The Beast lives

I know I complained about it a lot, but once I finished Mum’s blanket I’ve been left a little bit lost.

I officially have no projects I have to work on. Most of the year I’ve been doing something with a purpose. For most of the year it was doing pieces for the Embroidering the Truth exhibition, then Christmas things took over. Apart from the blanket I made for myself, it’s all been given away or sold.

When the blanket was finished this hit me like a ton of bricks. What the hell was I going to do?

Then The Beast piped up.

“What about me?! I’m here! Work on me! Work on me!”

I did try to be calm about it and spread out the work, taking my time over it and making it last, but The Beast took over and made me furiously crochet every spare minute I had until eventually I decreed him finished. Technically I could go on making him forever (and believe me The Beast tried to make me do that) but I’m happy enough with its length. I don’t want something getting in the way all the time and it’s long enough to wrap all the way round and still have dangling room so it’s good for me.

Having initially despaired at the vastness of his width I have come to the conclusion that The Beast knew what it was doing all along. You see it knew that the one thing that is really getting to me in this crazy cold weather is my poor little nose which ends up bright red after the walk into work and infuriatingly stays that way for most of the day. My current scarf, whilst lovely, is not wide enough to tuck my whole face into unless I hunch my shoulders all the way up and that, quite frankly is painful.

The Beast however is so wide, my nose has no choice but to get buried in its colourful depths and my face is very thankful for that.
I have acknowledged and accepted the fact The Beast is not perfect in every way and I rejoice in his scrappiness. After all, Beasts are rarely neat and tidy are they? They are wild and woolly, words which very accurately describe this Beast of mine. Sometimes I just find myself staring at him with pure admiration and marvelling at all the colours.

The Beast sitting on my desk at work. With inflatable Christmas Tree in background. That was The Beast’s cup of tea.

That’s the other thing The Beast has helped me with. It’s made me a lot less afraid of colour. I have a bit of a problem when it comes to adding colours together with gay abandon, everything I’ve made so far, whilst a lot of it has been colourful, it’s also been ordered. When making the squares for my first blanket I tried to just randomly throw colours together but just couldn’t do it and stuck to lining them up neatly and using them in order. When The Inner Beast took control of things I succumbed to not making a scarf which went red, blue, yellow, green, pink, red, blue, yellow, green, pink, red, blue etc but a scarf that went red, blue, yellow, green, pink, blue, green, pink, red. This is a step forward for someone who is as obsessed with order as I am.

The Beast might just be my favourite Christmas present this year.
 
Love you Beast!