Knitting, Packing, and Sewing, oh my!

Things have been pretty hectic right now with me... I've been trying to squeeze in as much time as possible with my friends before I have to go back to school, all while packing.

I hate packing. Packing is evil and I absolutely KNOW I will have forgotten something that I will inevitably deem crucial when I get to school. I am, however, excited to pretty up my room and to meet my new roommate. She sounds like a really sweet girl and I think we'll get along nicely.

Part of my packing plans has been to copy down all of the various recipes that I've printed off the Internet into a spiral. I wanted something cute that I will always be able to look easily for recipes. My mom clips out a ridiculous amount of recipes and keeps them in several 2 in binders, but I wanted to use a notebook... I want there to be an easily accessible place where I can find ALL of the recipes I use and love. Looking at how few recipes I do actually know and love, I'm realizing that I need to expand my cooking skills.

I love to cook. Cooking is.. well, yummy. I love being able to make something utterly delicious and feed my friends and family. I do not love trying to find recipes that I like. I really don't know enough about spices and ingredients that I could just slap something together and make it fabulous. Other than a few, very select things (eggs, hash browns, donuts, and bean burritos), I have to follow an exact recipe in order for it to turn out. So I've decided that this year, I'm going to focus on learning to cook more things. I'm bringing along two of my mom's ridiculously large binders full of recipes and I'm going to work my way through them. I know she hasn't gone through them so I'll be able to weed through the ones that really suck. I'm going to sticky note each one instead of tossing it, as they are her recipes.

Although she doesn't cook so I'm not entirely certain why I'm not just going to toss them.

At any rate, I want to learn how to cook more things. More DELICIOUS things. Hopefully they aren't going to all be desserts or pasta, even though those are the things I love the best :)

On the knitting front, I've done A LOT of knitting since the last time I posted... But I have sadly, not been taking very many photos. I've knit a cowl, a hello kitty hat, an ipod cozy, a scarf, a shawl, another scarf, and frogged a few projects as well. I conquered my first complicated cables AND my first chart. I used circulars in the round for the first time, and I pretended I was going to knit entrelac. All of this, I think I will write about next week. Most likely Thursday.

And in reference to the sewing... Well, I am in love. What am I in love with? I am in love with the idea of altering ugly garments into gorgeous ones. I'm in love with making your own fashion. I want to learn to sew! It all started a few weeks ago when I discovered the site The Uniform Project. Her outfits were so stylish, so adorable, so, well, awesome that it made me want to simplify my wardrobe and invest in some serious accessories. Then, a few weeks after that, I was listening to Cast On Podcast when she interviewed Shanon Okey who would take old clothes and revamp them. Finally, I discovered New Dress A Day off yahoo news. All of these has made me want to go to the closest thrift store, yank out my mom's old sewing machine, and have a ball.

Fortunately, I recognize that there are a few things that are prohibiting me from doing this. Firstly, I don't have money to buy clothes, even thrifted ones. Secondly, I don't know how to use the sewing machine. I learned one upon a time, but have long since forgotten and besides that I wouldn't know how to properly alter the clothing. Lastly, I haven't a clue where the machine is.

However, it will be done. Not any time soon, but it will. Perhaps next summer while I am terrible bored and alone in Norman if I get my way and can take summer classes. But it will be done.

And that's all for now! I'm going to post again- with photos- on Thursday because Monkey will be busy doing ROTC nonsense and it gives me something to do instead of just pouting and knitting as I am apt to do.

In which there is suprisingly little knitting...

I haven't posted in a while, again. I think part of the problem is that I hate taking photos because I feel like they never give what I want to capture justice. The other part is that no one reads this... I set out without any real intention to find readers for this blog- but I did want my boyfriend to at least read it. I know he hasn't been wihch is really... I don't know. Saddening. I'll call him when I'm done with a post and he won't really show any interest. But this blog is for me, for my cataloging of my creative endeavors, not to force Monkey to read my ravings abotu knitting.

I've entitled this post "In which there is surprisingly little knitting..." because, well, there won't be. While I have been knitting pretty extensively, I don't really want to talk about it right now. What I do want to talk about is something I'm absolutely in love with.

I've been journaling regularly for the past four or five years... I've always had an interest in journals, however. I found a notebook I had when I was four or five and in it is my misspelled whining about wanting a doll and pretending to be Harriet the spy.Since then, my journaling has progressed to me whining about wanting yarn and writing to do lists that will not be finished.

I recently found an entry on jr___nal in which the person included a thirty day challenge. The challenge has 30 prompts for you to illustrate throughout the course of a month. I can't find the origin of this challenge, but I have found several other thirty day drawing challenges. I've stuck with this one for now,a nd will be pursuing other challenges after this month has passed.

I am absolutely loving this. I haven't drawn in... forever. In highschool, I took a slew of art classes which culminated in me having to decide if I wanted to go to an art college or if I hated art. I decided to abandon the dream of art school and go towards a more practical career because my art classes had made me hate art. I hated feeling so much pressure, I hated the people who were always in my classes. All joy I found in art had been sucked out by these classes. I put away my "fancy" art supplies and turned towards crayola when I wanted to put some color in m journal- which was rare. This last year at OU, I've started to miss drawing. I wound up splurging on drawing silly animals and taping them all over my boyfriend's door. It was incredibly... freeing. I started to include more cutesy animals and inanimate objects in my journal. However, I still limited myself to the art supplies that I'd had since I was in kindgergarden. I refrained from pulling anything out that might be construed as being for "serious" art.

This prompt has encouraged me to pull out my prismacolor markers. They have never been my favorite medium (in fact, I only detested paint more), but I'm finding a new love for them in this project. I'm playing with them and determining how I want to use them, how I want to get the looks I want with them. Drawing is FUN again. I'm just in love.