Last autumn I painted two portraits of my boyfriend. The first one turned out great and I was inspired to paint another one from a different angle.

Ergo:

I didn’t spend as much time and effort on this one. I like the cartoony eyes, but the background bothers me a bit. Yellow doesn’t look so good with the purple on the left side of the head, I wish I’d painted the whole background in one color.

The likeness is close enough:

(Isn’t he really cute and handsome?)

The tilt towards the viewer isn’t quite the same and the corner of the mouth that’s away from the viewer is such a bitch to get right every time.

Both of the portraits are framed by now, but I could still paint the background if I’m careful..

So there’s not much going on on the painting front. I have some aspirations for learning to paint structures and buildings among landscapes, or just indoor views. The problem is that I feel like I need support and feedback and guidance to learn that, since I have barely painted anything of that sort. Perhaps I can participate in one of my previous painting teacher’s classes next autumn.

I’m so out of blogging shape. I think I will blog about my latest book purchases next. Or about knitting. My highbrow activities in general.

And what was supposed to be only a consultation, turned into a haircut!

The hairdresser said that he could tell that I’ve been thinking about this realistically and it wasn’t spur of the moment. I’ve been thinking of cutting my hair short for about 5 years, basically ever since I started losing it in larqe quantities. It’s not that bad right now, but my hair would normally be about 1/4 thicker.

As soon as I sat down and he set his fingers on my head, he said that my scalp is dry and tight and in bad condition and he could tell that I’ve lost hair. I had thought that short hair wouldn’t be as forgiving in that sense, I thought it would show more how my hair is thinner, but it’s actually better now! It’s like normal hair. :)

It’s a little messy because I wore a hat on the way home and I haven’t yet figured out how it should be arranged. My hair grows in different directions all over, but I’ll learn that soon by experimenting.

I like my “sideburns” in particular (if someone knows the actual term, pray tell me!). They make the hair cut look more feminine. I also like how there is longer hair on the top. I can make different looks by changing the parting and combing it in different ways. :)

AND my earrings show better now too. AND my hair won’t be on the way when I do krav maga! AND no more 20 minutes every day just to untangle it so I can put it on a ponytail, which basically makes me look like I have no hair. By cutting off the length, I actually feel like I have hair again.

I finished my Bamboo socks for myself recently. They were my second socks ever, and I felt like the pattern was challenging for a newbie, but still easy enough to figure out. I learned how to read charts (I didn’t come to think that you read them as you would knit – from right to left, bottom to top) and I learned to do the Dutch heel.

The yarn I used is Estonian Aade Lõng Artistic 8/2; I got it as a gift from Obiskus about a year ago. The hank was huge and I barely used about 20% of the ball! The color doesn’t change very often, as you can see: the first sock has pink and dark purple, while the second begins with the dark purple and continues in light purple. Those are the three colors of the yarn. Beautiful, and I like the asymmetry in the socks, as they still have one color in common. But if I wanted something not-so-funny, I would probably use this yarn for a scarf, perhaps.

I also learned that the sock should feel tight at first, if you want it to fit perfectly over time. I thought mine fit perfectly, but they’re already looser, and for some reason the pink ankle is much looser than the other ankle. Go figure. But since I usually wear at least two pairs of woolly socks in the winter on top of each other, mostly three pairs, I need to have socks in all sizes. Fitting underneath and bigger on the top. Now I just have to knit some prettier, bigger socks to be worn on the top, so I can ditch my old, ugly socks!

Chapter 2. Arranging the stash

Yesterday I felt energetic enough to clean my apartment, and while I was in full swing, I assembled two cardboard boxes that I’d got from my mum and put all my yarn in them. The boxes are quite pretty:

But I didn’t want to hide all my yarn, so I put the prettiest ones on display in the wicker basket that was also from my mum. Some yarn is also hidden inside the white leather stool – I love the idea! It’s actually also from mum, she bought it specially for putting my yarn in it. She has really nice ideas for storing things. Now I feel good about rummaging through my yarn, because the bags were quite of unwieldy.

Chapter 3. New projects ahoy

I had a momentary panic when I finished my Bamboo socks. I had finished all my knits for xmas and hadn’t planned new projects in the hurry. It feels terrible to have no project to knit! Thankfully I got some ideas to knit more for mum and UncleEnsio and my cousin Satu (she has absolutely no internet presence whatsoever, believe it or not!).

Here are Petäjä socks for Ensio, I’m still knitting the first sock:

The pattern is ridiculously easy after the Bamboo socks, so I knitted a French heel this time. It’s supposed to be rounder than the Dutch heel, and maybe it is. The yarn is Novita 7 Veljestä Jättiraita and the needles are 2mm, so the sock feels very stiff and sturdy, just like Ensio wanted.

Since I gave the Heelhead scarf in Novita 7 Veljestä Jättiraita for mum for xmas, I suggested I make her mittens too from the same yarn, since there was still some left. I’m still knitting the first one:

Mum really liked her scarf and the yarn colors and she’s gotten compliments for it. It’s great, because I’m never exactly sure of her taste.

Since I had two skeins of Novita Puro Revontulet, I thought I would make matching mittens for my Northern Lights scarf:

The dye lot isn’t the same, but that’s fine. This yarn is lovely to knit and the colors are beautiful, but they pool so that it’s really difficult to knit something that truly matches the yarn’s potential.

Chapter 4. New yarn!

Moreover, I got some new yarn on xmas. Here they are:

4 humongous hanks in 4 colors of Tekstiiliteollisuus Huopalanka, it’s DK yarn meant for felting.

And 3 skeins of Sublime Luxurious Woolly Merino in 3 colors:

And 3 skeins of Schoeller + Stahl Elfin color in 2 colors, a mohair yarn:

And 4 skeins of Sandnesgarn Fritidsgarn in 2 colors:

I also bought some yarn myself. Ensio got excited about the orange Fritidsgarn and thought that an orange pullover would be cool. But the problem is, Fritidsgarn is quite bulky and coarse and meant for felting. I wanted a thinner yarn so the sweater wouldn’t be too warm, and it would have to be soft on the skin, and wear well. I bought one skein of Gjestal Maija in dark orange but didn’t like it, then I bought Cascade Yarns 220 wool:

But it’s actually in coral, not orange, so that didn’t work either. I’m going to make socks for myself from this yarn because it’s a lovely color and could show some interesting pattern very well.

But on a second visit to Lankaliike Aili Jokinen, a very old LYS in Tampere, they had gotten new yarn and Step Classic by Austermann in orange turned out to be the perfect color.

Moreover, it has 25% Nylon and Jojoba oil, so it should be very soft to wear. The sales lady also noticed my beanie made from Teetee Pallas and showed it to the owner. Good service. She also suggested I have to make mittens from the same yarn, but I didn’t cave in. I have to knit my existing stash first. Well, some of it at least.

I also thought I would use my Novita Isoveli Colori skein for making socks for my cousin for next xmas. Yes, I’m already thinking of knitting presents for next xmas, because I didn’t like being in a hurry the last time. I also consider knitting her a scarf from King Cole’s Mirage.

Chapter 5. Afterword

OMG I’m so excited about my new yarn, new projects and new project ideas!

This is following the International Conference on English Historical Linguistics 15, which took place in summer 2008. Apparently this is the first volume, with 14 articles. I have no idea how many volumes there are altogether, but I think it’s nice to be picked among 14 articles covering historical changes in English syntax.

Besides, pink and red is a beautiful combination. Here’s the table of contents:

Mine is the article on prevent. My professor’s is the one on the TIME corpus. The editors wanted us to cross-reference to our articles, but neither of us saw any point to it…

It’s kind of funny now, considering that I’ll probably never take up my postgraduate studies again. Having an article published and some conference presentations under my belt might even be a hindrance in my CV when I apply to jobs elsewhere than in the academic world. So I’m not exactly underlining it, it’s just there. Something I did.

Well, there is a student in England who’s working on prevent and other verbs of prevention. She’s enthusiastic and has been asking me for help a lot, apparently thinking that I’m a lecturer at the University of Tampere. Whatever, it’s not like she’s my competition anymore.

As more time goes by, I feel more certain that it was never meant to be. I simply don’t feel at home in the field of research. There were too many external issues that I couldn’t stand at all, unrelated to the actual work. And I could never convince myself I was doing anything useful. It’s no help if others think it’s useful if I don’t believe in it myself.

I’m not supposed to be a thinker. I’m supposed to make things happen. I’m happy with my life like that, and I think that’s what counts the most. Why pursue something that doesn’t make you happy? I believe we only have one life, so it doesn’t make any sense at all to waste it when you know what makes you happy and what doesn’t. I’m lucky to have found what I enjoy doing.

Anyway. I got tagged by a Twitter knitter, Cheekytart (you can follow her here). So I’m basically obligated to blog, but I don’t feel forced at all. I needed something like this: My desire (more sharp than filed steel) did spur me forth,* when given a chance. The tag entails answering to a slew of questions about my personal life, which is fine.

1- What’s your staple meal (ie. what meal do you cook most often when you can’t be bothered to be adventurous) ?

I like to make a chicken wok with vegetables, basmati rice and various spices. I just throw in some courgettes, sweet pepper, black olives, mushrooms, sometimes carrot, and add different curry spices like turmeric, cumin, coriander, cardamom, ginger, chili, cinnamon and clove. You can make endless variations by wokking and you don’t have to consult any recipes, and I love that. It’s hard to go wrong because I’m not so choosy when it comes to tastes in food. The food has to be quite terrible for me not to eat it.

2- What do you want to be when you grow up?

I wonder how you know you are actually all grown up. Right now I would love to find work which involved using my language skills. Translation, proofreading, data entry, developing language-related apps, anything involving writing…

One of my ambitions is to write a dissertation, since I see it as something I have to do or I’ll always wonder what I could have accomplished with it, what I would find out if me and not anybody else looked at the data I am planning to use. I don’t see myself as a researcher for life because I don’t take criticism very well. I prefer an easier life to an ambitious one, since the former seems to entail far less agony and anguish.

Work is important to me because I haven’t had much of it so far in my life and to me it’s one way of defining myself as a person. I just want to feel useful and earn my living myself instead of living off everybody else.

3- What book are you reading at the moment (if any)

Larry Niven’s Ringworld. Someone over at the Mass Effect Social Forums said it was similar to the Mass Effect universe so I gave it a try. I’m almost finished and it is not a bad book. Before that, I read Allen Steele’s Coyote series, a gorgeous, realistic long series on colonizing an exoplanet, and Jack McDevitt‘s Ancient shores, a softer approach to scifi.

4- How do you relax?

I relax by exercising a lot and then eating something tasty with tea, watching tv and knitting, sometimes playing Mass Effect. Exercise is vital to my sanity and to my body’s functionality. Everything else is a plus.

5- What color are the interior walls of your home?

I live in a rental apartment with fugly old wallpapers, they are kind of white but not really, with weird yellowish and bluish stains and some texture. I try not to pay attention to it and I imagine it’s all white.

6- What is your guiltiest pleasure?

I don’t feel guilt over pleasures usually. Because I’m so worth it.

7- What time is bedtime and getting up time?

I like to tuck myself in around 11 pm so I have time to read a bit before sleep. Since I’m not working, I usually get up at 8.30 am unless, well, the circumstances are unusual.

8- How long do you spend reading blogs (per day or per week)?

I don’t read blogs on a daily basis, but I probably read one or two every week. I have spent so little time by the laptop lately, excepting Tweetdeck and email, that I simply haven’t had the time to read anything extra. Besides, my favorites have been taking a hiatus from blogging too, and nothing has been interesting enough to compel me into reading. I barely browse teh internets at all these days unless I’m using dictionaries or some other useful services.

–

There, I’ve blogged! This just might have been the longest hiatus I’ve had with blogging so far. I just moved my blog to a new host, Downtownhost, which I so far recommend.

I would like to tag:

Ukkoite, because he probably isn’t man enough to blog about a blog meme, let alone one that asks very personal questions — really, he’s such a sissy he will not dare ;)

SetAsEssential, a Swedish lady whose portrait I’d like to paint one day as soon as she sends me a decent photo of herself. ;)

Baltarstar, because she’s such a sweetheart and writes so well.

*From Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act 3, Scene 3, line by Antonio (see here).

Hmm, maybe we could make it a tradition to exchange xmas presents in March or April, since it’s such a long time until my birthday and next Christmas… Anyway, in exchange for lol-slippers, Deniselle gave me fridge magnet poetry!

It’s a collection of words and punctuation marks in the form of fridge magnets that I can use to compose sentences, poetry in particular, by arranging them around on my fridge. I tried to group them according to word class, but soon discovered that my powers of classifying Finnish are less than perfect.

But let’s move on to the slippers! The pattern is from here, the Ravelry link is here. They are called Peter Pan’s slippers, but since mine always turn out too big, I call them lol-slippers.

Here are Deniselle’s slippers:

Deniselle really, really liked them! I guessed her taste in colors quite well – I don’t like blue much myself, but I don’t have a problem making something for someone else in colors that I don’t like. She thought they look absolutely hilarious with the pointy toes, which fits her endearingly silly personality very well indeed.

And here are mum’s slippers:

Mum commented that the pointy toes seem to want her to keep turning to the left all the time. They twist like that because I wasn’t careful enough with lining up the sides properly when I sewed them together.

Just like my dad’s slippers, these are huge. The cat in the photo is about the size of a real cat! The weird thing is, they are 12 rows and too big for mum, but at the same time the 10-row slipper she crocheted herself turned out too small for a friend of hers who has big feet for a woman. And when I asked Amoena about the size, she recalled she may have made only 8 rows in slippers she gave to a male friend of hers! Strange.

In any case, mum was thrilled with the colors and she decided she wants to try to make her own to give out as presents. She used to crochet, knit and sew her own clothes when she was young, because back then she was too poor to buy her clothes ready-made. She used to have a decent skill at it at least, so no reason why she couldn’t re-learn it.

So I urged her to buy  a crochet hook (her old ones were so short that they felt difficult to use) and some yarn, so I could teach her some basics before I have a 3 week break before my next Irish dance classes. She obeyed and I translated and printed out Finnish instructions for the slippers. As soon as she made her first double crochet, she immediately exclaimed “ooohh this is fun!”. Hooked from the first stitch! I had to draw a detailed series of pictures as a reminder of how to make the first slipknot and the first stitches in a magic ring, but otherwise she got the hang of the different stitches very quickly.

So the next time I’ll show her how to make hexagons (see on the sidebar in my projects – oh dear, I’ve completely neglected to blog about my hexagon blanket that I also gave to mum?!), since the slippers are quite fast to make and can get boring really quick. I can’t wait. It’s fun to spread the joy of handicraft.

They’re huge! They’re shapeless! They’re absolutely ridiculous!

I laughed out loud when I finished the first one. I can’t wait to see the expression on my dad’s face when he uncovers these. I bet he’ll need a minute or maybe ten to figure out what they are.

Good thing though, I used nearly three 150g skeins of Novita 7 veljestä on these slippers, yarn which I didn’t have any other use for. I think the mismatched colours go well with the general ridiculousness of these slippers.

If for some completely strange reason you now feel the urge to make a pair of your own, I used the pattern by Gabriela Ordenes, Peter Pan’s slippers. They were easy and fairly quick to make, one of those brainless-projects-for-watching-tv.

In other news, my yarns are even better organized now, thanks to Deniselle‘s generous gift of these pretty canvas bags:

She got these by attending some religious happenings or events. The black one has a slogan which has the idea that people have even chances of finding happiness. (I’ll get a better translation as soon as Deniselle wakes up, she’s a better translator than I am.) And the white one on the right has a cool drawing of a church from Leppävirta, with the slogan “strength from the stream of mercy” (again, horrible translation).

Aren’t they really cool? Deniselle asked me if I wanted them on the spur of a moment and was surprised and amused that I jumped at the chance. I had been wanting some canvas bags for my yarn, and I got these for free, with pictures and text too!

I’m a very unreligious person, but I think for that reason it’s wonderfully random and funny to have religious yarn bags. Amen.

The pattern is very simple and allows for brainless tv-knitting, yet it creates this nice ribbing effect.

Puro is 100% wool, loosely spun plies, so it feels soft and warm. Some of the colour choices are quite weird and not really my cup of tea, so I had no other choice but Revontulet. Even so, I wish there were more yellow and orange and less red and blue. My ultimate dream would be to find yarn that only had yellow and orange, changing softly as in Puro! One can always wish… Another problem was that I had to use two different colour batches for the 4 skeins, but I don’t really mind it so much.

I also like the blue/green/pink Tundra, but I don’t have any ideas what I’d do with it. Puro is quite expensive and I already have more yarn than I can knit or crochet in the near future. If only I was richer, I’d fill my small apartment with much more yarn. Maybe it’s a good thing I’m not rich.

I had a slight problem with the skeins escaping my yarn bag, so I got a brilliant idea. I stuffed my souvenir conference bags with yarn and hung them up on show!

That’s my old yarn bag, still full after delegating some of it into the conference bags. I like the Liverpool conference bag  (from Corpus Linguistics 2009) with the grey, white and purple. And here’s my ICEHL conference bag from summer 2008:

I realized I should have more hooks on my walls. Anyway, now I can have my souvenirs out from the dark closet so I can look at them more often and they’re useful too!

Right now I’m crocheting another scarf in the Skunk-Punk style with three different light blue yarns for my cousin, because my mittens turned so ugly and she likes blue more than I do. I also started on another knitting project, the Heelhead Scarf, with the result that I can now knit cables without an auxiliary needle!

I’m so happy to learn new things with every project. On the one hand, I like having a brainless project which I can work on while watching tv, but on the other hand, I don’t want to repeat something I’ve already done before. The skunk-punk blue scarf has been boring because of that, and I wouldn’t have gotten it this far without tv! There’s my justification for having more than one project under way at a time – you can always do something, depending on how you feel at a given moment.