A philosophy I find worth embracing is that you need to remove the things in your life that are blocking you when you want to make room for new things to happen. And in the spirit of that, I've been working on a rather thorough spring cleaning of tools lately.
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I'm pleased to say the first three items went quickly at the Whidbey Spin-In, giving me the energy to return home and pull together the next 19. These are a significant step for me in reducing how much is around me, so I am free to focus on the weaving I love -- my rigid heddles, my mechanical-dobby equipped Baby Wolf, and my ever intriguing Bergman Counter-marche loom.
It's not always easy to decide what needs to go. Tapestry weaving, for example -- there is a lot I could do there, plenty of ideas that sprang to mind as I worked through a sampler and learned how to bubble and tie butterflies. But I know my heart is in functional cloth, for home textiles and clothing. So I use that knowledge of myself to create a space and a set of tools that enable it. The tapestry looms need to go to an artist making tapestries -- gorgeous works of art that enrich all of us with their vision.
And there are plenty of other spaces to tackle -- the bookshelves, the fiber cubbies, perhaps even the spindle racks (yikes! not those!) But I know, too, that focus comes in baby steps. Today was huge -- taking the pictures, researching second-hand pricing on the items, getting them posted on my website, ravelry, and weavolution. So now I will let myself enjoy the progress, not worry about the work remaining.
As Scarlett liked to say, "Tomorrow is another day!" and thank goodness for that.
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© April 5, 2011 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.com/blog
