Domesticali

February Mosaic

Not sure this mosaic really captures the month - it has not been a vintage one for photography, that's for sure! Thank goodness, in the absence of great light and the lack of will to bust out the DSLR, that there is Instagram.

I'm not a brilliant phone photographer - I think it's the lack of a viewfinder which handicaps me - looking at the image on a screen isn't the same as seeing it through a lens. But somehow, in spite of the lack of artistry, phone snaps have the power to forge an immediate connection with what's going on in the lives of the people we follow.

I'm domesticali on Instagram too. You'll find all the minor trivia of my life on there. Not artful or airbrushed. Just life. Like the cat getting stuck in the loft.

 

Sometimes life, though not necessarily blog worthy, throws up details which merit marking in some way. Because honestly, that video probably sums up February best of all.

Investment

Do you ever watch 'Dragon's Den'? It's a tv show where inventors pitch their ideas to try and secure investment from a panel of wealthy business people. I love it on a number of levels, the wacky ideas, the human drama, the sweaty palmed lurch of fear writ large on the people giving the pitch, their struggle to retain dignity in the face of being told the idea will never make a return, the resolute certainty of the dragons as they bestow a wad of their cash.

Back in the day, I did the job of one of those pitchers, standing, knees trembling behind the desk, struggling to keep my voice steady as I outlined business plans to people in my company who had their iron grip on the seed funding our project desperately needed. It was terrifying and I loved every second of it. And it also made me wonder what it would be like to be on the other side of the desk - to be the person responsible for spotting the ideas which were going to fly and probing for the holes in the ones less well-concieved.

Which is possibly what drew me to the idea of Kickstarter - a crownfunding platform for creative ideas. I've been stalking the site trawling through for ideas which appealed to me. My criteria were simple - the product had to be something meaningful to me, the entrepreneurs needed to be credible and the business plan had fall into the realms of achieveable rather than pipe dream.

And I've found one.

 The Vu Slidestrap project is 75% pledged, and if they raise the rest of the money in the next 17 days, I will become an investor and we will see if I really might have been able to cut it as a Dragon! Oh and I'll have a camera strap which doesn't hurt my neck - hooray.

Absent chick

Hubs laughs at me - for all my bravado, I'm a bit of a mother hen and truthfully I am happiest when all my chicks are in the nest where I can keep a beady eye on them.

When one is absent, there's quite a bit of mental pacing that goes on. And a spot of frantic activity to try and pass the hours till the nest regains its full complement. I cleaned the inside of a kitchen cupboard today. That's how bad it is.

But I'm not going to be able to keep up that pace for a full week whilst Johnny is away. He's gone skiing with school. And I'm hanging on the nightly bulletins from the staff and refreshing the feed on the resort webcams in the hope that I catch a little glimpse of his bright yellow legs somewhere on the snow.

Sigh. This letting go business is so much harder with the smallest one. Though he marks his 10th birthday today and so will no longer be officially small on his return.

Happy Birthday Bean x

You may be middle sized now, but you'll always be my little chick. Sob. Off to check that webcam again...

Best laid plans

Impulse buying yarn was something I made a concrete decision early on in my knitting journey to avoid. And usually I am happy with that decision. In fact, musing over the perfect yarn and pattern combination and planning a new project is one of my very favourite parts of the process. I then buy what I need for the project I have chosen - in theory, no waste, no enormous stash, no unsuitable and frustrating substitution issues. Sounds so simple and minimalist.

But I also believe strongly in supporting independent retailers and buying local. Especially when local is also lovely. So when Sue and I went on a little pilgrimage to Chipping Norton and to The Fibreworks, which is a lovely place, it seemed rude not to buy anything. Especially as I am still in the middle of the cardigan that will not grow and am bored to tears with it and in great need of a little knitting light relief.

And a ball of Debbie Bliss Milano called to me in all its speckly wrapped wool goodness. And I wanted it. Even though I had no idea what I wanted to knit with it.

You can imagine the internal dialogue. But, I rationalized, it is still winter, and chilly. And one can never have too many pairs of mitts. And look - these would match so many things, with all their coloured speckles. But I knew, even without checking, that the yarn was too fine for any of my 'go to' mitt patterns. Never mind - I picked up some tealy blue Lang merino 120 - voila! Held together they would be just the right weight. Dilemma settled, purchases nestled in bag.

Got home, cast on. But it didn't take too long to realise that I was not on to a winner. The fabric emerging from my needles was far too stiff and without the required level of stretchiness (is that even a word?) for a mitt. Doom. But I loved the two yarns together. And now I had four balls and no plan.

Although as I contemplated my error, a tiny thought came to me. Just an inkling at first, and then a fully fledged plan and so a bag was born instead.

And I am so so pleased with it. The stiffness that was unbecoming in a mitt suddenly transformed itself into structure that was perfect for a bag. And although I fudged the instructions from a pattern entirely unsuited to the materials I had at hand, it has turned out just fine and dandy.

Perhaps being constrained by the limitations of one's stash is the path to knitting creativity, rather than my beginner style knitting by numbers and associated terror of deviating too far from the prescribed path. Sometimes good things come to those who let loose.