This excellent piece of advice was given to me by Rossichka in a comment she made on a previous post... she meant it about art... getting round to it again after many years, beginning to find a voice. However, I have come to see the truth of it in so many areas of life... making art, yes, and also reading and learning about it through books and exhibitions... picking up a forgotten novel again... remembering to take pleasure in clothes and my appearance... reviving my interest in walking and generally exercising more... finding new life in a relationship... and so many other things, including......finally finishing a piece of crochet! This blanket was started exactly a year ago and I wrote about it at the end of this post. It's a proper old-fashioned, make-do-and-mend, frugal patchwork blanket made to use up odds and ends of wool from previous projects and no new yarn. Apart from choosing colours that complemented one another, there was no great design involved, just picking up a yarn, working a square, selecting another colour and adding another square, and so on. When the yarn ran out, it was finished.
It's made with all different weights and types of yarn, mostly aran but some dk or finer, which I doubled up to get the right thickness.Then I used a mid-blue to do a nice scalloped edge:
I love the back of it:
It has a soft, dimpled comfortable feel to it which is different to the front:
So for all of you who have unfinished projects on shelves or in baskets, or plans that haven't yet come to fruition, or unfulfilled intentions, or a sense of stagnation about things... these words are for you too:Not matter the long pause.
It's true even, or especially, if you previously thought there was a full-stop. You can change a full-stop into a comma quite easily, you know... just add a tail.
22 comments:
lovely post Sue, and lovely blanket! I feel a bit like that at the moment... but I am not beating myself up for it... like you said, I turned a full-stop into a comma :D xxx
It's a very nice blanket, I love the colours you have used and it's such a clever, simple and frugal design. Very true sentiments too, I just need to pause and remember so sometimes.
Love the idea of turning a full stop into a comma and thus returning to something you thought you had left too long. As my mother used to say a thing worth having is worth waiting for and that certainly seems to be tru of your beautiful blanket. I love the fact that you didn't buy anything for it and yet the colours go so beautifully together - your couldn't have planned it better. Well done!
Lovely post. I, too, have recently completed some elderly pieces ... except they are pieces which I thought were complete, but over time I decided they needed more. Very satisfying. I have a harder time with UFOs .... often feel that they weren't completed for a good reason ... and I throw them out, or pass the pieces on to someone who might find them appealing for their own project. I recently sent the pieces of a fairly major project to someone else ... kind of wish I had taken a picture ... it will be interesting to see what she does with it. :-)
Your colors always blow me away! You couldn't have chosen more luscious ones together if you had stood for hours in a yarn shop.
The fact that your "bits and pieces and remnants' all blend and complement so well tells me something about your gifting: it has always been there and reveals itself in fresh ways but consistently with other expressions.
I have had a desire to start painting again. Since my trip with my dad, little vignettes appear in my mind and the simplest thing seems to paint them out. I haven't done this since high school and college, so I hardly know where to begin, but I did just buy some small canvases the other day...
Your whole experience of thinking about art and your wanting to draw fresh inspiration and then this beautiful product seems to be a metaphor, but it's so elusive.
I wish I could hold the afghan and feel it. Beautiful, the whole process and outcome! (You really don't give yourself enough credit for the placement of colors and textures and all the design elements. I have seen some perfectly awful afghans!)
Holly
What a beautiful blanket Sue - yet again you work your magic. Well worth the wait I'd say.
Sue, you've again expressed thoughts that many of your readers will find familiar.
Letting time take its course, turning a full stop into a comma, finding that an enthusiasm set aside might get a new sense of enthusiasm. So, so beautiful to see the example of this in your completed crocheted blanket, with its dimples and harmonious yarns. Really lovely.
I'd also like to leave a compliment here for the very talented Rossichika. What she creates is unique.
Best wishes!
This was a lovely read...and some wonderful advice! I love the colours of your blanket. It's quite incredible to think it's made only from left over yarns. I think you have amazing talents and I'm so pleased you're finding ways to fulfil them again.
You write so gently but with such wisdom. I think there are legions of silent readers out here appreciating your considered thoughts as well as the tonal arrangements of your work. Out here in the ether, you are cherished.
How beautiful! Well written and inspiring words of experience. Thank you for letting us glimpse parts of your work and life. It's always a treat!
Beatrice
Beautiful - worth the pause and wait.
just love the harmony of the blanket
Love it Sue...beautiful blanket and lovely colours...good advice too....
That is so beautiful - such soft colours - but then you weren't likely to have any left-over yarn in bright red or strident yellow, were you?? ;)
And I do so like the idea of turning a full stop into a comma. Its got me thinking........
Beautiful. Its always worth waiting out the pause for your next post.
Dear Sue, what I'm thinking about right now is that we never know how our words influence those, who read them! We share thoughts, feelings, ideas, experiences in our blogs. We reveal a part of ourselves in front of a big, yet invisible audience, consisted mainly of strangers and a few new friends, who we've discovered among them in the exciting everyday journey, called blogging... We write, send the post and then wait to see how many people will answer it, thus beginning a virtual conversation with us.
So that's what has happened between you and me. I've never supposed that "Not matter the long pause!" would find such a response in you! How could I know? I was surprised and... honoured! Thank you for writing about it!
Do you know, maybe I should ask myself the same question - which are the full stops that I could and should turn into commas? You are absolutely right - this concerns not only art, but a lot of other spheres and activities in our life... Maybe I could try to write poems again? Or knit a beautiful winter blouse for my grown-up son? (I used to knit a lot, when he was a small boy.) Or play the piano again? I know the music is waiting there, in the keys, and I have just to move my fingers ...I have already a list in my head and I think some commas will be born quite soon!:))) And after that the new sentences will end up with dots!:)
..............
The blanket is wonderful! Its time has finally come and you have FELT that!
Big hugs!!xx
You've reminded me of an unfinished Fair Isle project that has been the elephant in the room for 18 long months. It really isn't too late to pick it up again is it.
Your crochet blanket resonates with me as most of mine, and those crocheted by my mother, are from leftover scraps of yarn of all different weights and therein lies their charm.
lovely blanket and piece of crochet and thanks for passing on those wise words.
xxx
hello,
I love your planket.
hugs Conny
Wonderful !
i want to make one of these but my squares never come out right :) guess i need some practice.
BEAUTIFUL blanket! I love the inspiring post too :) Thank you for sharing your beautiful creations! :) I appreciate that this blanket is composed of different color smaller squares. It somehow adds an extra endearing quality to this blanket :). Nothing feels better than completing a granny square... or a project ;) Best, Dawn
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