bff and another item that will bore many of you

form vs. function © Raffaella Loro

I need to remind myself from time to time that most of my problems eventually work themselves out. Sometimes it may seem that things are spiralling out of control, but in a matter of weeks my situation may improve immensely. RIght now I'm in a particularly good place. I have a new job that keeps me busy and somehow I've scored a cubicle with a window and a view, allowing me to bask in sunlight all day long. Academically speaking, I've established some direction for the papers I'm writing and I actually feel engaged in the content. I've also finished seven Christmas presents and am in the process of making the eighth and ninth. In photographic terms, I've made some strides towards breaking out of this non-creative period. Over the weekend I was presented with a photoshoot challenge that I feel I successfully accomplished. My photographic subject is my new lady friend, with whom I have entered into an informal pact to provide with girly companionship (we've designated roles as each other's female bff), wearing matching outfits at the gym (yes, it's true... I'm going to attempt going to the gym, Edmonton has a brand new YMCA facility opening soon downtown) and quoting Arrested Development excessively. I think we're off to a good start.

Those close to me are well aware of my renewed interest in knitting. What started as a desperate attempt to keep my fingers warm in the Victoria rat house six years ago has blossomed into a full blown addiction. I suppose I could say that I'm a self-taught knitter, but that's not entirely true. My older and daintier sister showed me the basic art of yarning so many years ago, followed by a brief tutorial from my mother... but following these initial lessons I ventured off on my own. I might be so bold as to claim to have surpassed both mother and sister in the art of knitting, but only because I've knit more than either of them in the past few years (darling mummy probably hasn't really knit since I was still cute and cuddly and francine is too delicate to hold up the heavy knitting sticks for too long). Anyhow, the number of internet resources related to knitting has steadily increased over the years and now the interested knitter can not only find tutorials about various knitting techniques, but also find inspiration, free patterns and solidarity amongst the knitting kind. Recently, several of my knitting feeds have been referencing a site called ravelry... a social network of sorts for needlecrafters like me (and by needlecraft I'm refering to knitting and crochet). Ravelry is still in beta and you need to put your name on a waiting list in order to get an invite. It took a few weeks on the wait list before I was finally invited last Thursday. Some of you will understand what it was like to receive that email invite (sort of like being one of the first of your friends to get a coveted gmail account). Although it was one o'clock in the morning I immediately accepted the invite and set about creating my profile, adding finished projects, WIPs, and adding yarn to my virtual stash. There is quite a community on ravelry already, and thousands of patterns and projects that you can view. For me, it's an easy way to keep track of the various projects I'm working on or have completed. I haven't been very diligent about writing down the type of yarn or needle size that I've used for things that I've knit in the past, and often I have to rack my brain for any of the modifications I've made to various patterns. Now I've got a place to keep all of this information, AND it's integrated with flickr, so I can cross reference all of this data with photographs that I've taken. That's enough nerdly raving from me though. If you're a knitter I recommend that you check out ravelry, tis a nice little site that filled a much needed void in helping to sort all of the info that is available on the web. Oh, and if anyone in Edmonton wants to meet downtown and perform dark domestic arts in public at a bar/pub/club/coffee shop once in awhile let me know. I know of a knitting group that meets at a coffee shop across the High Level Bridge but I don't really fit in with the age demographic, plus it's a cold, dark walk across the High Level during the winter. I'm sure there are some youngish hipsters that I know who might be up for a twice monthly meetup or something like that. We can meet and discuss the revolution like Madame Defarge.