Suddenly Serviceable

Last week I finished Boy's Hat:

A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything!
Yay! Now his head and his ears will be warm! There are more details about the hows and the whys in this post.

And, I'm pleased to say, that today I finished S's scarf in time for his birthday shindig (with about 5 hours to spare, as a matter of fact).

The old scarf-photographed-on-the-windowsill trick!
I was a bit cheeky: he's not one for being showered with gifts (gosh knows why!) so he declared that everyone should take the money they would have spent on a gift for him, and buy/do something nice for themselves. Well, I enjoy buying yarn and knitting things with it, so why not knit something for him? And I had a red hot go at it as well. I spent about 45 minutes choosing this yarn at Cleg's. I ignored the price tag completely. It's an absolutely gorgeous blend of wool and alpaca. And 'cause alpacas are just so darned cute, I had to find us a pic:

Cute!!
And look at these amigurumi alpacas from Moon June!:

It's a well known fact that everything is cuter in amigurumi form.
And, in a blindingly white ultra mega moment of the ultimate productivity, I finished an art journal page today too!:

Materials used: gesso, acrylic paint, scraps of newspaper, envelopes, magazines, wrapping paper, Sakura Gelly Roll pens, Pilot Choose gel pens, Signo Uniball gel pens, Think wedge felt pen, vintage Japanese rubber stamp and ink, spirograph, metallic rub, deco tape, embroidery thread

I really just put the finishing touches on it: some dabs of green paint and metallic rub, a couple of swirly bits and a quote from Ray Bradbury about creativity. I have quite a large collection of quotes saved on my laptop now, and I felt like using one. So I did! For some reason, it really irks me the way that quotes are traditionally presented, with the person being quoted at the end. I always look at that part first, and then I know who is speaking when I read the quote. If I read it as presented, then just as I'm letting the profundity of the thought sink in, I get interrupted with a jolt by the sordid detail of who it's attributed to. It irks me. Is that just me? I thought so. Anyway, I thought I'd put the author at the start and see how that feels. The quote says:

Ray Bradbury: Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You must simply do things.

It's an important thing to keep in mind when doing art. Perhaps not so much when doing craft. But it definitely applies to meditating.

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P.S. About that subject line: my powers of alliteration failed me today.