5 posts tagged “creativity”
Yes, THAT White House... i haven't been very creative lately, and kind of forgot about this blog in the process since this blog predominantly houses all that creative stuff - knitting, etc.
I just went to New York for a couple of weeks to work on this crazy project - http://www.thewhofarm.org. It involved a crazy publicity stunt, sitting outside the Apple store in midtown Manhattan for a week. It's a noble cause, so check out that link and if you support it, do sign the petition!
In the meantime, I sold a custom piece via Etsy, and it's the only sale I've had in ages. I'm okay with this, I have all but lost the desire to create at the moment. My life is in flux and besides, I flew into Portland last night, saw my main squeeze for a few hours, and have been unpacking my suitcase today. Simultaneously I'm REpacking to head off to this festival, Emerg'N'See, tomorrow. It's the first time I'll have been able to attend this one, as I've always been out of town or out of state since its inception. i'm excited about it, but I am also excited to have a moment to myself next week when I return to get a grip and get grounded in being here again. Happily, I seem to have returned to Portland with some work opportunities.
This is especially good as it will enable me to get through the next two months of being here and after that, I am thinking it might be time to move along - I feel at a loss for something here and I'm unsure as to what it is (besides the ability to make a decent living, that is). I'm not sure where just yet. Santa Barbara, California keeps coming up in conversation as does a potential opportunity (and purchased ticket) to go teach English in Barcelona, Spain. I can't decide which is the better option, quite frankly, as I could probably stand to sit still and establish myself in the states a little more but good god, barcelona, it sure does sound tempting, doesn't it? It's going to be another life upheaval soon, too. I'll be moving out of my house and more than likely ending things with my main squeeze, too (I'm okay with this, as the ambiguity is starting to get to me).
Maybe I'll get creative again. In the meantime... While I was in New York I ended up at the Afropunk festival for a bit and had the good fortune to bump into this beautiful woman, who created the absolutely bangin' outfit she's wearing (and was so sweet and friendly i couldn't hate her, lol). Some of you crafty types might recognize her from Sistahs of Harlem - they first entered the scene with reconstructed tshirts and then
And tonight? Tonight one more round with my favorite new band, NIAYH. I'm probably nuts for going out tonight when I have so much else to do tomorrow to get ready for the festival but so it goes... I haven't actually been to a festival in a while, either. Hope I actually remember how to pack.
Yeah sure, call them mood swings. It's turning into Christmas around here and presents always cheer up a mopey girl. Yesterday I got a lovely gift in the mail... SOCK YARN!
A wonderful Raveler from New Hampshire, seeing my "where do I get cheap sock yarn" thread, decided to offload some of her stash on me. I have, of course, promised to pay this forward - I'll be knitting and parting with socks for the next several months, for sure.
So, here we have two not-cheap skeins of Opal Rainforest - superspecial because they create color series, release them, and then often, never make them again. I'm so incredibly thrilled about this - I've got enough yarn to last me the summer. These are from the Rainforest collections 1 and 3.
I finally broke down, too, and decided to give myself a small splurge and visit a place I'd been staying away from until a few paychecks had rolled in.
Yarnia is a new yarn shop here in Portland, unlike anywhere else - here, you design your own yarn. Basically, you go in, start grabbing cones of yarn and thread off the shelves and put them together until you wind up with a result and a weight you like, and then her fancy special machine winds them all onto your own cone for you - however much you want to buy. Here's my result, which is a wool/nylon/rayon/cotton blend I'll be knitting some lacy knee/thigh-highs from, eventually. Mine is a very subtle blend, kind of hard to see in my photograph, but it's got a hot pepper red wool strand, a shiny wine strand of rayon, a taupe wool/nylon blend strand, and a hot pink cotton strand. Together, they make a fine sock yarn, and all the colors delicately compliment each other and give the yarn a neat sheen. For the 800 yards you see here on this cone I paid somewhere in the vicinity of $15.00 US.
Although it would behoove me to stay away from Yarnia for the near future, you can't beat the deals, that's for sure. Or the fun - it's a bit more time-consuming than, ya know, simply shopping for yarn, but it's highly likely no one else will have your blend (unless she loves what you make so much she winds some more). If you head over there, do make use of the bucket of knitting needles to swatch up your pending results first - what you think is gorgeous might not be. I must have knitted ten swatches before I got to this - in fact, I created another future yarn purchase in the process.
And obviously, I'm getting the hang of my digital camera! I can pretty much take daytime photographs in the dark with it. Slowly but surely, and sans manual, I'm figuring out some of the nooks and crannies here - I actually stayed in last night and dorked out in my room with it. Shambo posed for me.
For some reason, after my emotional and physical slump yesterday a huge, late-night spurt of energy got me cranking on some new jewelry listings - I've got some new old earrings listed (found 'em in a sample pack I never sent to a boutique). Also headed into the shop in the next few days is another "used to be an earring" necklace and some lovely little Cupid earring threads. A new Melange necklace, too. And the best thing ever?
I'm about to trade one of my necklaces for this awesome and pretty set of underthings, as I've decided it's time for pretty underthings in my life again. I decided this, typed "panties" into Etsy's search box, and standing out from the crowd were OnTheInside's sexy, sexy underduds. As it turns out, she lives in Asheville, NC – where I used to live before I came back out west, and we're separated by one small degree – I know her boyfriend, who was good friends with my roommate back then.
Since we're making this trade, I've decided that the planned splurge I intended to make in her shop is still in order - good lord though, what to pick? I'd really like one of everything.
Why, you ask, am I doing this when I am broke as a bone and have months of bills to catch up on?
Well, quite honestly, it's for the following reasons (I'll happily eat in for a couple of weeks in exchange). It's starting to hit me, hard, that I'm about to be 35 this coming September. THIRTY-FIVE! That sounds young to some, ancient to others, but I've been such a hippie for the longest time - everything I own has been rather utilitarian (think "entire drawer of cotton panties") - and I haven't worn a bra in years (no need, really). Jewelry, I think, has helped offset that just a bit, but lately I'm feeling like I'll jump on the societally-acceptable boat for a while - I'd really love a bikini wax and some sweet secrets underneath - and I feel like perhaps I can justify this action a bit by investing in these affordable and handmade little works of art. And also, I'm dating a musician. A woman, a smart one, learns how to handle this kind of thing.
I've been temping. It's only been 4 days, but the step on my soul is hard - my biorhythm doesn't involve a 6am wake-up time, usually. my soul hates offices and "business casual" and suddenly I am surrounded by commuters from the suburbs, people who live DRASTICALLY different lives than I. I don't so much mind the bus though, generally, as it's giving me time to sit, knit and meditate.
I am, however, searching for my creativity in all of this - it comes in spurts, this I know, just like my shop sales, but I seem to have lost both for a second. I've finished up the last few custom jobs and gotten all my current orders out into the world and now... there's this lull, and once again, it's time to pay rent. seems like it was just yesterday. Too, I suffer a new detriment - i've dropped my digital camera into the ocean. I use my camera regularly to photograph product and thus, generate income so there's a bit of a catch-22 scenario now taking place. Might be time for you to get that SCRAPZ pendant you've been wanting!
Yemaya expects her thanks and I suppose mine wasn't good enough, long enough, or strong enough yesterday. I drove out to the Oregon coast and let the shock of a blizzard in spring, the sound of the waves, the infinity of the horizon, lull me back into the bigger picture. On the way home I hit a patch of black ice. My life did flash before my eyes but soon enough I was sitting in a snow drift off the side of the road and shortly thereafter that, someone else towed me back out onto the road. There was no damage to me, my car or my friend, but i drove 30mph in 4WD for a while until we hit the suburbs. I was never so happy to see urban sprawl.
Today is my day of rest, my day of refusal to everyone but myself. There was a time when I believed moving to Portland, Oregon from New York City would clear my life of the 'distractions' that kept me from achieving my own personal goals. That never worked out - this is a vibrant city despite its much smaller size and alarmingly random weather and there is always something to do - I spread myself a bit too thin this past week and started suffering the consequences.
I do believe it's time to clean and clear my space and hope for the best. time to pray. Tonight it's going to be an early one so I can start the 6am routine all over again tomorrow - pathetically enough, I am a single woman who's looking forward to solo time and an early bedtime tonight. Yes, tonight, I am having a date with myself. Tonight it's me, my pillows, and a movie, and those damned yoga socks I've been working on for a month.
As for those things, after frogging and reknitting the instep at least six times I think i've finally jumped the hurdle pattern-wise (though I'll have to frog and reknit the instep yet again to find out). I'm both loving and hating the challenge - Mac'N'Me makes beautiful patterns though I've scribbled all over mine in hopes that I'll remember all the stuff I had to figure out on my own when I eventually get around to the second sock.
For now, however, I'll have to put this project aside to get started on a Mother's Day gift. Since it apparently takes me over a month to knit a pair of socks, I should get started on hers, using some incredible yarn I got off another knitter on Ravelry for half the price. I'd first discovered Zitron Trekking Pro Natura at Twisted, a yarn shop here in Portland that has quite the focus on socks and sock yarn. I'm not sure why anyone would want to give this yarn up, especially since I discovered moments ago that the colorway I've chosen for Mom's socks is named "New Mexico". Jeez, I hope I don't have a hard time giving them to her.
okay, I can, but I'm just...
well, I'm still waiting for my sterling silver wire to arrive so I can finish up a necklace and get that order out. In the meantime, as of today I've got two more custom Braille pendants to create, a silk choker to whip up, and these two lovely pieces to the left have also said goodbye and are on their way to new homes as well (thankfully, these pieces are already made!) thanks to yet another lovely connection I've made through Ravelry.
Because of this, I was able to pay two more bills today (my phone bill, and my Etsy bill). Etsy does not autobill, and has gotten very strict about overdue fees - after three months, they simply shut down your shop.
Verizon, my mobile provider, operates much the same way, though they give me even less time than that. Losing either of these two resources would be akin to shooting me in the foot and then telling me to walk to work.
Yes, my friends, hand-to-mouth, that is my path at present, but I'm okay with this, as it's been my path for quite some time. I am a "simple living" kind of girl - I don't use credit, I don't generally buy beyond my means (okay yes, every great once in a while I spend my last dollar on yarn), and I generally only seem to bring in what's needed to get by. The universe has shown me, this month, that with enough hard work (and, of course, a bit of luck and magick, which has been helped along by some amazing incense from Summersea) I can support myself creatively if I continue my simple ways.
So, I give thanks for the successes in my own, tiny little world, and I continue to direct my thanks and gratitude and prayers out into the world - so much suffering and so much beauty are taking place in this world right now simultaneously.
I've accepted the challenge - I will live a creative life. I DO live a creative life, because I live in the present. I will learn, despite the challenges of off-the-charts, untreated (can't afford it, because I live in the lovely USA!) ADHD, to focus and stay determined, and I will remember to give thanks for every gift.
What helps YOU focus?
I can work with this. I can improve on this, but I can definitely work with this.
I'm moving into more limited editions and production pieces - the piece to the right, which sold this afternoon, I recently reintroduced to my shop, because it was popular and I still have the materials to create it. It is a limited edition.
The collection of hematite beads I've been using to make them contains some of the first beads I ever bought to start making jewelry with seriously. The collection is dwindling, however and soon I won't have the beads to make it anymore.
That's what makes a limited edition (that, and how many times I'm actually WILLING to create a piece - thankfully, I really enjoy making the SCRAPZ pendants).
Regardless, I think I might feel another fit of knotting coming on. I had a lot of fun with it in Mexico, where I learned how to do that macrame netting thing. I wasn't interested in learning much of the rest of the knotwork, but I liked using the netting to hold loose stones and other found objects. Here are some of the pieces I made while I was traveling in Mexico. There were a lot of really sophisticated knotting/macrame artists traveling around but I just kind of took it and did my own organic thing with it, and I loved the results:
I'm getting ready to put out some similar designs for summer, for sale through my Etsy shop and my favorite local Portland boutique - they are simple, fun to make, and organic. They are also less expensive as they are strung on silk and nylon, making them more accessible to more people (my brain is flying all over the place with possibilities, but in the meantime I need to get started filling orders for the stuff I've already sold!)
I've run into a packaging dilemma, by the way. I just didn't expect to start selling so much and I ran out of jewelry boxes (I also ran out of a certain gauge of sterling silver wire!). I took this opportunity to order some more wire, as well as some more professional, customized packaging - I'm having this Etsy seller print up labels for boxes for me. I'm not generally too big on sharing sources for things, but... I know no one's gonna order MY boxes and besides - the customer service I'm receiving from this seller is really, truly, out of sight.
I knit half of it while watching this movie - which was so artfully done, so visually stunning, that I was sad when it was over. it has earned a place on my list of favorite movies. Yes, I found it that good. Just for the warning, though, subtitles. It's not a good movie for complicated knitting endeavors.
Tonight, unless I'm swept off to snuggle, I'll be watching "Once" - everyone's been raving about it, but apparently it's a tear-jerker. I'm not quite sure I need that tonight!
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