Growing Doily

Still no resolution on the homeschooling issues, though at this point we're just rolling with it and hoping that it gets fixed sooner rather than later. My biggest concern right now is starting to be the catch up we'll need to do once it's all been fixed. It's going to be rough.

On the plus side the stress continues to fuel pretty much nonstop knotting. When my fingers are busy I can keep focused on just that and getting our work done, but not all the setbacks. The piece is at about 18cm across now. If things keep going at this pace, I should have this one finished by weeks end. I still have at least one more on my gift list to make, though that may turn into more as I got started early enough to do more if I need to. I'd love to be shifting gears to some tatting, but my shop is still pretty much a ghost town with only the occasional visitor. Everything has to start looking up sometime, right?

Argh

So I wrote the blog yesterday before I found out that the homeschooling glitch I referred to was much more robust than previously imagined. The day was a pain in the arse, at least for the oldest child. Unfortunately none of it has yet been resolved, thus today will likely be the same kind of pain, if not worse.

On the plus side my need for stress relief was so high that I knotted even during schooling. That resulted in quite a lot of progress for the most recent doily. Something about the stress is also pushing me to make more interesting choices with the design and I'm quite pleased with the way it's turning out. Too bad I can't fix everything with a nice piece of lace.

I imagine that I'll get more done today as well, since there's bound to be no resolution to our issues. Yes, I'm aware that I'm being super pessimistic. It's a gift. I'll still cross my fingers for things to work themselves out, but I have no illusions that it's likely.

Radial Symmetry

Well, here we are at the start of the homeschooling year. My free time will shrink to what I can accomplish outside of that much more important responsibility. This year is starting in somewhat of a rough patch as there's been some sort of glitch with the older daughter's account. The issue is supposedly being worked on, but in the meantime we have no class materials and I can tell you it's going to be a frustrating week as we try to work around that huge handicap. So I fear I shall be whining more than usual this week, my apologies in advance.

I did mange to start another gift doily. I've sorted out all the colors for each of the recipients and managed to actually find some proper thread in stock somewhere local. Of course I'm still playing the 'use a filter to obscure the color' game just to keep something a mystery. Good thing I have so many photo editing apps on my phone, huh?

I am still also working on the shawl, but I didn't get a picture of that. I'm also pretty distracted with all that stuff from the first paragraph, so here's hoping I manage some creative work this week at all. I'll likely really need the stress relief it brings. Pleasing radial symmetry bring me peace.

One More Done

For some reason I thought I was much further from done with the doily I was working on, but I managed to finish it up yesterday. Of course the photo is manipulated again to obscure the color since it's a gift for someone who might see it online and I want to keep at least some part of it a mystery.

Once this one was done and pressed, it hadn't been yet in the photo, I went back to the shawl. I didn't make enough progress on that piece to warrant a photograph though. I'll likely grab another ball of thread and start another gift doily soon. I sure hope the intended recipients are okay with these as gifts, because I appear to be going all in on them.

In other news, some of the pre-schooling year drama has been resolved, but there are still more issues that are clearly not going to be resolved in time for Monday's first day of school. I spent much of yesterday in a state of heightened anxiety and I imagine I'll be living there for the next week or two. I'm just one of those people who likes to be prepared and get started on things early. These delays and set backs are  seriously eating at me. At least I have knots to tie to try and keep myself distracted.  I fear it's going to continue to be rough beginning.

Fit For A Cat

If anything, my stress levels went up yesterday as the oldest child's teacher attempted and failed to resolve some of our issues. It's not really her fault, it's just time is short and I'm losing my ability to be patient with things like busy help lines. So instead I focused on knotting. I got the shawl experiment to about 14 inches. It's now big enough to be a cat shawl. No, the cat did not enjoy the modeling gig. I was starting to lose patience with the yarn about this point as well, so I switched back to the doily.

I cannot begin to explain how much nicer the thin thread is to work with especially after the stretchy yarn that snags on itself. The smaller piece also has the advantage of perfect density which allows no sliding of the knots. It was actually relaxing to go back to the doily for awhile, so I think switching back and forth between them is definitely the way to get them both done faster.

Today will likely bring more school stresses and hopefully more knots will be tied. I'm just hoping that I survive the next couple of weeks without day drinking, because it feels like that's a distinct possibility right now.