My August Moon Full Moon Dreamboard

                                               

            I knew the Full Moon was coming.  I could feel it.  I love that feeling some days.  Then again, there is nothing I love better than moon-bathing anyway.  I am not a sun person.  I have always belonged to the Moon.

            I didn’t officially know it was the full Full Moon until this morning, but yesterday morning I was already planning what I wanted to do for the Full Moon Dreamers DreamBoard.  I did not plan to work on a collage.  I still have plenty of work to do with my last collaged dreamboard.  It took me a bit of time to figure out what I wanted to do, but I decided I would take a picture for my dreamboard.  No drawing, or painting, or collaging or anything else.  One simple picture.

Here it is.

Now, I am sitting here at my computer while wearing a t-shirt that I knitted myself, in just a few hours, on Monday night.  It’s not as amazing a feat as it seems; I knitted it on really big needles.  The point of the matter with this t-shirt is I made it.  I made it myself…and I am wearing it.  I love it.  It is actually something I will wear in public and will be happy and proud to say, yes, I did make this myself.  It is that cool for me. 

It’s the whole process behind this little t-shirt that has me jazzed.  I did not wake up in the morning on Monday thinking, I am going to knit myself a t-shirt today.  What I was thinking was I have to make time to set up different accounts for various things, start applying for different things, get my butt in gear.  I was thinking I would have to make time in the evening to work on my silver bikini set that I am knitting.  What happened was I reached a stopping point with my applications processes, so I started looking for something to do with this amazing yarn we had picked up over the week-end while we were out at a festival in St Charles.

Farmhouse silk Blend, four skeins, in two different colors.  It isn’t enough, I don’t think, to make an entire sweater (although it might be and I am too inexperienced to realize it), but I could make something, like a tank top or a short sleeved shirt of some kind with it.  So, I spent a great deal of time on ravelry, gorging myself on patterns and knitted glory.  What happened while I was perusing the pictures and patterns on ravelry was too much of a coincidence for me to be comfortable.

As I went through all these patterns, I found out how many of the patterns I thought were cute and doable that I already own…because I already own the books…I just didn’t realize it…my books are still in boxes, still being stored.  That’s my life.  I have everything I need—I just don’t know it/realize it—and I need to bring it out, unpack it and make use of it.  Right now.

This t-shirt is a case in point.  I was TICKED when I found out how cute and how SIMPLE this pattern is to make. (It was that much worse to find out when I first bought the book, I had marked this same pattern to do later on…)   I took an allergy pill, went into the basement, and started to dig through the boxes of books, trying to unearth some knitting books.  I was successful.  I found my copy of Loop-d-loop…and I was thrilled to find out I actually have the correct yarn on-hand with which to knit this project.  I cast on about four or five times before I got it down and got it right…then I went to town. 

This t-shirt, the one I am wearing, is my prototype.  I made it on big needles so I could get a feel for making a top-down seamless raglan sweater without having to stress over thin yarn, little needles and days and days of effort hoping it turns out.  When I made this current t-shirt, I was thinking all along, if it doesn’t fit me, then my 9yo daughter will love the fact I made her a brand-new shirt.  There was no way to lose there, unless I really screwed it up.  I didn’t screw it up.  I am now addicted to top-down seamless sweater construction.  I cast on for my second t-shirt, using the thin yarn and the smaller needles, last night.

Better yet, even working top-down t-shirts counts towards my goal of knitting a bottom-up seamless yoke sweater.  It’s the process.  I make something on large needles…I gain the confidence to go back and do it again on smaller needles…which gives me the confidence to try doing the same thing, only different…

This is me.  This is my life.

I am totally afraid of screwing up, of failing, but I can fail.  I’ve been failing all my life.  Failure is no big thing.  You screw up.  You fail.  You fall.  You get up.  You dust yourself off.  You try try again.  I fell down a rabbit hole a long long time ago.  Every time I think I have crawled out of the rabbit hole, I find myself lost in the warren some more, climbing out of one hole only to find myself on another level, with another hole waiting for me to climb out of it whenever I am ready…but I never seem to find that final resting place, that ahhhh place, where the climbing and the crawling all end.  I wonder why I won’t let myself have that?

So, my Full Moon DreamBoard Picture today is all about ACTION…as in I am honestly actually in the process of DOING…I am knitting my t-shirt…I am knitting my bikini…I am writing and being paid to do so…I am creating…I am living…and I am loving it.

Maybe I am meant to remain in the rabbit hole.  Maybe I genuinely like the rabbit hole, and have merely failed to recognize that fact.  I have a whole new bunch of theories about ‘loving the one you’re with’ and ‘being happy with where you are’ –and they all revolve around what utter garbage that is…because that is called SETTLING…and I have settled my entire bloody life…and I am sick and tired of trying to make silk purses out of pig’s ears and then feeling bad because I failed at making silk purses. 

I will make my own purses, not from pig’s ears, and not made of silk…well, ok, except for the purse I have been commissioned to build and create for my lovely friend the Glass Fairy…but she bought the fabric, so that choice was not mine.  That’s a good thing though.

I will have my cake, which I will make myself, and I will eat it too…and of course, I will share it too.