Grannies, Tulips & Butterflies

I'll admit that granny was having a bit of a snooze (no progress for more than a week!!), but as soon as I re-started, I was - as they say - hooked all over again.  ;)

It's currently 41 stripes long (82 rows!  Golly gosh), and only something like 19 stripes to go before it's border time!  Oooh, it makes me soooo happy happy happy :D

But, happiest of all is that the granny-bug has bitten not one, but TWO of my housemates!  Both came and requested I teach them the basics so they could start on granny stripes of their own.  I'll have to ask their permission to take photos, but they're both looking lovely.  Only one more housemate to convert *ahem* inspire...

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Tulips are without doubt one of my favourite flowers.  These turned up on Valentines Day, during our anti-anti-valentines/embrace-your-singledom celebrations.  I expect that they'll show up in a few doodles later when I get round to scribbling down some ideas.

The trouble is that there are just so many ideas fluttering around my brain like little butterflies at the moment.  That's how my art teacher used to describe my thinking: "a butterfly mind". 

It's not a terrible thing in and of itself.  If anything, it makes me happy because at my lowest points my imagination disappeared completely and that was a terrifying thing to feel.  But having so many thoughts; images; colours; strands of sound at one time, it becomes exactly like trying to catch a cloud of butterflies: they don't want to be stuck down and tamed.

I hope it doesn't sound like I'm complaining though.  I try to embrace these periods - they make me feel well again :)

Happiness is...

Please 'scuse me a mo while I adopt my philosophical pose (think Bill and Ted's So-Crates, with lots of fake-beard stroking...).

Happiness is... a lot of things.

Today it began with that tasty dollop of fibre you see up top.  Beautiful.  (No amount of photo-taking and me prancing about with a lamp could do justice to its real-life colour, but if you do fancy a proper look it's here at Forest Fibres*).

Anyhoo.  As it turns out, happiness may also be found in having absolutely no idea what it is you're doing.  One of the things I love most about teaching myself these crafty kinda things is that there's absolutely no pressure to achieve an end result.  No getting-a-tad-frustrated-now teacher to say "well what you want to try and do is..." to make a getting-a-tad-irritated you feel like you just can't do it!

Obviously there are some things that you'll never be able to teach yourself, but for me the best bit about learning something is laughing at your mess of fibre/yarn/paint and thinking "what have I done?!".  You learn so much more by asking and answering that question - by looking back at your process, seeing how it differed from what the tutorials said, pondering on which bits you like or don't like, and using that information to improve on your next go - than by attempting to satisfy someone else's version of the "right way" of doing something.  Admittedly it's quite a lengthy way of learning to do things, but therein lies the fun.

However, even teach-yourself-ers need good tutorials.  Here is Megan.  I can't remember how I came across her, but her videos inspired me to spin in the first place.

Better pictures to come tomorrow when there's some light...

In other news, today was also my first session with the counsellor.  Despite having forgotten to take my medication last night (idiot mistake really), it went very well - a lot easier than I expected.  It was also utterly refreshing to encounter somebody within that field who understood that I need time to decide whether my anxiety scores a 7 or an 8 out of 10 - somebody who didn't instantly jump to the "there's no right or wrong answer" joke that makes me feel like a simpleton, but instead waited kindly for me to process the question and consider my response.  Another moment today that made me immensely happy.

 

* Incidently, I very much recommend Forest Fibres to you - their service was unbelievably good.  Even with 2nd class postage it arrived the next working day.  Although I ordered via ebay, and it seems that the prices there vary ever-so-slightly from their website prices, so perhaps compare between the two before purchase...?  That's only on one item though, so do have a look round to check I'm not just casting unfounded aspersions.