Once in a Minute, Twice in a Moment

I appear in the Dome of Rome,
once in a minute, twice in a moment,
but never in a second. -- Unknown

That quote above is a riddle my dad told me as a kid. See if you can figure it out. I'll give you a hint: it doesn't have anything to do with time.

But...

Time. I've got it. Time to heal, time to rest, and time to... well, do stuff. And yet... and yet...

I can't seem to get anything finished.

Perhaps it's because I've broken my normal monogamous-project rule. Having two going on at once feels like being pulled in two directions: wool project on one side, cotton project on the other. Plants vs. sheep. Epic.

Perhaps what is exacerbating the problem is that I am constantly distracted by all the stuff that I've been "saving for later." Like this blog, for example. I sat up until midnight last night fiddling with the colours and changing the font on the header. I went to bed feeling pretty sure I didn't like it, and I lay in bed plotting how I was going to take a bunch of new photos for the header image, trying to figure out angles, lighting, even what I was going to wear.

When I awoke this morning, I looked at the blog and decided it was ok. I think I like it... for now... I mean, I've got time, after all.

In the meantime, I'm slogging away at the cover project of my Japanese Crochet Book. It's been a good way for me to learn how to do padded motifs. Motifs are the fancy little pieces that make up crochet projects. Padded motifs have extra thread at the core to make them thicker and more robust. I finished the motifs for this project earlier this week.

After joining the motifs together, I decided to block them a bit. My tension is a little screwy, since I've never done this kind of crochet before, some of the edges were curling with all the extra nervous energy in each stitch. My hook, it is powerful...

And yeah, I bet you can totally see where I mixed up the placement of two of those flowers. Double-lobed flower were single lobed flower should be, as obvious as neon legwarmers on an elephant... to me, anyway. I shan't dwell on it. Those babies are joined, and, extra time or not, I'm not redoing them!

So, I'm now working on the main body of the scarf. The picot stitch of this scarf is actually what made me want to buy the book: such a nice stitch. It's interesting to see it in a thicker yarn, even if it seems like it's taking FOREVER:

But maybe it's taking FOREVER because, as I said earlier, I am easily distracted these days. I stopped this afternoon to make a couple of cakes, because... well, why not? I've got time.

And yes, we sampled them, as evidenced by the uneven edges. The cake on the left is a Lemon Poppy Seed Cake from AllRecipes, and the one on the right is Smitten Kitchen's Everyday Chocolate Cake, which is a perfect name for a cake if I ever saw one:

So, tonight, I'll be working on my evening project: an experiment with some of my hand dyed sock yarn. This is supposed to be a top. I'm really not sure I've got the stitch count right. It could be too big, too wide, too short. It might have long sleeves. I might make it with a loose fit. I'm not sure how it'll go, but we'll see. If you've got time, you can come back and see how it turns out...

I'll check my calendar and see if I can meet you then. I'll get back to you, ok? Oh, and if you figured out the riddle, let me know!