Tension Issues

The last few days have been hectic and things aren’t going to slow down soon. On Saturday the beau and I went to IKEA to buy this shelving unit.

Which is now my craft bookshelf. (The top shelf has books and magazines, second is two-thirds of the stash, third has some craft stuff and the adopted stash in the middle, and forth is for heavy stuff like the sewing machine, overlocker and such.)

We really shouldn’t have gone on a Saturday, but we both hate shopping at IKEA so much we kept putting it off until we couldn’t any more. I’d have bought one of the more expensive versions available at better quality furniture stores closer to home, that don’t aim to make your shopping experience as torturous as possible, but I’d planned a year and a half ago to buy two of these, and went ahead and bought one to use as clothing storage while we were lacking wardrobe space.

The rest of the weekend, plus Monday, were dedicated to moving my office/writing/craft/art stuff into my new workroom.

It’s still a bit of a mess, and there’s still more stuff to go in. I have more art stuff and a filing cabinet back at my old house, and I can tell you I’ve missed that filing cabinet a lot!

An unexpected bright side to a five-month house extention being over seven months late finishing (and counting) is that all this moving took place in the nice cool winter, rather than sweaty hot summer.

I’ve got a little bit of knitting done. I started the Glamour Vest, using my top-down conversion of the pattern I used for Violet Femme. Bendy Colonial for the body, then some black/green/silver handspun sample yarn I picked up at the Australian Country Spinners shop a few years ago for the collar. It’s the right balance of simple stocking stitch with a few interesting bits of shaping to qualify as stress-relief knitting.

And I’m needing stress-relief. I’ve been spending my nights lying awake constructing conversations with a long list of people, explaining to my UK editors how the House Extension From Hell has caused me to fall so far behind on my next book (meeting this Saturday), explaining to the architect and builder just how much I want to sue their sorry *rses, and explaining all sorts of things to the plumber, electrician, carpenter, etc. and finally – very bizzare – explaining to a literary snob at the writers retreat I’ll be staying at later this month that only the most deluded egotistic arrogant writer ever expects JK Rowling-style success, and since they probably are so sure of their perfection that they’d never believe their work might need polishing and reworking, it’s unlikely they’d be published in the first place.

Definitely a strange one, that. But it was the only conversation that was amusing to recall the next day.

My meeting with my editors is happening alongside a national science fiction convention over this long weekend. The beau and I will be catching up with interstate and international friends, some who will be staying with us. Then next week I’m off to Sydney (Tapestry Craft! Tapestry Craft!), and then the writers retreat in the Blue Mountains where I won’t have internet access (but I’m hoping to hang out with some knitters up there and check out the LYS). The upshot of all this is that I probably won’t be able to blog as much as I’d like. And I’m sure going to miss reading blogs!

But I promise to post lots of nice photos when I get back in July.

6 thoughts on “Tension Issues

  1. Wow – it looks so different! I hope you didn’t strain anything..
    Have finally entered Sonea’s world and am enthralled, can’t put it down. You are such a talented writer (Rowling shmowling…)

  2. Your workroom looks terrific!

    Hey, I live right near the Blue Mountains (well, a couple of hours away)! If you have the opportunity to catch up, drop me a line and I’ll come up for the weekend.

  3. Oh dear! I have creative room envy!

    I flew down from the Gold Coast to visit Tapestry Craft! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

  4. Hmm, you’ve gone away and I didn’t know! Visas are supposed to be through this week, which means so long, nice chatting with you!
    (and the workroom is ready at last too. Dangit!)

  5. Are you going to be up this way for the Mountains Guild meeting on the 16th? If so we’d love you to drop in. The following weekend is Winter Magic and that’s always fun. Hopefully we’ve had our crazy weather and it will be perfect for knitting, reading and drinking pure hot chocolate at;
    http://www.bluemountainschocolate.com.au/

  6. I won’t be in Katoomba until the 18th, but David has invited me to join you all for knitting at the Winter Festival… he just has to let me know where you’re meeting.

    So do I take it from your comment that it’s going to be at the chocolate shop? That would be fantastic. It’s so close to Varuna, too. And well, knitting and chocolate is good, knitting and hot chocolate is even better. (Knitting and alcoholic hot chocolate is pretty darn wonderful, too!)

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