Under Construction

I've spent the better part of last week setting up this blog, deciding on a name, and creating the format. I'm sure there will be more changes, but I'm ready to get underway!

My old blog, The Big Finish, was supposedly focused on...well...finishing projects. Specifically, the dozens of knitting, spinning, quilting, cross-stitch, and needlework projects. The plan was that posting to the blog would keep me on track with finishing things instead of starting them. I was also determined to Stop Buying Stuff. Do I even need to tell you how well that worked? Here's a hint--this was the first list of projects I swore I would finish. As you can see, some of those things still remain unfinished. Yeah. That's a little embarrassing.

But, hey!! Sometimes projects you once loved just don't do it for you anymore. You fall out of love with the yarn or fiber or pattern. Or maybe the baby outgrows the planned project because you're so busy working on other things that you totally forget that you have supplies for a hat, two dresses, and a skirt for her. I'm not saying that happened to me. Oh, what the heck. Yes, that's exactly what happened to me.

What's really funny ironic stupid about this is that I was bribing myself with some really gorgeous butter-yellow Panda Silk sock yarn. I thought that surely I'd be so anxious to knit with it that I would whip right through my list and happily cast on pretty yellow socks, free from the pressure and angst of all those unfinished things piled around my chair. But no. The yarn languishes in the sock yarn drawer, sadly untouched.*

Obviously, I can't even bribe myself to finish something once I'm no longer feeling the love. So while I still have a list of UnFinished Objects in the notebook beside my chair, which, by the way, is up to something like 72 items, I'm just not going to pressure myself to finish everything before I start something new. There's really no point, and it actually is counter-productive for me. I need to spin up a few ounces of silk or merino or BFL now and then. Or I need to whip out a pair of mitts to give away. It makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something and lets me go back to the acre of handquilting I've been plodding through with a new spring in my step. Or a new twinkle in my thimble. Or something like that.

Besides the spinning, knitting, needlework, etc. that I love, I'm also a writer and a wanna-be violinist. (I would call myself a just plain violinist, but somehow I can't square that with someone who's just starting Suzuki Book 4. Which is the book that you would be working on when you're about...oh...6 years old if you were a real violinist.) BUT--I am starting a 10,000 Hour Challenge, which gives me a pretty good goal to shoot for. A bit daunting, yes, but what do I have to lose?

To celebrate both the start of my new blog and my new goals, I'm doing a giveaway. Up for grabs is this gorgeous skein of 80/20 merino/silk laceweight yarn (1300 yards) in a soft denim blue from Fearless Fibers on Etsy.

You can enter by leaving a comment on this post by June 30, and on July 1 I'll do the drawing. Even if you're not into knitting lace, you can sell it or trade it or do whatever you want with it.

*Actually, I was going to make the yellow yarn the giveaway prize, until I discovered that I had sold it from my stash on Ravelry. I don't know what has more meaning--the fact that I sold it or the fact that I forgot I sold it.