Tag: creativity

Random rants (with yarn)

PiaChit Chat

Still feeling a bit slow and tired here, I know it keeps cycling round like this, I just never cease to be baffled over it anyway. 😉 But I’ve managed to dye a little random hank of yarn now and again, all of which I’ll tell you about later, but for now I’ll just show them.

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I’ve never actually tested whether uninterrupted quiet, a stressfree environment etc. would break the cycle if it went on long enough, life keeps interfering. I’m working hard on avoiding the guilt trips that others try to send me on, but there are still “duties” as well as “things that just need to get done”.

And of course taking every 3-4 weeks out of the calendar for migraine, nausea, severe pains and my thinking patterns completely distorted. Oh, dear perimenopause how we do not love you. And then the catching up of everything afterwards. One of the reasons I managed to get a lot done this summer is the one time I had a whopping 6 week break, yay! I’m still waiting for the progesterone cream and agnus castus drops to really really kick in noticably enough for me to continue. I’m thinking of looking into some kind of detox of “heavy metals” (no, I don’t mean Def Leppard) and such, but I know that won’t necessarily make me feel better in the short run…

garn3

So during the meanwhile, my brain feels as chirpy as ever, throwing a multitude of project suggestions my way daily, happily rattling on about yarn and paints and studio designing and on and on and on. It’s been a while since I updated my idea book, I better get up to speed and organize it, perhaps try the bullet journal system? (I already do/did something similar, but not that organized – and now of course I’ve already made up some additions/improvements for it…) I’m very happy that this IS HAPPENING to me, that my appetite for creating doesn’t go away almost ever, no matter how bad I feel. All I have to do is decide on a project waiting, pick it up and go. What’s missing in this equation of course is the physical drive to match the internal.

I’m also determined to learn to do one thing at a time, even if it means finishing some of the tedious practical tasks that go before or after the creating. I feel it’s essential to not getting sucked into the stress vortex again. Every time I feel well I can sense myself picking up speed automatically, it’s like a fast horse, if you just let it go, you may pass the point of control where no brakes apply, so you need to keep contact on the bit, rein in just a little bit regularly to remind it that someone is on top or you’ll crash. I’ve tried it – both metaphorically and with an actual horse, so I’m not making this up. 😉

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It’s funny though how the monkey mind works. When I was in the shower earlier, I thought this post was going to be sligtly different, but dressing, letting the horses out to grass, walking the dog (ah, another sunny warm day after 3 rainystormy ones!) and back here something else comes out of my keyboard. G says I ought to have a taperecorder taped to my arm 24/7. But then, when do I actually listen to it to cull out the useful bits? No, I guess important stuff will float by again sometime. Or not. Perhaps it will flow to someone more prepared in the moment, LOL.

I’ve been pondering the subject of thought patterns as habits and how much that influences us. I may go more into detail at a later date, but it’s been an interesting journey. Not just reprogramming and weeding out of thought forms but also reliving briefly things long forgotten, react to them perhaps for the first time ever and then letting go. I don’t get to choose them, they just emerge and I try to go with the flow rather than fight them, which is also relatively new to me. “Ok, so today I’m bawling my eyes out over something that happened when I was 7, and it feels like I’m going to feel this forever but I know that I’ll probably not.”

Changing thought habits is a really tough job, and I’m not working on it all the time. It’s one of those things that run in a spiral, you go on and on and nothing much appears to happen, until suddenly you find that you’ve circled around and actually ended up at the same spot, but a step higher. And looking down on the previous contact point you see an amazing difference. Pretty cool is what I think. It’s when we believe we should be able to make instant transitions once we make a logical decision, that everything seems to lock up. It’s also one of the best ways to become exhausted!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow0lr63y4Mw]

And now my headache says to give it a break. I guess I’m either cycling round again or my new meditation cd is doing some weird sh*t. Only time will tell. I guess I’ll go sweep the floor and sort the dog nest rumpled sofa covers. Naps don’t help with this thing unfortunately. I may have one anyway, I tend to forget when I’m busy.

Whaddaya know, I wrote all this on Tuesday and then got interrupted by, tada! a gallstone attack, before I could take proper pix. I’ve been having a bit of pain all summer (or longer? I don’t recall) like a belt under my ribs but I didn’t think it was anything serious. Going in for a scan this morning, that means no coffee, no breakfast!

When and whether anybody is going to do something about it remains to be seen…

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Fake it till you make it

PiaChit Chat

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Now that nature is ever so slowly making a transition towards autumn – I can’t believe I’m saying slowly, the summer has gone by like a Formula 1 – I find myself getting ready to change my activities too. I’ve been doing a lot more with the garden this year and some clearing away of stuff from the barn and yard; this has basically set back all of my creative pursuits, in fact I didn’t even get started on the ponies yet either (They’ve been on a very long break while I was on sick leave for over a year).

Of course I’ve been plant dyeing all summer, but I see that as a different kind of creative, more like a science project. While I think I would have done quite well in research of some other type (except it didn’t occur to me* until recently, so that’s another botched career 😉 ), I do get fed up with the chemistry bit. I still have stuff I want to do, some is urgent before my woad, weld and indigo get too cold, but it’s not my main focus anymore. No, I am of course talking about all the artsy fartsy craft stuff.

The problem for me is always getting back after a break. I get all restless and frustrated, so angry I could spit, even, that I don’t have time and people are bothering me and if only I lived on a deserted island I could finally get down to creating masterpieces 12 hours a day. What happens if I do get a week on my own? I get headaches or cramps. I zone out and click the interwebs. I get really tired and take naps. I daydream, I read books. Go pull a few thistles. Have coffee to wake up and start up Photoshop and Writer and pull out my inspiration folder and then go click blogs and Ravelry until I’m ready for another nap. I’ve been talking about procrastination several times and after a break it always hits me bad.

It’s not that I haven’t got any ideas I could work on, I just seem to think that – I don’t know what I’m thinking actually, everything just feels sluggish and outside of my grasp somehow. I mentioned 2 months ago about doing chores first and then being too tired for the fun bits, well, that still applies. Except now I seem to be slowing down on both counts. I must be needing a break and I suppose I ought to listen….

So, during the meanwhile, I’d like to figure out what to do to get on another roll. I don’t care if it happens to be spinning, weaving, painting (which I’m leaning towards) or writing, I just want to get cracking. I’ve done all the things I’ve previously suggested, so I need a new trick.

Some people say you should simply pretend to be making art until you are. Or pretend to be some person you admire and then go do what you imagine that person would do. I’m not much of an actress, I can’t even lie properly, but I suppose as long as I’m only imposting in my own head it’ll be alright. Right? (I can’t stand fake happy and chirpy; I’m not grumpy, just not very exalted most of the time) But you know, whenever I do get out my paints and just do something without being “there”, nothing interesting ever happens. I don’t suddenly fall into the flow, from pretending to create to actually doing it, I really do feel like I’m just faking, doing uninspired and completely useless exercises, and by the way the laundry needs to be put out to dry.

Apparently I can’t even fake something properly! And then we all know the next step, don’t we. “It’s no use, it’s not like I’ll ever develop any talent in my lifetime anyway”. “Needing space and quiet before I can create is just an excuse to hide that I can’t do it at all”. “It probably isn’t what I’m meant to be doing”. “Wasting my time, wasting my life”. – “Hey, wait a minute, that’s not the story I wanted to fake!”

Does faking really work for the larger multitude, ie do I just suck at it, or is it simply that pep-talks don’t work for more than 5 minutes on average? Faking is supposed to work without believing I think, which is good, because I suck at faith too. Otoh I have no trouble believing all the dark secrets about myself, the uselessness, unworthiness, ugliness etc. I know I’m not the only one, I just think it’s amazingly impractical that we should be hardwired to support all the negative stuff like that.

My intuition is telling me NOTHING of where I should be going right now. But staying put also doesn’t feel very fantastic. So I keep pushing even though I can tell I’m not doing it the right way. Maybe life’s simply not meant to be fantastic… But I’m not sure I can put up with that for very long. That would in fact, be faking it bigtime, and we already established that I suck at that.

Ok, I’m not even sure where I’m going with this piece. I’ll just press the button and move on now. Have a great weekend all! I’ll either be hauling straw bales or visiting a sheep market.

* strangely enough, since I’ve always been the one to bury myself in piles of books in a quiet corner, taking notes and attempting to suck up any and all data of my chosen subject. Some of my friends even complain that they can’t ask me a simple question on horsefeed for example, because I give them a whole lecture where they just wanted a name. Yes, I would have made an excellent geek, I even have the dress sense to match!

No tour

PiaAcid Dyeing

I’m not doing Tour de Fleece, in fact I haven’t been spinning at all lately. I do have a few yarny things going on though. Working on little things, a bit at a time, since my good days are still spent in the garden mostly, and then I have days where I can barely keep my eyes open. Hexagons are excellent projects for such days, takes no time to knit up 3 g/ 7 m of yarn, but you still feel like you’ve made something.

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The Sunday batch

Dyed a few more micro skeins for the hexiflats and knit up the ones I showed on Sunday. Some of the solids I didn’t like because I used too much dye, so I’ll reknit combining them with other colours and scraps. Even if it’s a random, messy blanket I do want to like each piece that I put into it! I’ve figured that for starters I’ll need something like 250, but then I’ve only done the sum in my head and I really suck at that. It’s going to be roundish/hexagonish in shape or something along those lines.

I couldn’t find my dye notes, so I just played around (again), aiming for a summer flowers vs. beach ball look. Ok, I made that up after I saw the skeins… I also did a few “ok, if 4 sections look like this on a 1 meter skein when knit up, what do 4 sections on a half meter skein look like knit up?” Perhaps I’ll even document the result for later use. Some of them were supposed to be more defined, but the colours bled and blended. Oh well…

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And then I had leftover blue, so I thought I’d start a sky/cloud series for later use in various combinations. All sorts of possible scenarios there, morning skies, winter skyes, rainy skies, storm, sunset…

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There’s cobalt, ultramarine and teal in this collection, but microcamera can’t see the difference.

I also restarted knitting the lace scarf for my mum – and since I need the leftover yarn for something else I really should get it done, so I know HOW much I’ll have left. I cast on in December, then husband had vacation and could not stop talking while I was counting and I simply didn’t get back to it…. I don’t really wear this type of thing myself, but she’s much more ladylike.

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I’ve been dyeing cotton yarn and worked a bit with madder – more about that in a later post.

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I also do have some spinning planned, but some blending needs to be done first. This is an old project, and I know I need to make certain yarns together, I just don’t know what they’re for.

red indigo silk2 silk1 blue purple

I just borrowed Spin Art by Jacey Boggs, lovely book, pretty photos and very simple, clear instructions for making the basic art yarn techniques, in fact you feel like you’re quite able just reading it! So inspired by that as well as the Spinner’s Book of Yarn Designs by Sarah Anderson which I received some time ago, that may well be my next project once I get this one done. I’d love to make some projects with really textured yarn blended in I think.

And last but not least, I’m making a couple of tapestry looms a bit larger than the small sample frame I did. I seem to be coming up with too many ideas that contain blue and I don’t HAVE any blue yarn just now, not plant dyed, nor commercial (Which is odd since I love blue. And green. And, well, all the others of course). It’s a good thing tapestries take something like forever to make, because I can’t afford yarn to make that many! I keep falling in love with different colour combos and getting ideas for using them. Yes, I should paint more, much faster. Water colour sketches would be great, but that means I’ll have to buy watercolours!!! LOL It just never ends, does it.

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Procrastination project progress

PiaChit Chat
skovtur
Photography seems to be the main thing these days.

Time for another ramble! Must be either the humidity or hormones, LOL.

I was hoping that my new resolve about knitting would help me also generally get better at not having to do all the things all the time. Seeing it as having various picture making options in my toolbox, and instead work project oriented using whichever media each project requires. And I must say, it’s going pretty well. I don’t freak out if I haven’t painted for a month, I just follow the flow. In fact lately the flow has been getting the garden organized again now that we finally have a small pocket of nice weather.

Now, when I said I would work project oriented to free some time and calm the monkey mind, I didn’t mention the ginormous list of projects that I have of course. But you already knew that, if you know me just a little bit. 😉 I write down all my ideas, but I’m actually ok letting many of them hibernate or even just stay on the list. I feel that by aknowledging an inspiration that way I have already done part of the job, I’m saying yes to the ideas and in that manner inviting more to come.

Trying out an idea in Photoshop before ruining the canvas...
Trying out an idea in Photoshop before ruining the canvas…

Then the other day I had a really crazy-clever idea. I’ve often been joking that what I’d really like to do is just have ideas, design and plan stuff. Then I’d have staff to handle the actual production so that I could be free to attend to more ideas…. So, what is the low-grade version of this scenario? Well, since I’m basically tired a lot, and sometimes even more when it comes to actually digging into my creative projects after some time away from them, what if I simply left it at that? Sitting around getting a multitude of exciting ideas, do the colour samples, the sketches, the fantasies in particular – and just kept doing that bit and not bother produce them? I’d have SO much money available instead of buying wool and paints and I can do it while trimming the hedges… And maybe then I wouldn’t spend half the day clicking the interwebs because I’m too scared to start painting the idea I had last night after bedtime (very convenient to have them at that time, you can just pretend you’re sorry it’s too late).

It wouldn’t actually work of course, because I do like making things. And when I do get stuck, perhaps I should try to simply write down brain chatter as it happens, bringing the dialogue out instead of repeating it inside. Have a little discussion conversation with inner critic, the over-achiever and their little friends lazy-bones, obstinate and pitiful. I don’t know if they’d like to come outside like that, but it’s worth a shot. I wonder which one of them came up with the idea of only making brain art?

innerpeopleSo, am I still procrastinating my way through tasks, more, less, not at all, and how about energy levels? There’s room for improvement. And that’s mostly the voice of ms. perfectionist. If you ask me, I’m definitely on my way and the pace is just fine. The worst moments are, like I said, transitions between one type of activity and the next. I’ve never been very good at taking half an hour in between (or even a day) to be creative, if I start my day like that I know I won’t be able to stop, so lately I’ve been doing the chores that need doing first. And then I’m usually a zombie around 3 pm already and not in the mood. Once I get past the early summer hump of de-jungle-fying the property, I expect I can reverse the priorities again and save housework for last.

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Kale

The 3 pm slump is the worst when it comes to making excuses, but for now I think I’ll just have to accept it unless I want all-day slumps again. Or all-week slumps. At least I’m getting pretty good at keeping myself in motion, even if it’s just remembering to water things in my greenhouse and brushing the dog. It’s still a kind of evasion from doing arts and crafts, but at least I don’t just sit and click. So it does seem to be working, I mean, things get done and I hardly have any lists. I rarely feel stressed and busy, I just potter about. And, well, I do have days when I can’t get my A into G no matter how many times I get up and start doing one little thing. But they’re fewer and I try to not feel overly guilty about it. This is where the small camera comes in, it’s hardly a chore to just walk around and click aimlessly.

The one thing system – no todo lists

wips

What else have I been doing to beat procrastination?

Well, my interlibrary reservation list is down to 1! book and I’m not going to add more for a while no matter how tempting.

I practise finishing old wips to declutter both mind and house. Working on my featherweight cardigan and the pin cushions right now (ok, I had an excuse for the latter, I needed appropriate filling)

I do things that I know I can do – such as building tapestry looms. I have various simple designs that I want to try out. Got a few supplies, now I’m just waiting for someone to help me lift wood from the garage rafters 3 m up.

From watercolour to tapestry

PiaLinks

And THIS guy, is just friggin awesome:

http://www.worldofthreadsfestival.com/artist_interviews/083_maximo_laura_12.html

I’m getting so many ideas to try out that I never got with knitting, that I think I’m heading in the right direction, and it works so well with other picture making crafts, they kinda weave (haha) together for me. And as I mentioned before, this will make my spinning more fun and less production oriented, since I probably won’t be spinning all my weaving yarns just now, just dyeing them. Win/win on time as well as pleasure.

In fact I’m already in the process of making a small frame loom to make (up to) 15×15 cm test samples of warp spacing/yarn type vs. yarn thickness of the weft as well as samples of various techniques. I figure that should keep me occupied for a while.  And that’s what happens when you spend a Sunday indoors watching youtube because all the farmers decide it’s a good day to spread liquid pig manure on the fields. Gag. Not just a whif on the air this time, but massive sensory overload. I’ll probably have to rewash the laundry on the line…

And something a little different (because I wanted to save the link and my bookmarks are out of control)

http://annakubinyi.blogspot.dk/p/muterem.html