I’m being extremely lazy today. Just sitting around reading and drinking tea. I think I’m feeling a little bit sorry for myself though I really shouldn’t be. Last night didn’t go as badly as I might have expected – even if I did start to laugh hysterically as I plastered the icky tar on my skin. It actually smells a little less pungent than the lighter-grade stuff: more Old Tire and less Ferry Wharf. I was too hot at one point and hyper-aware all night of the gloves and socks rubbing on the sheets (black ones, just to be on the safe non-staining side). But it wasn’t as horrid as I’d been led to believe. Perhaps because I already have a year’s experience in plastering myself day and night with many forms of medicated petrolatum. And living with greasy clothing. Not something one really wants to get used to, but sometimes there’s not much option. We’ll see how it goes.
Enough of my whining and whingeing. I need to get off my arse and go do something useful. It always makes me feel better to do some physical work. Yesterday, I managed to putter in the garden in a couple of long bouts and got two more paths cleared of weeds. Unfortunately most of the weeds are really pretty blooming white alyssum which it seems kind of mean to pull up. But they are getting ever larger and covering the pathway so I can’t find the stones to step on them. They also tend to choke out the things I do want to grow in the paths: Irish and Scotch moss, star creepers, and several varieties of creeping thymes. In my defence, I’ve replanted some of the alyssum in the flower beds but of course it’s not nearly growing as lushly where I want it. Only where I don’t. There’s also a low spreading weed that has purple flower stalks later on in the summer. I’ve no idea what it is, but I think it spread from the birdfeeder originally. I’m not sure about this latter plant – it’s quite aggressive and needs to be kept out of the veggie beds with brute force, aka pruning shears. The stems are quite stiff and hard to break off with the fingers without pulling up the entire plant. I may need to eliminate it or at least cut it back severely in favour of something that behaves itself nicer.
Once I clear the pathways to my satisfaction, I have some more creeping thymes to plant. Plus divide and move some of the star creeper off of the veggie bed edges. This plant makes a really pretty ground cover. It’s a perennial in the lobelia family, has a bunch of Latin synonyms, originates in Australia and is quite hardy and not particular about situation. I have both white and blue but I think I like the blue best. I’d also love to find some of the really dark blue ones. Unfortunately today it’s off-and-on raining, which usually means that it’s just fine but it starts to rain the second I go out the door. Things are still too wet from the thunder-and-lightning-and-heavens-opening rainstorm we had last evening anyhow. I’m staying inside.
So that leaves me right back where I am – lazing around. Perhaps I should go and play with my sewing. (Better than vacuuming!) Which reminds me. Remember when I was bemoaning the fact that we don’t have a Ravelry equivalent for sewing? I’ve discovered an embryonic one called MySewingCircle begun, like Ravelry, by a couple who thought something like this should exist and decided to go for it. So far there are just over 2500 members. There needs to be many more! So I joined (as damselfly of course) and put up a profile and one project, just because if they build it and we don’t come then it won’t grow into what we ultimately want. Circular logic, huh? Works for me. We’ll see how it goes, won’t we?
Yes, I know there are PatternReview and BurdaStyle but neither of them work for me the way I would prefer. I’ve been a free member of PatternReview for 5 years now, but I refuse to pay for the full membership. It’s US$29.95 per year which is ridiculously expensive for a fairly clunky (and ugly) interface! I wouldn’t get my money’s worth out of it at all. I’d really be interested in the statistics of how many of the 222,000+ members are paid members. (Only around 200 are usually online at any time.) Anyway I don’t want to spend a lot of time cataloguing my patterns or chatting with others. I do want a way to document my projects and to check what others have done with a particular pattern. I’d like to see what they else are making and how they’ve solved any particular problems. I want to create a queue. I guess I’ve just gotten used to the vastness and usability of Ravelry and nothing else matches it. Yet. There aren’t as many folks who sew as knit and crochet.
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