The New Years Resolution Bandwagon

I was gonna wang on and on quite a bit about New Year's Resolutions, but schnyeh *shrugs* They don't really work for me as I'm lazy and tend to forgive myself too easily, therefore can't drum up the guilt-driven motivation to actually stick to them. Plus, I've had the lyric from Crowded House in my head for the last week: "It's no New Year's Resolution, it's more than that..." Which is hardly encouraging. Nevertheless, I jumped on the bandwagon and wrote some in my notebook while I was waiting at the tram stop on Friday (the fact that I made them up 5 days after the fact shows just how into them I am).

At the risk of causing much running and screaming, I'm going to indulge myself and list them:

1. Go on a holiday - on a plane.
I'd already been wanting that for about 6 months, so I don't think that counts.

2. Keep a weekly art journal.
I did actually start this one. Currently it looks like something an 8-year-old would produce. I'll probably force myself for a month then it'll fizzle out.

3. Lose weight.
The most common and most pathetic NY Resolution ever. I just like food too much. It may just happen accidentally though, who knows?

4. Complete list of 1001 Things to Do Before I Die and do 10 of them.
Aside from the fact that there's currently only 880 items listed on it, I'll probably choose the 10 lamest and easiest things to do. It goes without saying that activities such as bungee jumping will not appear on the list.

5. Keep in contact with my friends more.
A Noble sentiment, some may say, but it don't say "The Knitting Hermit" up the top there for nothing.

Enough of this self-indulgent drivel. I finally got around to taking a photo of the hat I made about a month ago:

Who is that whimsical maiden?
I'm quite proud of it actually. I made the whole thing up from go to whoa. I even made up the decreases around the top (which is apparently called a star increase amongst those who like to give names to things). I'm always amazed when things turn out the way I wanted. It does happen, sometimes.

Then for about a week and a half, I didn't do anything. Well, that's not strictly true. I sweated, I moaned and I cursed. You know what I'm talking about. Well, my poor boyfriend does, anyway! Normally I try and be more philosophical about the heat, but when you're just itching to make stuff on the inside, it's hard. I did start making some puzzles for an activity-book zine that I'd been thinking of for a while. Crossword puzzles, mazes, that sort of thing. But even that was too much after a while.

Then finally it cooled down enough for me to play with my new needle-felting kit! Woohoo! I love it! I made a randomly-shaped blob to practice on, and I ended up with this:

Baby Monster!
I turned an amorphous green peanut into an Embryo with just a few stabs of a very sharp needle! This needle felting stuff is so fun! You can even make 3-dimensional shapes with it (see it's little arms). You can make proper sculptures with it, but you need a spongy foam block as a base, which I don't have at the moment, but I'm having tonsa fun with what I have. It's very cathartic, stabbing away....

I made the Embryo as practice, so that I didn't stuff up when finishing...
tadaaaa! The Left-Handed Monster!

Deformed love!
I really went to town on this one and gave him elbow and knee patches, 'claws' on each arm and leg, a lovely pink wart, and a funky little hairdo. I felt a bit sorry for him and gave him a little needle-felted rudimentary arm on his armless side, as well. I realised when I was some way into it that his arms are actually on his right side, but, schnyeh, who cares?

I just lurve heeeeem! Now I'm going to sell heeeem!

And I also made this I-Pod Cozy:

It was pretty crap before I put the embroidery on. Now it's almost half-decent. I went through an obscene phase of wanting to embroider stuff. Small stuff, too. Considering I violently hate anything that involves threading something through something else, I think I did OK. I'm currently working on another one with a felt backing. This time I did the embroidery first (onto a piece of felt). It's the crocheted backing I can't be bothered with. We'll see.

Bored now.

Bye.