FO sightings

Completing knitting projects has been the joy of this week. I worked hard as part of my ongoing decluttering detox. I realise though, that I am a process knitter, not a product knitter.
If you are a product knitter and you happen to be stranded on a desert island with one ball of yarn, you finish knitting up your item and then set about looking for suitable fibres you can fashion into yarn for your next product.
But if you are a process knitter, you would unravel your carefully made item and start over again with the same ball on something else.

I love the process. I love the feel of it all, I love the balls of yarn half way through, the soul of a thing unfinished.
This is a major hindrance to completion.
I appreciate the anxiety expressed by knitters about making the potential thing, into a thing. It's such a commitment. This week though, I have committed. I finished a bunny.

I't Rowan baby alpaca and it's SO soft it slipps out of your hand. A floppy little grey thing that is a sensual delight. I meant to give it away but I put it in my bed. Very unseemly for someone my age. But it makes me happy.

I finished another one skein wonder. This one actually doesn't cut off the circulation under my arm pits so that's a bonus. Lovely soft stretchy knitting - cashcroft aran from Classic yarns.

I even nearly finished another one. This is Rowan felted tweed - a bit sticky to knit with but I ploughed through and it does what it says on the tin. Good, solid, strong, warm. There's no mistaking it. It will double up as a floor cloth and survive.

At this point I notice I'm having a grey phase.

And once this is done I'm going to finish another fabulous alpaca shrug. Oh i love that alpaca shrug. I've been knitting it since 2007. It comes around the country with me. It's Blue sky baby alpaca. It's pure love. I am so scared of finishing it. It smiles at me from my knitting basket. I put my hand in to feel it now and then.
Soon it will be over...sigh.

The good things in life.

I managed to screw up my banking this week which left me unable to access any money whatsoever. I had to have a round up of all the loose change in the house just to go out food shopping. It was tough working out how to feed and transport myself all week on a handful of cash and in some places I failed miserably - how do people strapped for cash buy rounds of drinks or manage to be sensible in health food shops? It dominated all my activities - no treats and everything had to be planned.
It was sobering and a wee bit miserable and made me realise that what I do seems to be what I can afford to do - it's made me realise I have a lifestyle!

This is a bad thing because it means that making an ordinary cup of instant coffee from the office kettle makes me a different person to the one that buys an expensive cappucino on the way. My imagining of myself and who I might be is subtly connected to the social meaning of the things I can buy. Living in a tribe probably isn't any less of a lifestyle but perhaps more of the defining objects are free!

I think the fact that luxuries make us happy is inbuilt in that chimps will seek social status. It's survival. So 'lifestyles' are really all about how we think we measure up and that's all about fear. It's scary stuff because the meanings in all this are constructed. Somone somewhere knows this, and they've got us by the balls.

My budget adventure has made me appreciate the things i've had and made me wonder - why is it that, if all the good things in life are free, I'm not doing more of them.