Back knitting again

My knitting mojo is back (which for me, mainly consists of a DESIRE to knit; I know some people who refer to their knitting mojo as being able to execute a patter successfully or choose a yarn that works with the pattern - failing in those seem to be problems I rarely have).

Also, apparently my piano mojo is back; I had a good lesson yesterday and worked through some timing problems I was having in one piece. And I'm getting back to playing by following the music and trusting that my hands will know where to go without watching the keyboard. I guess I should have trusted all those times my teacher said "You sight-read well," meaning that I do have some sense of where the keys are without looking at them. I also guess I need to trust that if I have a bad day or a bad week, that doesn't mean my skill is going down the tubes; it means I'm having a bad day or a bad week and things will eventually get better. (I am too good at taking things as being "symbolic," I think).

I worked some on the Oscilloscope Shawl (which I had worked on a bit over break) last night; I'm almost done with the "increase sections" and then I start the "decrease sections" (it's a big triangle). I really like how the Lustra (which is a merino and Tencel yarn) looks knit up in this. It's not the most fun yarn ever to knit - it's kind of splitty - but it's certainly attractive.

I then switched over to work on the Sockhead hat (this is the one that's very, very simple, just being knit out of sockyarn). I'm finally up to the all-stockinette point, which goes a lot faster than ribbing does. But I have an exam to invigilate tomorrow, so I didn't work too far on this - I think it will make good knitting for that time.

So I cast on for a pair of socks I've been wanting to start for a while. It's one of the free patterns on the Dreams In Fiber blog. (She has quite a few, most inspired by the Harry Potter books). This one is called Hermione's Everyday Socks and like her other patterns, it's a fairly-easily-memorized stitch pattern, but not "boring" to knit like plain stockinette can be.

I'm using a yarn that a fellow blogger sent me - oh, a year or two ago, when I was going through a rough patch. It's a very pretty blend of deep blues and purples and greens. I think it looks a lot like colors Hermione might wear, at least when she's not wearing her wizard's robes. So far I've only done a few rows of the ribbing on them but I like how the colors are working out.

***

I got the knitting mostly worked on while watching the annual repeat of "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer." I wonder if this special - and others of its era - are still cherished by other Gen-Xers like me. (And yes, I know, it came out in 1964, so probably the first viewers were Baby Boomers...) I have great love for all of the old familiar Christmas specials. (For a few years, the Family Channel was re-running all the Rankin-Bass "Animagic" specials in a big marathon some Saturday before Christmas - including some that I only remember having seen as a child, ones that weren't shown every year).

Part of it, for me, is that watching these specials, I can still (just barely, but still) tap into the memory of what it felt like to be a kid waiting for Christmas...I had a pretty happy childhood in a lot of ways (very happy, at least as far as my within-family part of the childhood was; my school days were less happy but that wasn't my parents' fault). Remembering what it was like when your biggest worries were somehow smaller than adult worries are now (though, in retrospect, the worries I had as a kid seemed pretty large). Wondering about whether you'd been good enough to get what you wanted from Santa....

One of the other things about that time? That was before my Inner Critic fully developed. I can remember making art projects and drawing pictures and bedecking things with glitter and making salt-dough tree ornaments and all of that, and looking at them and going "Wow, that's good!" or being happy with them....whereas now a lot of the stuff I do I look at and I mainly see how it could be better. (That might be one of the reasons I knit or quilt; in a lot of cases the stuff turns out well enough to shut up my Inner Critic for a while.)

I know I've talked before about "Holiday Brain," where I get to a point where I want to switch over and think more about things like decorating and baking cookies and stuff than the sort of work-stuff I normally consider. I realize few people get that luxury (my sister-in-law, if I remember correctly, has to work up until the end of the day on the 24th). I can do a little bit of it...I can put on Christmas music at home (and in my office: I've switched over to the "Christmas Classics" channel I made on Pandora last year), I can decorate, maybe this weekend I'll bake some cookies for the exam-week Feast of Finger Foods. But I would like to just go get a bunch of craft supplies - beads or sequins or something - and just have an afternoon of cutting and gluing and making stuff that has a fairly short time-span until it's finished (unlike quilts or knit items) and try to get back into that feeling I had as a kid, of just the fun of making.

(I keep thinking that sometime I'd like to try making ornaments like I saw somewhere...you got Styrofoam balls and sequins and small beads and pins, and you covered the ball with sequins, held on by pins stuck through a bead. Kind of 1970s-fabulous, I suppose, but then, I grew up during the 1970s. One thing I love is going to a well-stocked library and looking at Christmas issues of "women's magazines" from that era to see the crafts...and I know my mom still has some of her old books on making your own Christmas ornaments from that era. I guess the 1970s were kind of a big crafting era, even if you weren't a full-on back-to-the-lander, avoiding-corporate-consumption type. And I think that kind of got into my brain and I still carry it around with me...I STILL prefer a Christmas tree with the variety of handmade ornaments to one that's a "theme" that's all one color or all one style....)

Maybe I'll pull out some of my scraps of calico this weekend and do some "cookie cutter shape" sewn ornaments. Not that I NEED more ornaments - my tree is full - but I could do a garland for the wall or over the door of them attached to ribbon. I don't know. Sometimes, for me, thinking about projects I could do is as good as actually doing them.

***

And this is not that much of a surprise (though I think maybe in some ways I'm more like Twilight Sparkle:)

Chronically weak and timid, but with a heart of solid gold, you tend to require and depend on the help of your friends in most situations. You enjoy their company, but also enjoy solitude and time away from your friends where you can enjoy the sounds of nature. Just because you know you're weak doesn't mean it holds you back, because you know you're strong where it counts, with your overabundance of kindness, caring, and compassion.

You're often worried about saying or doing the wrong things and also fear rejection. Speaking of fear, you've got a lot of it, often times letting your fear hold you back from doing even the most simple of things, such as jumping across a cliff. But in that fear, you can often find just enough bravery to stand up for doing the right thing if your friends need you.

You may be naive and innocent, and you're very shy and quiet, but you're also a very good listener and are likely the one your friends blab on about their problems to — and while you may feel powerless to help at times, just listening and cheering them on means the world to them. Yay!

I would respectfully contest that "chronically weak" though...I try to be pretty physically tough and get annoyed when I either can't do something or when I have some kind of medical issue (I'm still dealing with hives - had quite a bad case yesterday - but am now trying a dye-free, fragrance-free detergent to see if that ends them.

However, I totally own up to the "fears rejection" thing.