Kids with Cameras

We watched Born Into Brothels tonight - an interesting film. If you didn't hear about it on NPR (a photographer went to live in the red light district of Calcutta to take pictures there and ended up teaching the kids photography and worked on getting them into schools and some hope for a future.) the web site is kids-with-cameras.org An interesting movie - starts out sad ends up with sort of a mixed bag of hopefulness. Not so good for knitting as it is very visual and mostly subtitled.

Also had a crafting epiphany. I think I'm happier when I'm winging it. The projects that I'm drawn to are only loosely based on a pattern. I don't like reading directions - I have trouble visualizing the stuff ahead of time. I don't like the feeling of having a "right way" to do things and only really use directions as a guideline or formula. I don't have the attention span (or time or organizational skills?) for fussy things that only look right if you can keep track of where you are. I need to be able to see or feel what the next row should be, not by using row counts or sticky notes - I lose track of them both too easily. I have three perfectly good projects on the needles at home, fairly straightforward things that I want to get done, but the one I'm excited about? The felted bag that I started last night and am winging. So far, it starts with 8sts cast on and knit in one round in the style of an i-cord, putting onto 4 needles as you knit the round. Put a stitch marker in between the stitches on each dpn. alternating one round of stockinette with one round of kfb on the stitch before and after each marker to make a square bottom for the bag. Once it's big enough, I figure out a chevron pattern for the sides.

I guess this epiphany makes perfect sense when I examine the other parts of my life - my favorite part of my job is when I'm coming up with solutions. And my approach to naviagion (much to my husband's chagrin) is to go get a map online, look at it, study the surrounding roads and then leave it at home. I might need to get more Elizabeth Zimmerman books.