stalling

I should be writing two lesson plans at the moment. And doing examples for the kiddos. But I am not. I had a few ideas and need to write them down before they escape forever. I've got a lot of crochet/knitting projects in the works, and have such a small attention span that I work on them for a little while and come back to them. Many months later. If at all.

some ideas and/or projects I am currently doing:

• making a hat for my friend E who is in Iraq, in the Army. We were pen pals through high school while he was an exchange student in Sweden, and he's a terrific writer. The funny thing is I just got back in touch with him after about 5 years. Hopefully the hat won't look dorky. Wouldn't want him to be laughed at, after all he's probably been through.
  
• making mittens for my friend in the middle east. I have some beautiful wine-colored alpaca yarn--I am really into alpaca right now, and a super easy pattern my aunt gave me.
• figuring out how to crochet with beads, to make a rope necklace. It looks easy, but few things are that look easy. I think the necklace will go well with the mittens.
• knitting a pillow for a friend, using "shadow knitting," a technique from a book my sister gave me this Christmas. It's very subtle, with a dark and a light colored yarn. The pattern only shows up at certain angles. There's one sweater in the book I want to make before I die. But I am in no rush, since it involves reading massive amounts of charts etc. Please God give me time or give me some yarn in heaven. Maybe super-alpaca. Thanks.
  
• idea #1: cutting cheap grocery bags into long strips, and crocheting a bag for bags with them. Rather redundant, but I think it will look cool. Very eco-friendly.
  
• idea #2: crocheting a big doily heart and starching the crap out of it for a valentine-y wreath. They had them at Joanne's, and I thought hmmm...how hard can it be?
• idea #3: submitting instructions, photos, etc of my projects to the super cool online magazine CrochetMe. It would involve lots of checking and re-checking my work, and actually writing down patterns--GASP!--since I do most things free-form.
  

That magazine is like crack cocaine. There was a great article in there recently by a woman whose mom knitted, tried to teach her, and she wound up liking crochet instead. She talked about how people seem to think it's the redheaded stepchild of knitting, and it took her forever to not feel guilty about not being jazzed about knitting.

I learned how to crochet from my third-grade teacher, Miss Hiske, who was the closest thing to a Nun that Lutherans could make. She rarely smiled, or even opened her mouth far. Probably from clenching her jaw at all of us annoying third-graders. She read a chapter from Proverbs to us every day, and made us put our heads down whenever one particular student (always this kid Chip who had a crush on me, who I couldn't stand and he would turn around and stare at me and sigh. It was so pathetic.) couldn't get a concept, and she'd hash it out with him until he looked like he understood it. Anyway, after making a granny square christmas stocking and a vest I outgrew before I could wear it, I gave up crochet until last year. I had been knitting for about 6 years off and on (lots more off than on), picked up my old crochet hook from third grade, and started messing around with the yarn. I felt like I had been cheated, all those knitting years, when I could have been working twenty times faster. Why didn't they tell me???
Who could have told me anyway???

Ok, I need to quit stalling and write up some plans. And then string some beads. MMMMM beads...