Thing Twenty-One: Once Upon a Time

I was a Folklore major in college. Technically, I was a "Folklore and Mythology" concentrator, because we are Harvard, and goddamnit, we will be different from everyone else if we damn well please. I, personally, chose Folklore because I wanted to study folk art and traditional textiles, but I did and do genuinely also love folktales, fairy tales, and yes, mythology.

When it came time to do my thesis, I decided I wanted the subject to be stories in which weaving, spinning, sewing, and other textile work was a feature. Coming up with examples was easy. Spinning has Rumpelstiltskin, who spins straw into gold, Sleeping Beauty, who pricks her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel, Frigga, who spins the clouds, and the Fates, who spin the thread of man's life. Weavers have Arachne's contest with Athena, Penelope, and the Lady of Shalott. There's also the princess from the Six Swans, the con-men from The Emperor's New Clothes, Ariadne and the thread through the labyrinth, and Circe and Calypso. I thought of those off the top of my head, without doing a lick of research.

What took me longer was finding examples from cultures other than those of Europe. Not because they don't exist. They do. There are stories of spiders who weave the world in Native American culture, of Crane Wives who weave their feathers into cloth and Cow-herds who fall in love with Weaver star girls in China. But I couldn't come up with those as readily, because I simply am not as versed in the folktales of those cultures.

I think I can do better.

There are fifty-two weeks in a year. There are hundreds upon hundreds of cultures on our globe. I think it's reasonable for me to commit to finding and learning one folktale from a culture I am unfamiliar with each week. They don't have to be about textiles, like the ones I found for my thesis. They can be anything. But each week needs to be from somewhere new. I can make that effort, to be better connected with the world around me.

Thing Twenty: Nothing to Wear

I bought this awesome fabric in October. It's got these enormous Dia de los Muertos sugar skulls printed on it, each one the size of a dinner plate. And I told myself I was going to make myself a dress out of it, and I washed and dried and ironed it (because you have to do that before you make clothes, or they hang funny once they're made), and then I folded it up and it sat there. And Dia de los Muertos passed, and it sat there some more. And then I told myself that I'd make it into a dress for Cinco de Mayo, because, while obviously it's not the same thing at all, it was sort of close?

But today is Cinco de Mayo, and I am not wearing an awesome sugar-skulls dress, I am wearing a tee shirt and a skirt, because even though I had six months to do something about it, I did not.

This is not a new phenomenon for me. I have fabric I bought for skirts two years ago that I never made. I have a skirt that I did make, which is awesome and which I have not worn, because I never hemmed it.

My unfinished objects are out of control. And it's time to stop it. I am officially not allowed to buy any more fabric (including for my Halloween and/or Comic Con costumes) until I've dealt with the clothes I've already got the supplies for. I mean, I have Liberty fabric in my stash! Liberty! I could have been wearing a Liberty-print dress for the last year, and I have not because I haven't been arsed to make it! So unacceptable!

Thing Nineteen: Brotherly Love

Whew! Okay, I think this will finally catch me up after my "Oh god, why did I choose 'fix iTunes tags' as a goal?" lapse.

Lately, I have been feeling the urge to wander.

I think it's the weather - it's been really warm and sunny, but not oppressively hot, and there is nothing I like more during on a day like that than getting in my car and going on a nice, long road trip.

But the thing is...I live near a really great city. Like, walking-distance close. (Clarification: One COULD walk there. One would not, because one would more than likely be horribly murdered, but one could.) And I really don't take advantage of it. I haven't been to the Art Museum in...man, at least five years, probably since the Schiaparelli show. There's a Van Gogh exhibit there right now, that closes on Sunday, and I have not gone, even though I deeply love Van Gogh (now more than ever: Tony Curran was brilliant in that episode of Doctor Who). There's an exhibit opening tomorrow that's about crafts. And that's just the art museum!  That's not even the Bell, or the Franklin Institute, or Elfreth's Alley, or the Constitution Center, or Headhouse Square, or LOVE Park, or, or, or...

It's silly that the only reason I go is to buy art supplies and then come right back home. It's preposterous that I've been to New York probably...ten times so far this year? and I've been to Philly once. It takes two hours and forty dollars to go to New York, and ten minutes and four dollars to go to Philly, and once you get there, everything's cheaper! (AND there are decent cheesesteaks, which, sorry, NY, but: no.)

And this hasn't just been a problem for me while I've lived here, near Philly. At Harvard, I rarely left the bubble of Cambridge to venture into Boston, and when I lived in Chicago, I almost never went into the Loop. So, starting this year, I'm going to start taking advantage of the stuff right nearby me, instead of venturing around the world. Philly deserves better.

(And I'm going to start this one ASAP. No waiting for my birthday this time, or I'll miss the Van Gogh, and that'll just be a sin.)

Thing Eighteen: The Etsy Betsy Spider...

So since I'm apparently committing to doing all this making of things, I feel like it's probably also a good time to really figure out what the heck I'm doing with my Etsy store.

I have one, of course. I've actually had two, over the last several years, but I never really committed to them, and it was too hard during my thesis, and it was a whole thing. But when I was doing them, I sold a BUNCH of stuff (most often, silk-screened Hogwarts House undies), at a really awesome profit, so it's probably something I should get back to? I mean, I could use the money, and it's way easier to bang out a pair of knickers at $15 a pair than to work for an hour for the same $15 (yes, there are costs to the knickers, but there are also taxes, so the net works out about the same), and it's something artsy-craftsy to be doing, and that's really what I want more, right?

I'm not saying I think I'm going to be paying my rent with fangirl lingerie, but I feel like I could maybe pay for the wine I drink with it.

Thing Seventeen: Celebrity Skin

I don't wear makeup. I mean, I can, of course, I do know how to get it together and put on some eyeshadow and lipstick if I'm going somewhere special, but on a typical day? No.

I do wash my face in the mornings, and I have worn sunscreen every single day, winter and summer, rain and shine, since I was fourteen, but other than that, I have the lowest-impact beauty routine that has ever existed in the world. Because there is no routine.

Part of it is because I really just enjoy sleeping. I mean, if my options are to put on some lipstick or sleep an extra minute and a half, I am totally going to sleep the extra minute and a half.

And part of it is because I am lucky, and I have high-contrast features (dark eyebrows and hair, naturally quite pink lips and cheeks), so I don't look washed out or sick.

But my skin has been freaking out, and I think I look slightly more professional with a little bit of makeup on, so maybe it's time to get at least a very basic routine down? Little bit of shadow, little bit of lipgloss? I can figure out something that doesn't take more than a few minutes, but makes me look normal, right?

Thing Sixteen: Sock It To Me

So, last Thing, I was saying that I don't like actually wearing things that I knit. That's true. But I do have someone who DOES like to wear some of those things.

A few years ago (my knitting portfolio informs me it was three years ago, and yes, I have a knitting portfolio), I made some knee-high socks for one of my very closest friends. She loved them, she wore them, it was great.

Then she moved to Switzerland.

I don't know if y'all know this, but the washing machines in Switzerland are not like the washing machines here in the US. And, even though I made the socks out of superwash wool (that means they shouldn't felt or shrink in a washing machine), and even though she was really careful and never put them in the dryer anyway, one day they got tangled in some sheets and went in the dryer, and now they're too small for her five-year-old nephew, and there was crying.

And I said I'd make her some new ones, and I just never have. I was too involved with the thesis, and then, as I've said, my knitting mojo left me abruptly.

But I've got a new idea for some socks now, and there's some yarn that has sparkles in it, and also she lives in a place that has a slightly less alarming washing machine. I think the new socks' time may have come.

Thing Fifteen: A Stitch in Time

Oh my god, that last one was so boring that even I lost interest.

This next one is going to sound ridiculous, because it's something that I did all the time, so how can it be something that I "meant" to do, but...

I haven't knit in nearly a year.

I just...lost interest, after my thesis. I spent so much time on that tapestry (worth it! totally worth it!), and then I made a garter for a friend who was getting married, and then I did no knitting at all.

It's not that I don't like it - I do. I think I was just...burned out? And I didn't have anything I particularly wanted to make? It's difficult, because what I like to make are complex, lacy shawls, and they just do not fit into my wardrobe at all, so I make them, and I devote all this time (and money! the yarn usually costs $20-$30!) to them, and then...nothing. They sit. Which feels like a waste.

So now I can't decide what to do. Do I make things that I will wear (like, um...), or do I make things that I like to knit which then sit around? Or do I totally change my style so that girly, lacy shawls work (this one feels unlikely)?

So I guess this one isn't so much "Knit again" as it is "Find a way to integrate the results of the knitting into my actual life, so that I am at least getting something out of it."