3 realities. The everyday consensual. The Eleven Islands. The future.
Author: Rita de Heer
Writing is what I do. What I think about. What I meditate on. What I dream up. Listen to. Imagine. Sometimes I sleep. Sometimes I eat. And I walk. Pull out environmental weeds. There are a thousand more things I do, though writing comes into a fair few of those things too.
Anthony Roberts from Tony’s Bologna reminds me to talk about something I’m emotionaly responding to … not sure of the grammar there.
I’m not in the mood for grammar. I’m cold, hospital aircon is like the Antarctic. I’m standing swaying, with a blanket over my shoulders in my ED hutch (roomlet in the energency department) at the Mater (Hospital) in South Brisbane.
Been here for four and a half hours, had a canula put in that’ll give me the pip for weeks the bruise surrounding it is momentous.
Waiting for the results of the CT scan I had half an hour a go figuring if there’s a good/bad reason for the blockage in my gut. Waiting for the pain to be flushed out.
ED beds are the pits, as I’m sure everybody who has ever languished in ED knows. I’m too tall, my feet always flush against the footboard. How do really tall people manage?
Does it sound like I’m moaning? Does to me. Emotions are totally tied into physical sensations, you know? There is no brain body separation.
The time is 13.13 … one of those synergies I have with time. When I check the time, ther’s more often than not a little pattern to enjoy. Synergies might be the wrong word. I’m frazzled, frustrated and freaking!
OK, I can still do alliteration. Can still think. Discomfort is in overdrive. Now to find a pic that describes how I’m feeling …
Learning a craft takes a lot of practice. When I was stil pretty new to watercolor painting, I used to try to paint on any type of paper and thin cardboard.
Not all of it worked. Art calendars featuring photographic art have a lot of marble dust in them. Paint sits on top until it dries. Made for some interesting experiments.
Then for a while I used mixed media papers, they worked better and I still have a few of those paintings.
Lately I’ve gone into 200 gsm paper specifically made for watercolor and since I have a problem throwing out good things that might be useful one day, I swear I’ve hung onto every bit of used 200gsm paper I’ve painted, it seems like.
Of course I laugh at myself but then don’t throw anything, I have a bag full of painted scraps for collaging.
Recently I’ve felt the need to practise painting a ‘wash’ or ten. Something I have a lot of difficulty with. So ended up with ten washes on four sides.
Made them into a little art zine … if I have that terminology right. Here the back and front covers (three washes)
The story was going to be about a red planet but the nickety nog said No!
Several aspects about this booklet please me quite a lot. The size, a quarter of an A4 page. It’s just enough for a short fairy story. I like the way the torn edges of the pages look edged with gold.
‘Hariet Reed’ is a pen name scrambled from my real name. Good for the witch telling this story. I don’t like the stickers much, will rethink that aspect. The random design of the pages (all those washes) worked well.
The story became a dark in color as wel as plot little tale about a nickety nog demanding a five and after being offered various juicy morsels and rejecting them, stealing five gold coins.
The story lacks cohesion, there are a couple of glitches, as well as other things I could’ve done better. The gold coins for example.
Some of the coins are gold-leaf on pva glue, none of them turned out round and some were rounded later with acrylic paint. And then towards the end I thought might as well paint the whole coin with acrylic gold. Worked the best of the lot.
All useful things to remember for when I make the next little story book. Only the last two pages were over-painted to help the tale end.
Reading this article has gifted me with a fantastic reading list. I’ve read maybe four books on the list, a couple that are also on my shelves and that are also on my re-reading list.
I came across this website only recently and haven’t explored the whole of it yet. The links in the article below are giving me a lot of food for thought.
When Mandy Brown mentioned the novel I had just started to re-read–The Peripheral by William Gibson–I felt I was finally in the right reading group.
Though maybe only a parallel group to the one being written about, I still feel like this writer is reading stuff I’m reading, and thinking along the similar lines I’m thinking. I feel relationship for the first time in a long while.
Reading isn’t an escape—it’s a reckoning.
Rereading is training, practice for remaking and unmaking—and, yes, razing—the world. Rereading draws your best thoughts close, keeps them at the ready, prepares you to think thoughts with them, prepares you to act with them at hand. Your favorite reads are your armor and your weapons and your shelter all in one. What have you gathered about you? What has taken root in your mind? What thoughts are you thinking with?
… about half done. A zig zag shawlette based on two variations of the cellular stitch. (367, p67) I’ve so far found five ways of doing the eyelet stitch and all have different-looking fabric.
In this knit the two I’ve used result in a strong rib-like pattern on the front, and two brioche-style textures on the back. The book, see below, calls it the cellular stitch.
3 mm knitting needles or knitting pins if that’s what you’re used to.
Same yarn as before, equivalent in thickness to 4 ply, a 40% bamboo-derived viscose and 60% cotton, which is very comfortable to knit despite the problems identified in Mark 1.
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I’m still using Mon Tricot’s very elderly knitting dictionary with 900 stitches and patterns. English translation and adaption by Margaret Hamilton-Hunt, Published in France, 1971.
This for sale in the Oxfam shop in Adelaide … price hasn’t gone up much, whereas the copy on Etsy was $142.60!!! Guess that one was never used for its proper purpose.
Mine has the front cover being used as a bookmark.
But the first eyelet stitch I learned was well before 1972, probably round about 1962, knitting a little jumper for one of my sisters then aged about four …. “Wrap one to make one, purl two together” … Number 331 in the book on page 61.
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When my work (lol, in the present day) is sloping toward the right, all the action is on the back of the work. At the beginning of the row, knit two together purlwise, knit three plain, then wrap yarn to make one, and purl two together until the last four stitches, knit three plain and slip the last one purl-wise.
On the front of the work, make a stitch by purling first stitch and before pulling stitch from left needle, throw yarn back and finish with a plain stitch. There is probably a name for this process but I’ve never known it.
Though I discovered this way of increasing myself, I have no doubt that many other knitters also use it and that it has a name and set of instructions on how to achieve it.
Knit the rest of the line in plain, barring the last stitch which should be slipped purlwise.
Work as many rows as you have decided for your zig.
More to come on this as I haven’t even got you begun yet. Don’t despair.
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To begin, cast on three stitches. Knit eight rows always slipping the last stitch purl-wise, and doubling the stitch at the beginning of each row. You should have eleven stitches.
Now we start the pattern. Turn the first stitch into two using the same technique you’ve already been using, knit three stitches, *yarn over to make a stitch, knit two together purl-wise* repeat until last four stitches. Knit three, slip one purl-wise.
On the front side of the work, turn the first stitch into two, knit to the second last stitch and slip the last one purl-wise.
Proceed until you have a width that you like. From this point decide if you want a straight scarf or a zig zag.
If straight, continue increasing first stitch at front of work, and start decreasing at back of work—decrease by knitting first two stitches together purlwise which is easiest—every purl line.
I don’t like the yarn I’m using at the moment for a straight scarf. I like a more variegated colour-way. A straight scarf I’ll usually make longer than this zig zaggy one.
For the opposite of the zig—the zag— I need to knit to that place in my project before I can describe it.
Out of My Gord’s thoughts on news and where to get it chime pretty well with mine, though I’m still looking for a dependable Australian news outlet that doesn’t cost too much for a subscription. I’ve been making do with COSMOS Science magazine and The Fifth Estate Magazine for topics I’m interested in, but haven’t yet found a nutritional news feed.
The site as it stands. Work has begun on the canteen. Naturally there are some quibbles and quarrels.
Trish wants her cabin up asap.
Boz asks her where with his most irritating logic.
Tim wants to get on with it already.
Dan wants to go salvaging.
Drew stalks around looking inscrutable.
Nin Wizard is agitated and hops here and there with his teacup.
Nin’s younger brother and his crew have almost finished the Stone Dragon Teahouse with just the five of them … a fact Jed points out at least three times a day.
Rita de Heer 