want to learn to crochet?

I happen to think that crochet does make you live happilly…

I’m taking the promt from the post by Chris Guillebeau’s social experiement in seeing what would happen if people offered something for free. So if anyone wants to learn crochet in Edinburgh on Sat 23rd I’ll be in Lovecrumbs at 1pm and I can teach you how to crochet a Grannie Square. Learning to crochet a grannie square is like reaching crochet nirvana. If you are not able to make sat drop into Grannie Greens 6-8pm next monday in the Red Squirrel on Lothian Road. I’ll be there and a crochet tutorial can be arranged.

Let me know if you are coming leave a comment or email me fatblackcatindustries AT gmail dot com so I can bring enough yarn.

everything is going to be all right?

Oldie pics from New Year’s day visit to the Scottish National Modern Art Gallery. I do hope so! Got woken up by a friend phoning me this morning and my voice was a bare croak… as my job necessitates much talking on the phone my return to work has been delayed again.

new eyes

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” Marcel Proust

But I confess I love travel to see new things.. well generally but my last trip has me return with a stinking cold, losing my purse and mobile phone due to tiredness. I’m grumpy and ill. I cannot wait for January to depart. Time to make another cup of tea.

Artists in Exile

Actually I’ve been feeling my inner artist has been in exile for a while… I need to noodle it a bit go on adventures. Hopefully I’ll be skipping around London taking in new sights by the time this is posted.

Pictures from a Glaswegian adventure last November.

Note sign up for my newsletter (see sidebar) and you will get a piece of real mail when I return north.

when everything seems dead in winter

Leith Links in the snow – Lubitel

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with
death. Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead in winter
and later proves to be alive.
- Pablo Neruda, translated by Alstair Reid

s l o w

Picture by Alberto Morocco

I’ve gone outside the house today to get essential milk for coffee and vegtables for the dinner I’m making tonight. But this morning was spent in bed crocheting with the fat black cat for company. Taking phone calls from a friend walking her dog far away, another from a friend who had been sketching at the British Museum. And I began to stir in my mind and berate myself for not doing ‘more’ (though I did put way a load of washing up which has been drying on the racks). Again I’m struck by the roaring of the voice that says we must DO DO DO and anything else is not valuable. Like resting. I want to live slow but deeper.

I want to stop multitasking apart from listening to radio and crafting. But listening to radio, having a conversation with friend and checking email is out!

I want to understand that actually a day going to the farmers market, meeting two friends in separate places for coffee, going to to the chinese supermarket, and a charity shop for wool is actually quite a busy day.

I want to write more (see above) and visit more. More natter less netter.

dreaming plans

lomo double exposure

I sat down this morning to think about this new year. I find negative resolutions a bit hard to sustain. So this year I’m planning some positive ones. Only play on weekends! More travel! One friend planned to try a new cuisine each month for a year, another to go and attend more inperson events and get off social media. Both reported the year much improved.

So I sat down with a calculator and worked out that it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to do more travel and perhaps even start that savings plan. However I’m sure savings without fun planned in would not work. The two will have to run in tandem.

I’m also mulling over my Word of the Year – I got this from Christine Kane some years ago. Its a more interesting way to prompt yourself into acting differently or reacting differently.

Christine also has a free downloadable Word of the Year Discovery Tool

PS one of the things I want to do more of is write real mail. If you sign up to my newsletter here I’ll send you a postcard and check out Postal Joy 2013! where I’m offering a real mail service for January.

in the year to come

“In the world to come, each of us will be called to account for all the good things God put on earth which we refused to enjoy”

― from a Jewish Talmud

(image from here by Anne Redpath)

sit a while…

The mosaic sofa is near the station in Eindhoven and the man in the container is learning how to weave reids from Majorca. There were these pop up containers outside the townhall with workshops, design prototypes for the public to experience or even take part.

Today I’ve sat. I’ve crocheted and drunk much coffee and eaten the tablet (at least part of it) which I made as presents but its nice to sit still this time of year. The year still turns. Christmas is still coming. The cards may arrive after Christmas but it doesn’t matter.

wake up!

You know that person you have been meaning to call? That fun thing you’d been meaning to arrange? That postcard you have lying on your desk to write to your friend from uni which you know she will love. You know that art project you’ve had in your mind. Some thing weird just for you?

DO IT NOW.

SERIOUSLY.

WAKE UP.

Our time is limited.

F**K THE HOUSEWORK.

F**K THE UNGRATEFUL PEOPLE YOU DO THINGS FOR.

One funeral later, one friend in hospital having ‘experimental’ cancer treatment.

WAKE UP DO IT NOW.