last video that was a cross between two lengthy "gallery" shows of student work and promoting her next step collage course which comes with a hefty price. (I'm good for now.) I had time after that last video to finish cutting and applying the finishing touches to my lesson 3 page and I'm pretty pleased with the result. I was pretty sure glue stick, which we've been using throughout this series, was not going to work on the plastic bag; a quick check proved me right. I'm pretty sure I used gel medium on that journal spread but didn't want to deal with the mess and cleanup that would generate. So I pulled out my trusty YES paste which worked nicely.

I've made a start on the blue knee high socks, finally mastering the tricky Eastern cast-on which makes a seamless join between the sole and the top of the sock. Normally when you knit in the round, it's like working back and forth on straight needles, except you go round and round without turning your work and have a hole in the middle. This cast-on eliminates the hole which would have to be closed up later. Since I discovered I had two sets of the required size of needles, I decided to work on both socks at the same time to more easily end up with soles and tops the same length.

Increasing stitches from 8 to 56 for the toe - ready to start ribbing

I'm working on being a little more balanced with how I spend my days. I'm so guilty of being all or nothing when it comes to things I want to do, which means I'll lose track of time when I get engrossed in something which then leaves no time in the day for anything else. And if I don't perceive that I have a big chunk of time to do something, I end up not doing anything at all. It would be easy to get to the end of the day, look over at my knitting and sigh, thinking there's no time left or I'm too tired. But I'm working on snatching small moments in between the big ones. The knitting on the socks is getting worked in this way: a few rows after breakfast before heading upstairs, a few more after lunch while watching one of my news shows. More in the evening if the shows I'm watching don't require my rapt attention while dealing with these increases. While some days I may be spending an hour or more on the collage class early in the afternoon, I also have found myself unexpectedly drawn into the studio for a few minutes to pull a few paper rectangles for one square on the page before continuing on to where I was originally off to. I'm also finding myself grabbing a small project like updating the blank book I'm using to record my yarns and care instructions in order to add one or two things while watching the tv.  I can get a lot done over the course of the day if I just become aware of these odd small moments and what I might fill them with. Very gratifying.

A part of me wants to knit all day sometimes - that all or nothing tendency I have. But I have other things to tend to as well, that need to balance my time throughout the day. As I think about my resolution word of realign, that need to find balance may be key. All or nothing just won't do.