5KCBWDAY5: Because blogging in rhyming couplets isn't hipster at all

Something A Bit Different.  It’s the annual challenge to blog in a way different to how you normally blog.

A hipster?  Not me!
That kind of ironic cool I just could not be.
I can see you're confused, and lest we debate,
Please give me a moment to set the record straight.
I do live in Austin, that much I allow.
But I'm not in a band, just like I don't raise cows.
I love watching sports, on the sofa I sit,
And cheer on the Longhorns (yes, while I knit).
Okay, fine!  To that point I concede:
I not only knit, I spin and I bead.
And while we're at it, I didn't go to UT,
But a liberal arts school, Sarah Lawrence (SLC).
A mythical mascot and no football team,
Where toppling the patriarchy is a literal pipe dream.
But I never suffered from drug-induced munchies,
I indulged played cards with my friends for four-hour brunches.
I beg your forgiveness, for that terrible rhyme,
But those marathon Sundays were my favorite times.
Perhaps being a hipster would be preferred,
But looks are deceiving, I'm just a nerd.
I don't have qualms about being enthused,
My childlike excitement must be excused.
"But ah-ha," you may say, "You blog and you bake."
To which I reply, "But all inorganic, to the last cupcake."
Yes, there is evidence, that earlier this week,
I went to BookPeople to hear Garrison Keillor speak.
But I must implore, for Guy Noir's sake,
We can't all be hipsters, who long for Wobegon lake.
I'm so glad we had this clarifying chat:
I'm not a hipster...not that there's anything wrong with that.

For more 'Something a Bit Different' posts from day five of Knitting & Crochet Blog Week, search on the 5KCBWDAY5 tag.

5KCBWDAY4: Apologies to my Ashford

Conversations Between Workers.  Start by writing a few short paragraphs from the point of view of one of the tools you use for your craft...Then, write a dialogue between yourself and this item.

I do not have delusions of grandeur.  I know that I am but a humble spinning wheel.  I have been described as functional, practical, a good wheel to learn on.  But since making the arduous journey across Texas to Austin last October, I have not functioned, I have not practiced, and she has not learned.

Instead I sit in the living room, waiting and watching as she knits with commercially-spun yarn.  I know she yearns to turn roving into handspun.  I see her turn her glance my way, I feel her best intentions (we wheels are very wise in that way).  I know the time is drawing near when plans turn to actions and research becomes lessons.  If only I could talk to her...

J: I'm sorry, Ashford.  One day I'll learn to spin.

A: I know.

J: Did...did you just talk?
A: Well, not talking.  I'm tapping into the psychic link that connects all crafters and their tools.  The 'Bob' line.

J: Ooooookay...so I'm having a conversation with my Ashford.

A: You can call me Ashley.

J: Ashley.  Right.  Hi?

A: Hi.

J: So, um, I'm sorry.  I really do want to learn how to spin on you, but...

A: I know.  Work.  Knitting.  Running.  Blogging.

J: Yeah.

A: But wheels were meant to spin.  It's not difficult, I promise.  You just have to get started.  I promise not to prick your finger and send you into a deep sleep.

J: Alright.

A: So...when do we start?

J: I'll find a class or something.

A: You could have taken one at Hill Country Weavers.

J: Yeah, but that was for three Sunday mornings.
A: The marathon was Saturday mornings, and more of them.
J: True.
A: So...when do we start?
J: I'll take you to Yarnorama for a First Saturday spin-in.
A: Which one?  June?
J: Maybe July.  June is Yellow Rose Fiber Fiesta.
A: Will you buy me some fiber?
J: Maybe.  We've already got a couple of braids for you, though.
A: Just don't wait until October.

I won't.  Don't worry!

For more 'Conversations Between Workers' posts from day four of Knitting & Crochet Blog Week, search on the 5KCBWDAY4 tag.

5KCBWDAY2: Dread pirates need not apply

Dating Profile. Write a dating profile for one of your past finished projects.

Name: GlamoROUS!
Age: 3 years
Looking for: A fellow rodent of unusual size to roam the fire swamp with and some day build a summer home with a white picket fence.
Dream date: Roasting marshmallows over flame spurts.

About me:  I'm the most colorful creature in the fire swamp and I don't mind letting everyone know it!  I'm a flamboyant, fun-loving rodent of unusual size and even more unusual color.

I may have permanently manicured beaded nails, but that doesn't mean I'm just a girly-girl.  I'm not shy about getting my silky mohair mix a little dirty by rolling around in the lightning sand from time to time.  Life is too short not to have fun.

A day without laughing? Inconceivable!

For more 'Dating Profile' posts from day two of Knitting & Crochet Blog Week, search on the 5KCBWDAY2 tag.

5KCBWDAY1: Wobegon knits

A Day In The Life. Describe a day in the life of a project that you have made, or are in the process of making.

The rumors had been swirling like colors in a dye pot for days.  The TARDIS mitts had reported from the office, but could only discern clues from Joanna's typing.  As usual, it was the WIPs that had the most information, overhearing Joanna as she knit and chatted with her mother.  Mini Fox was at a disadvantage, being cooped up in her project bag for the past week, and as yet not having been given ears.  But she had been sitting on the sofa by Joanna's side, and so was able to confirm Bow Peep's excited account.

"She's going to take the bus," Bow Peep paused for effect.  The other knits were sufficiently awed, as few of them had ever been worn on a bus.  It was only the more senior FOs who could boast of the grand old days of public transportation when they were worn to keep out the cold on the Prague trams or New York City subway.  Most of them had, from the time they were first bought as skeins of yarn, travelled only by car.  Except, of course, the swap items.  They never let pass an opportunity to regale the group of their harrowing journeys at the hands of the US postal service.

"Where is she going?"  Union Jack piped in from high up on the shelf.

"BookPeople," Bow Peep answered.  "She's going to see..." her stitches spread across the cable of her circular needles as she strained to remember.  "She's going to see..."

"Garrison Keillor," Mini Fox intervened.

"Yes.  Garrison Keillor."  Bow Peep didn't like to be upstaged.  She was quite taken with the spotlight that came with being the current WIP, having Joanna gush about the softness of her angora/alpaca blend and then gushing to the FOs about Joanna's gushing.  But she and Mini Fox were friends, so she wasn't too annoyed.  And anyway, she knew that whatever exciting adventure was to come, she would likely be brought along, so she could let her have this little moment.  "She's going to see Garrison Keillor and have him sign something."

"A book, presumably." Amigurumi Joss Whedon was in a sarcastic mood.  No one paid any mind.

"So it's inside the store?" Knitter in the Rye asked.  "That means she's going to have to wear something knit.  She's always cold indoors anyway, and she'll want to wear something pretty.  Something like a lacy shawl made from yarn by one of her favorite indie dyers..."

"What makes you so sure she'll take you?"  Fruit Loopy confronted Rye.  "Maybe she'll want something more colorful, to catch Garrison's eye.  People always comment about my colors."

"Ladies, ladies.  Shawls are all well and good, but a cabled cardigan, now that is impressive."  Blackberry rolled her collar impressively.  But she was no longer the only handknit cardigan in the bunch.

"Oh yes, cables are impressive," Lexe-ME began innocently.  "But beads are so subtly striking, don't you think?  And you could hardly blame her for wanting to wear something she knit herself rather than something her mother made for her."  She knew Joanna was still quite proud of her first cardigan, despite the fact that her sleeves owed quite a bit to the mother's sewing.

This contentious discussion continued for some time.  The swap items were indignant at the implication that just because they had been knit by someone else did not make them any less likely candidates to see this Garrison Keillor, while the berets insisted that it would not be cliche for Joanna to wear them to a reading by an NPR personality, despite quips from Joss about a critical mass of hipsterness.  Easter Impulse thought a cowl would be the best compromise between showing off Joanna's crafting while not looking like she was trying too hard.  But in that case, Sea Cowl was sure that, having been not only knit but spun by Joanna, she should have the edge in the cowl category.

Secure in her role as the way Joanna would spend her time before the reading and perhaps in the signing line, Bow Peep eventually intervened before anyone started felting.  "Now, now, there's no way to know what she's going to wear.  And it isn't as though we can actually do anything about it."  She looked to Vincent's Brushstrokes for confirmation that indeed, no one had any sort of fiber-fluence over Joanna.  Purple Prague, one of the oldest and wisest among them, confirmed Bow Peep's assumption.

"She's right.  We cannot control what Joanna wears.  She could wear Sochi Socki on her hands as mittens for all we know," the knits all chuckled.  "The needlepoint is, someone's going to get to keep her warm and proclaim her to be a knitter.  And whoever it is, it's their responsibility to tell us all about it when they get home."

This was a truth which twisted no ones stitches.

For more 'A Day In The Life' posts from day one of Knitting & Crochet Blog Week, search on the 5KCBWDAY1 tag.

Inspiration Saturday: A selection from my story soundtracks

Instead of offering knitting inspiration this week, I wanted to share some of what I'm using as the inspiration for the stories I'm trying to write throughout NaNoWriMo.  I know that it's National Novel Writing Month, but I've had this collection of short stories in me head for too long, and I needed a means to get them out.  The idea is simple: each story has a song in it.  Playing on the radio, being sung in the shower, whatever.  The song may or may not make total sense to the story right off the bat, but each story came out of my listening to the song and making some connection to a lyric or something.

So here are just a few of the songs that I'm using to create little worlds (note: for most of these, I've never seen the music video, so I have no idea if the story a director came up with might be in any way related to my own):

'Empty Room' by Marjorie Fair:

'Caramel' by Suzanne Vega

'Too Bad You' by Megan Slankard

'Rock & Roll Queen' by The Subways

'Manic Monday' by The Bangles

Just a small sampling.  Maybe one day I'll reveal what the story lines are, but for now I'm more concerned about getting my word count for today done, because I've had a busy day that did not involve being on the computer until now!

For more inspiration, go to Woolen Diversions.

A very long three minutes and a short two years

Sometimes I feel like I haven't written a complete story since college.  I 'won' one year of NaNoWriMo with a fictional journal that was more stream of consciousness than crafted prose.  Other than that, I've accumulated a lot of ideas.  But I haven't had the discipline to hash it out from start to finish.  When you don't have to turn it in by Friday, but you do have a whole other long list of things that are 'due', it's easy to let it go.

That was part of the appeal of NPR's Three-Minute Fiction.  For those who don't know, TMF is series of challenges issued to listeners to write a story which can be read over the radio in about three minutes, so clocking in at less than 600 words.  Each round has its own prompt, and you have about a week to submit your response.  Round 11 was dubbed 'Finders Keepers':

Write a piece of original fiction in which a character finds something he or she has no intention of returning.

Ask and ye shall receive, oh keepers of the public radiosphere!  I heard the contest announced while in the car, and by the time I got home I had a basic concept as far as why my character would not be returning what they found.  It took me almost the entire week to whittle that down to a complete short story that I could submit without too much panicky self-doubt.  Now it's in the hands of NPR staff and creative writing students.  I'll be listening closely to the radio to hear if they read an excerpt from my story...

Another deadline which did not hold as fast was one at work.  No boring office details, but the main project I work on, which is the main reason I was hired in the first place, had a major milestone that was been pushed back and back and back.  It's something worthy of 'Office Space' or 'Dilbert', the way things kept cropping up.  Last week was actually my two-year anniversary, and I'm proud to say that this afternoon, we reached that milestone.  I think what made this particular deadline stick was the fact that someone scheduled a party/meeting to celebrate and declared that there would be cake.

Because cake is the universal corporate harbinger of miracles.

A haiku a day keeps the poet at play

I've been a writer before I could even really write, scribbling pretend letters along with my doodles.  Once I learned my ABCs, I was putting them together to make all sorts of things, including poems.  This has lead to some truly, truly embarrassing attempts at rhyme.  Let's just say that there was a time when I grasped for a phrase to pair with 'fun' only to end up with 'hot dog bun'.

Thankfully, these word choices refined slightly by the time I was in high school, taking part in poetry slams which began my freshman year, and continued at least a few years after I graduated as far as I know.  I even attended one or two as an alum.  Now that I think about it, I should see if it's still happening, and volunteer to judge or something.  Continue on the tradition, as it were.

On a personal level, I've continued the tradition slightly with one of my guideline resolutions, keeping a journal on hand as much as possible, and so far filling it with at least one haiku a day.  For the most part, these are not compositions I would ever attempt to perform or publish.  They are meant to be more like mental puzzles for me to complete each day.  Instead of jotting down at the end of the day something like, 'Went to work, had meetings, came home and watched TV,' several times in a row, putting it in haiku form forces me to think about the day in a different way.  Some days, it's an abstract list of the highlights of the day.  Other days are scribed based on a particular moment.  And still other days I end up writing more than one haiku, along with any other random writing ideas that spring to mind.

Having to carefully choose the words to fit into the 5-7-5 syllable format so far has felt more like an opportunity and a challenge than an annoyance.  As I'm walking to the coffee maker, I'm counting syllables and deciding whether today's musing should be dedicated to my desperate need for caffeine.

Of course, the end of January is hardly the time to be declaring a resolution a success.  But it's a start, at least.

Inspiration Saturday: Journals

I thought I would be a little more blog social and join Alicia over at Woolen Diversions in her Inspiration Saturday posts.  After careful deliberation (and coming up with many other posting ideas), I've decided that my inspiration of the week is journals.

Alicia has been adding spinning and sock books to my Amazon wish list with her posts the past few weeks, but it's the books that start out with nothing in them at all that I'm giving a shout-out.  I've always been drawn to notebooks.  There's something so alluring about all of those blank pages, bound together, waiting to be filled.  It's not unlike the way a beautiful hand-dyed skein of yarn will call out to me.  They both want to be transformed over time into something complete, something filled with not only my time and energy, but my creativity.

Unfortunately, this means that I also have a notebook, as well as a yarn and fiber, stash.  Because along with the rush of inspiration and possibility, there is the terrible fear that whatever I start to write in the journal won't be 'worthy'.  And unlike when you realize a certain yarn and pattern are not suited for each other, you can't frog pages and start again.  Not without ripping them out and kind of destroying the magic of the complete journal.  If only I could guarantee that I would never misspell anything, or need to cross anything out, I'm sure I could work up the courage to write in more of them.

And so I accumulate journals with covers in the same way as fingering weight yarn.  Here are just a few of my favorite non-fiber artists:

Anne Taintor

Taking vintage images and layering sass on top with phrases like 'she could see no reason to act her age' and 'was she in love? or was it just allergies?', Anne Taintor makes some of the funniest covers for journals.  I have the one above, along with at least 60 postcard prints.  I like to imagine that one day I'll be able to write a fun, pulpy novel inside the notebook, so it will be self-covered.

Paperchase

Aside from the loss of a number of bookstores, the bankruptcy of Borders a few years ago was really a tragedy mostly because they were the US supplier of Paperchase stationary products.  Whimsical and pretty, I love pretty much all of their designs.  This notebook is only available on their website, but the good news is that they are now also making their way into Target stores.  So far I've only seen a single end cap's worth of merchandise with a single theme rendered in notebooks, post-its and other items, but it's better than nothing.

Pigsey Art

From the international corporate to the truly local, I discovered this Austin artist in 2011 at the Austin Craft Riot holiday fair.  She takes vintage books and takes them apart, undoing the hardcovers, then rebinding with a spiral and mixing in a few pages of the original book along with fresh new blank ones.  So as you are writing your own words, you also stumble upon a page or two of Louisa May Alcott's for inspiration.  Her Etsy shop currently only has bobby pins in stock at the moment, but I'm sure more notebooks are coming after she recovers from the holiday season.

Me!

With a plain old notebook, Mod Podge, and pretty scraps of paper, I love creating personalized notebooks for swaps and things.  What's great is that you can theme them around anything from favorite TV shows to favorite color.  I've even made a set that was full of images and references that someone was using to write their novel for NaNoWriMo.  Making notebooks is kind of like spinning in that it's crafting that adds to your stash.

I mentioned that one of my resolutions was to keep a writing journal, and that's still going strong.  I'm taking note of particular song lyrics, taping in pictures I like, and of course counting syllables carefully in my daily haikus.  Five-seven-five!