luxe

we were getting dinner started when our friend jason called to say he had been in a motorcycle accident and could we come. we drove into pittsburgh immediately (which was the longest hour of our lives) to found a really shaken up jason looking small in the hospital bed with the neck brace on. he seems to be okay, although his one foot and ankle are pretty banged up.

when we got the call, i initially thought, as jake spoke on the phone, that it was his dad or brother. and i was freaking. then, he told me it was jason and i started to shake. like a leaf. both of us were in high gear (jake not even grabbing something to eat, i put some m and m minis in my purse from halloween, some knitting and a book, and i got two necky things done, too!) and on the way to the hospital, i said to jake “you don’t realize how much you care about someone until you think they may have been hurt.” and jesus, it does really say something. i was shaking, instantly shaking. and when i saw him (and i know jake is the same way) i just wanted to hug him and hold his hand and make sure he was okay. i made friends with the nurse (hi jessica! you rock!) and the staff at presby were super nice, but he had to wear the damn neck brace until a radiologist came in to read the film, which will be in the morning, i understand.

it is a funny thing how we feel like we have 50 more years to live, we can do this or that whenever. healthy people don’t consider that they could get sick, get hurt…get killed. one of my favorite artists, eva hesse (daughter of herman hesse, sidhartha) worked with resins, and developed brain cancer due to it. she died when she was 34, and spent as much time as she could cranking out more work. what would it be like if we did that every day? every bit of energy we had after taking care of the necessity of life, we worked on our life’s passion? can you imagine how much we would have to show for it?

it was a rude awakening for me, too. i do as much as i can. but i don’t do enough. and there are things that are really important to me that i just don’t have the energy for, that get pushed to the side. i am going to make a schedule, weekly, monthly, and a list of things that must get done. i am more in touch with this mortail coil (giggle) than most people my age, but not so much in touch that i realize that i need to get my ass in gear, before there is no ass and no gear.

to all of you that agreed that when you are at your lowest, you dry out. nothing creative comes out. and when you make nothing, you are nothing. (not exactly, but you know what i mean) i am making a promise to myself, as well as you, that as long as i can hold a pen or needles, or whatever, even when i feel utterly wretched, i will make at least one thing on that day. the bad bad dark days. i will document that moment, and by doing so, i will remind myself on the good days that they are a blessing. not to be wasted, and that the bad days, even then, there could be an idea, or an image, or a book i read that sparks a new idea for a new series of work. there is always something you can glean from any situation. and i challenge all of you to find the pinhole of light shining in on your darkest, blackest days.

i am super tired, and may have to get up early to pick up jason, so i best go. i fear i may be ashamed after i read this to-morrow. but i feel it now. don’t waste time. what is so amazing about most of you that read this blog (besides thinking i am a nice girl)? that we are not the sort that piss around and act mean and waste time, we are the sort that make the most of whatever talent, time, supplies and brains we have. we wear many hats. we have been in books, written books, we READ books (big fat ones!) we know tons of stuff, we aren’t afraid to learn new things, we are smart, educated, we are generous with our knowledge and anything else that we have.

this blogging experience has been a turning point in my life. my artistic side has grown in leaps and bounds…why? because of all of the amazing support and input i get from all of you! for the first time in my life, i really feel like i have a huge circle of friends. and due to my big mouth, i think you have a good idea of what i am about, warts and all, and you still like me!

i started the blog to try to overcome my technical retardation. not too long after that…i opened luxe. and the rest is history. or herstory if you went to a women’s college like i did.

enough!
so much love to all of you. your support and kind words mean so much to me, you cannot imagine. i feel like i have the coolest, craftiest badassed gang of chicks backing me up, and that more than i ever dreamed of.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo…and a couple more xoxoxoxoxoxo
n.

so first, let me start by telling you that the computer crapped the bed and had to take a quick trip to pittsburgh to be made temporarily okay, but she will still need to be sent in. the memory port is bad, but just the switch they did has made a huge difference in the speed. so that is where i was. additionally, i have had a combo of migraines/creepy crawlies/and pooped-out-edness (the clinical terminology) so on sunday, jake took the computer without me, because he rocks. raise the roof for jake…woot woot! the house, the house, the house is on fire…

as for the LJ mayhem, i am so blown away by the kindness i have been shown by my fellow crafty vixens! in addition to the wonderful comments i got on the blog, sheilah, of lefthandpinkie sent me a super duper nice email. and here is what i have to say about all of this chaos: there needs to be a new group that keeps out nasty people. a group for people who love fiber, in whatever form, and if you think their work is crap, then you keep it to your goddamned self (and you are damned!) like polite people do. savvy?(did you see the pirate talk lynn?) even in studio classes when you are being critiqued (and asked to be critiqued) no one is that nasty. i am not sure what they think will be gained by acting like that, by hurting people’s feelings. it reminds me of being a kid and getting pushed around, and the kids that don’t agree just keep quiet because they don’t want to get it, too, or be considered a friend of mine. the fact that a few people stood up for me really meant a lot. i guess i just don’t understand why some people are so worried about what other people are working on, if they use novelty yarns and make garter stich scarves, or some felted doodad, or use two needles to knit a wedding dress. i don’t understand. if i am not impressed with what someone else makes…who cares? unless they are hurting someone, i don’t care.

i assume that in real life, these people get walked on by everyone. in real life, they are the guy that mumbles that he will burn down the building when people pick on him. or go home and kick the dog. so online, they can be mean to someone, feel bigger than someone. that is the saddest kind of person in the world. rather than be the thing they aspire to be, the hate anyone that does. i remember telling someone who was super negative that it is just as easy to think good things as it is to think bad things all the time. she pulled a face. and i guess that really speaks volumes.

anyway, nuff said. more than enough.

i am reading a handmaid’s tale. which somehow, i never read. i love margaret atwood, and the book is crazy. i have fallen asleep reading it two nights in a row. that good! no knitting good. and that is good!

i got the new annie modesitt book twist and loop and am kind of disappointed. i guess taht maybe i was unreasonable to expect more, but she normally does wild stuff. my first complaint? the photos are lovely, however, every single photo of the jewelry is being held in a hand. not worn on a neck or wrist. held. so you have no sense of what anything would look like on. is that odd to say? also, everything is simple and a different version of the same thing. a while back a got arline fisch’s wire crochet book, which is just lovely. not only are there fantastic projects that you could copy if you wanted to, but there are tons of examples of wire jewelry artists’ work, and patterns for them! and some of the stuff is really unique, showstoppers, every single one. the book is really inspiring and shows you tons of techniques, rather than doing single crochet with beads on wire rather than yarn. i could figure that out myself, no? i got a couple of other wire books that i took back because they were so lame. i really get the books to glean techniques. i suck at following patterns and i feel like the fun is taken out when i know what it will look like. odd, huh?

i have a few swaps going on that i am behind on, plus the amazing people that gave me their scraps, i owe them, too, although i am not sure what to give them. i may make a series of collages or drawings and then send yarn, too, so it is a nice gift. and then i have a couple of swaps that the person wants a knitted item, and then i always get worried that they won’t like what i make. i am a nerd.

handmade arcade is this weekend, so i am starting to get into stress mode over that. i am never sure what will do well and what won’t. additionally, there will be some people i haven’t met yet…tracie lampe (mama of the lumps) and my girl shannon among others. i was thinking about bringing my spinning wheel to show people how i make yarn, but i don’t know if it would be bad business because i would be looking down at the wheel and not at customers. jake will come with me, but he is not used to being around sales stuff, so he generally gets a bit freaked out about it.

i meant to take photos of the new yarns i have done. some of the really fuzzy bits and pieces ones that are loved so well, but the light has been bad all day. sigh.

and i think i broke the machine at the post office. oops.

oh, also, has anyone tried the blogger beta? it looks good with tags, etc, but i see that you can’t switch back and i am afraid that it will screw up my template, etc. anyone?

off to cook supper!
xo
n.

okay. i didn’t check emails yesterday. few days ago i posted some fiber on the livejournal selling fiber and spinning fiber group pages. let me say, i didn’t read the rules, and that is totally not right. and lazy. additionally, i thought that the way i posted my photos was fine, i post to fiber friday and have never had an issue (those people are too nice, i guess) anyway, i got like 20 comments in varying amounts of nastiness, with one person that suggested that i may have just made a mistake, which was poopooed by another member, not possible. i am just the lex luther of the blogging world. EVIL! i am! anyway, rather than just deleting the post that i left and letting me know (nicely?) that you can’t post the same thing to two groups, and that rather than 500 pixels, my photo needs to be 450 pixels (seriously) in which case i would’ve have felt guilty and dumb, rather than hurt and angry, they send me nasty comments and assume that i knew the rules and decided to post something that would not only piss everyone off, but get deleted.

last week, on one of my flickr groups, a moleskine group (a kind of notebook) someone posted non-moleskine artwork and when confronted (nicely) about it, he acted like a bit of a turd. i didn’t read the group rules and i should have, but jesus christ, how do these people have so much time to be so mean? and why do they care so much? let me repeat…the post should have gotten deleted and i should have gotten a comment or email (wouldn’t that have been nice!) letting me know that if i do that again i will have my fingers confiscated. ok. i will shut up now, and hopefully i will not be flogged for posting here about it.

i sent a comment back telling them that i was sorry, i didn’t realize that i had done something wrong at all, let alone to piss so many people off so intensely…i thought “spinning fiber” is the group name, and i put a post with some spinning fiber. but i said that i should have read the rules and i will do so and sorry.

i know that if you don’t follow the rules you are out, and that is totally fair. why be so damn mean, though? needless to say, they won’t have to worry about me posting there anymore. anything. at all. not an issue.

what say you? okay, off to spin. i can’t sit around and stew like some other people do. at least my cats still love me.

xo
n.

so, i was talking to my mom about being a kid and how i was terrified of hurting my hands, as far back as i can remember. making things isn’t what i do, it is who i am. my own sense of value is based on being able to make things, and when i can’t, my value plummets to nothing in my own mind. i have a strange depression that sets in when i finish a project, especially large project. similarly, when i am reading a book i love and it ends, i am sad. for that reason, i tend to read looooong books, and for the same reason, i don’t like short stories. odd, i know.

so really, when anyone tells me that they are amazed at the amount of things i crank out, what they don’t realize is that when i make nothing, i am nothing. the things i make are the part of me that i like. the part of me that is hard to offend, the part of me that is confident to a fault. i get really excited about things i work on, or new techniques i have figured out. i have known a few people that were rather annoyed by this, but what can i do? that is one part of me that i make no excuses for. that part can do and say whatever she wants.

the times in my life that i was truly miserable were times that i was not making anything. and i couldn’t make anything. i dried up. and i was the most depressed that i had ever been.

making things got me through hard times for as long as i can remember. i had a sketchbook since i was in grade school. art (and music at one point) where the only things that i was ever compelled to do. it wasn’t a choice. i didn’t have to push myself to draw everyday. in college, i didn’t have to force myself to fulfill the studio time alotment. i was there all the time. where else would i be? the security guards would let me lock up.

i had a spell years ago when my life was an utter mess and my creative juices just dried up. completely. i did nothing. and i felt worthless. knitting got the ball rolling again and it just kept rolling and rolling and rolling. and, well, here i am.

xo
n.

so, i got a lot of work done today. i talked to my mum for a while, who has been having a bit of a hard time of it. i spun up a custom order, watched part of my dvd of masterpiece theatre “bleakhouse” a charles dickens affair, whilst spinning, strung a zillion sequins to ply said yarn. returned a bunch of emails, did some invoices and things like that (weeeeee!) and got a really flattering offer from another spinner, in addition to a secret project that i will spill as soon as i am told i can. i have been doing loads of special orders, and i am not sure that i will try so hard to update the site so much. if people want something they can email me and let me know and i will send it, otherwise, the shops i sell to and my regulars are maybe the better way to use my time and energy. i am best when i can just put my head down and work work work. i am not good at switching gears.

so i had to go to joann’s as i said before, and ran out after getting all of the stuff done. whilst there, as usual (the lights i think) i started to sweat and got a sickening taste in my mouth and my eye starting flicking, which it is still doing, and then felt like i would throw up. so i got home and made dinner and just worked on the poppy scarves putting the poppies on. boooooring. i got new colors, though. orange flowers, dusty pink, and mustardy yellow. really pretty. i will post pics to-morrow. i will try anyway.

i have a buttload of dyeing to do for secret pal (like 20 lbs of yarn) which i am not looking forward to. additionally, i have to pack up orders to-morrow which takes me FOREVER. i am sooooo slow it is ridiculous. i pack everything with tissue and freebies and i make a little card, etc, etc. and attempt to send the right thing to the right place.

whilst on the phone, i told my mom that i thought i had numerical dyslexia, because i have almost every single symptom (?) and she said…yeah, we knew that. when i was tested for IQ, they told my parents and they thought that it wouldn’t be a problem because i was fairly smart. sigh. so i beat my head against a wall for my entire educational career until college when i figured out how to study. except for algebra or chemistry, which i just quit. plus the java class when java was invented, 150 years ago. ha. anyway, when i looked at the code, i couldn’t find mistakes. ever. and i was the only one in the class that couldn’t do it. at all. i just couldn’t see it. and flash cards don’t help with things like that. so. sigh.

ok, i have a bad headache, so off to shower and work on some stuff for my upcoming trunk show. i got a book today in the mail that i don’t remember ordering, the crafter’s companion, which is lovely, but i am not sure where it came from. my memory is horrible, so i really may have ordered it. good for me, if i did.

i can’t see out of my right eye so well. going. seriously. a better post to-morrow. swear!

xoxoxoxoxo
n.