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The First Harvest: An Exercise in Reframing
Ella, FreeAnother post that I meant to publish a lot sooner when it would have been much more relevant.
Planting a garden often leads to visions of abundance and self-sufficiency. For every container of strawberries Erica buys at the grocery store while her own very small strawberries are ripening, I know she envisions herself filling one of these containers with her own strawberries.
This is almost never the case with a garden of that size. There’s not enough sun, the soil is not fertile, no matter how much she does to improve it, and the space allotted to her is fairly small. In her head, she knows this, but that does not stop the dreams of harvests abundant enough to put a dent in her grocery bills.
Nevertheless, Erica was delighted by her first harvest of eight tiny strawberries. I had braced myself for the disappointed meltdown. It is so easy, when everything else is letting you down, to prop all your hopes and dreams on one aspect of your life. But instead, Erica found the joy in her eight little strawberries that together probably weigh as much as one grocery store strawberry. Instead of trying to replace her groceries with her garden food, she chose to see these little ones as a bonus. An extra treat in her day that made her look forward to coming home from work every night.
-Ella
Cable Stitch: Being Money Poor and Time Poor
Erica, FreeOne reason I started this project is because I’m a little short on funds right now. Like most of the world, my salary has not kept pace with increased prices and I don’t have as much money for fun stuff. That includes both activities outside of home and spending money on my hobbies. This swatchbook is nice because I had already bought the yarn and I’m using instructions I can find for free on the internet. (I did buy a small kit of knitting supplies because I didn’t have a cable needle)
The trouble is, I’m time poor in addition to being money poor. I do so many things myself since I can’t afford to buy stuff or outsource the parts of my life I don’t want to do. Meal prepping takes time. Shopping around for the best deal on things I actually need takes time. And of course, maintaining the possessions I already have so I don’t need to buy new ones takes time.
Then, I have my actual hobbies. In some cases, I purposely chose time-intensive hobbies so that I don’t accumulate as much stuff. My first foray into knitting resulted in more scarves than I knew what to do with, but no desire to learn a more advanced technique. Now, I’m committed to learning new things so that I can actually make things I want to wear, and possibly things I wouldn’t be able to afford on my own. But I don’t have the time anymore. I wish I’d been a little more disciplined and determined when I was younger and had less to worry about. But we can’t go back in time. Only forward.
Anyway, cable stitch. I can do it now. I tried with the cotton yarn and that was a bit of a bust, but luckily I had some spare acrylic yarn from a past project and that worked out great! I’ve always wanted to knit a cable sweater and knit interesting designs into the cables. Now I’m one teeny tiny step closer!
-Erica
Cats Read Your Tarot Cards
Free, Harry and DashA new question, this time from a friend: What is my biggest obstacle right now and how do I move past it?
The cards: Ten of Cups Reversed (I forgot to take a picture for this one and the next one)
Harry’s Answer: Your biggest obstacle this year is an interpersonal one. Someone you thought you were close to will expose themselves as a fair weather friend. This happens as people get older and lives evolve. It will feel like a betrayal at first, but try not to take it as such. That will only sink you into a dark spiral. Treasure the friends you have. Make new ones. Put your best self forward. Living well is the best revenge.
Dash’s Answer: This is why it helps to always be on your guard. I don’t mean never letting anyone in (not for you, at least. But that is how I operate). I just mean that people change, even if you’ve known them for a while. Treat every interaction as an opportunity to learn more about the person you’re interacting with and when you learn something that changes your mind about them, be open to it. It will help you in the long run, I promise.
-Harry and Dash
Return of the Emotional Support Vampire
Jane, Patreon
Brioche Stitch: New Things Are Exhausting
Erica, FreeIt’s been a while since I’ve posted. That’s because I’ve been so exhausted that when I get home, all I have the energy to do is sit on the couch and watch TV until I fall asleep. I want to be knitting, but it’s hard to learn something new at the end of the day.
Honestly, it’s always been hard for me to learn new things. I’m not sure why. A lot of things come naturally to me and so I’m not used to it when things don’t. And when I say a lot of things come naturally, I mean at a surface level. I’m definitely a jack of all trades, master of none type of person. All that to say, the brioche stitch was a bit of a challenge.
The brioche stitch was a good place to start. It was something I’d never tried before, but always wanted to. And the instructions were nice and repetitive. Once I got the feel for it, it was smooth sailing. I really like how it turned out, and I’m excited to make some patterns that include this stitch in the figure.
The swatch has some mistakes, but I decided not to go back and redo it. I like the reminder that I was learning and wasn’t perfect. Plus, now I know what to look for in the future and can understand what happened and how to fix it. It’s a nice, low-stakes way to get used to imperfection.
-Erica
Refreshing Reads: When you need something distracting and different
Carolyn, FreeAs much as Bridget annoys me, she has someone who is recommending good books to her. The last few books she has read were quite a departure from her normal reading. I’m not sure who this person is, but I do know that she gets her books from the library and she does not take them with her when she leaves for work, which means I get to read the books while she is gone.
I will be reviewing the books here. These won’t be full-scale book reviews, just enough to bring your attention to an interesting book. And I want to be clear, I will only be reviewing the books that I find interesting, regardless of when they were published. These are not going to be sponsored reviews meant to drive sales numbers or boost the popularity of a new book. This is just meant to highlight a title that is new to me that I find somehow interesting. If you want to read any of these books, I recommend getting them from your local library.
-Carolyn
Ribbed Stitch: When You Can’t Follow Instructions
Erica, FreeThis is just a simple combination of stitches I already know. Why did I choose to knit a 2×2 ribbing in a cotton yarn that has very little flexibility? Because I wanted to start a new swatch but I didn’t want to follow instructions. The first two swatches were more like a warm up, a very basic reintroduction to knitting, which was nice. I feel ready to move on to something more advanced, something that keeps my hands busy while I watch TV, but I don’t have enough energy to read instructions.
Work has been such a drain on me lately. I had to deal with a particularly ornery customer today. They wanted an update on their order status, which I can understand, but we just didn’t have the items in stock. We should have had the items in stock and we should have notified the customer that the items were delayed. I also should have known the items were delayed as the person designated to answer customer calls. But no one tells me anything AND I’m not allowed to pass calls on to anyone who is actually responsible.
It’s worth clarifying, by the time someone calls, there’s nothing anyone can actually do unless we somehow have their items in the building to be screenprinted or embroidered. I can check to see if we have the items in the building, but chances are we have the base item for a different order. If we do have the items, I can find out where they are in the queue but I can’t change the queue. And I can’t do anything about who ordered them and why they were ordered so late because I don’t do the ordering, and I’m not allowed to forward calls to the person who does. I tried to put together a report showing the correlation between the orders we are getting complaints on and the time it took us to order for our supplier, but my boss does not care at all.
That’s why I come home from work and, instead of working on a new stitch, I am knitting a small sample swatch out of yarn that has no elasticity. It’s not really what I want to be doing, but it is what it is.
-Erica
Cats Read Your Tarot Cards: The Year Ahead
Free, Harry and Dash, UncategorizedWelcome to a new segment of the blog where we, your cats, will read your tarot cards. You have the tarot deck that you never use. We have a lot of time on our hands. We will take your questions and interpret them to the best of our abilities.
Without further ado, here is Erica’s latest question: What will the year ahead look like for me?
Dash’s Answer: It is already halfway through the year. But whether you mean the rest of this year or the next year starting now, the outlook is not good. The work stress will continue. There will be speculation about a brighter future, but that will ultimately amount to nothing. You will be disappointed, but ultimately this is for the best. Be wary of job postings that seem too good to be true. If you do decide to job search, be glad when your applications are met with silence and listen to any doubt you have in an interview. Gig work is like pyrite. Do not be tempted.
Instead of new job or monetary opportunities, find community with your friends and your cats. Use your current stability to sort out any health issues before jumping into a new opportunity.
-Dash
*This is just for entertainment purposes and should not be taken as a real tarot reading.
Stockinette Stitch: I can’t job search right now
Erica, FreeMy last post made it abundantly clear that I’m unhappy. In a big way. And my job is driving me crazy. Which begs the question, why am I making time to practice knitting stitches I already know instead of job searching?
The short answer is because I don’t feel like myself right now and I don’t want to job search when I don’t feel like myself. The long answer is I’m afraid that if I job search when I can’t get excited about anything, much less feign excitement about a job I don’t want and my embellished accomplishments will just land me at another shitty job where I’m underpaid, overworked, and stuck doing emotional labor for an incompetent man child running an inherited business. That was a mouthful.
Normally, I get back to feeling like myself by doing a big creative project. But because of the vicious cycle of my job sucking all my energy, which keeps me from anything creative that might give me more energy, that’s just not going to happen. That’s why I’m spending a week knitting a tiny swatch of a stitch I learned 15 years ago. I’m not doing a lot, but at least I’m doing something.
And on the actual crafting front, I am relearning to manage my tension, keep my stitches even, and count rows. All useful skills for when I eventually work on a larger project.
-Erica