I refuse to work today

I decided to take the day off because I'm a student and I can. University doesn't start for another week. It was raining. It took a crafty turn -

For starters, I did some work on my cardigan:

All sense of scale in the picture is thrown by the fact that the ball of yarn is roughly the size of my head. It came bunched up in a skein so I spent an evening making a giant ball of wool. It was strangely therapeutic. I've never made a cardigan before, so I have no idea if it'll work or not. I hope so.

I sat down and sketched for a few hours - I've been trying to come up with something to go with this line of Alcman ('I know the songs of all the birds') but it didn't get very far. I like drawing trees more than I like drawing birds.. so I guess it's Daphne? I'm not sure where I'm going with this.

When I stepped out of my room for more coffee I discovered a mystery package on the threshold. It turned out to be an eBay impulse-buy (four balls of cotton yarn). After deliberation I decided to make some fingerless gloves. Since the gauge seemed to be fine with the pattern, I starting trying to think of classical modifications. Cue: messing around in excel.

Result: one small (but very fiddly) swatch. I like the key pattern - but I think I want a more traditional Norwegian-style design. I'll keep thinking.

Swatch abandoned, I called my Dad to wish him a happy birthday. Before long he brought up 'the painting', which is a kind of recurrent argument between us. He saw a half-finished picture of my sister in my room and he's been trying to convince me to give it to him ever since. He came to visit the other day and all but walked out with it under his arm. He claimed I'd never finish it, so I promised to complete it and send it to my sister for her third birthday (9th March). Slightly indignant, I got out my oil paints and set up in the living room. Since I hadn't done anything to it since September, I just reworked some flat areas with layers of colour to get the paint malleable. I went over the nose and mouth, but only to lighten bits here and smooth things up there. I've never had any training with paints (this is my first oil painting) so I'm probably way out technique-wise, but it's fun. Just infuriatingly slow, and my flatmate gets annoyed when I leave paints in the communal space. Or maybe it's the white spirit she objects to.

This is its current condition. I have doubts about whether I'll finish it in time, but we'll have to see. I think the eyebrows are my favourite part.

I feel better for a day off.