I’ve been busy since getting back from Chicago. The woven scarf has not been done because just as I was about to warp the loom, a friend said, “why don’t you knit it this way?” It was such a good idea that I stopped to think about it and it has not had any forward momentum since.
In the meantime, I have worked on my puppets – details in the Knit Puppets and More blog – http://www.knitpuppets.wordpress.com. And, I have finally gotten back to my spinning wheel. Gale Evans – http://www.galesart.blogspot.com – gave me some beautiful silk roving she had dyed to spin and that is what is on the wheel now. I have so many spinning projects to do that my wheel should keep me busy for awhile.
UFOs: YIKES! I have been organizing – yes, still – my studio and have found about a bazillion UFOs! These are now being placed in specially designated tubs so I can work through them methodically. I made myself stop and think why each of them is still a UFO. I found some that simply got put aside when a more pressing project came to the fore. The ones that bother me, though, are the ones that got side-tracked because I showed the project to someone who said something like: “If I were doing it, I wouldn’t use that yarn-stitch-needle size – whatever.” or “Instead of doing it that way, why not do it like this?” And then the project stopped, not because I was thinking how to incorporate the suggestions into my piece, but because I lost confidence in my original idea, even though I thought it was a good one. I didn’t want to continue with MY idea, because I thought it might offend the suggestor. Okay, I need to get over myself! If I have an idea I think is good, I need to simply say, “Thank you for sharing” to the other person and carry on doing what I was doing to begin with. Sometimes people have good suggestions, but sometimes it is not what I want. So now there is another decision: do I not show my projects to anyone until they are finished or do I learn to say “thanks for sharing”. Or both. I think I need to get a thicker skin and stop worrying about others if I think my idea is a good one to begin with. Easier said than done.
In the meantime, I will continue chipping away at my UFO pile. Do y’all have this big of a UFO pile? I mean, seriously, there have to be more than 20 UFOs I have found “so far”. Let me know how big your UFO pile is.
joyknits said,
September 2, 2008 at 6:10 pm
*MY* suggestion
would be to thank whomever, then go ahead with your idea, unless any of the suggestions actually work for you. To quote EZ, “you’re in control of your knitting” – hang in there!
As to UFO’s I’m not sure I even want to know …
margaretsyarns said,
September 2, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Thanks, Joy! It is funny that I am constantly telling my knitting students, “YOU are in control!”, but when it comes to myself, I forget!
Continuing on with the studio organizing and anxiously anticipating more UFOs jumping out at me!
Janet Yost said,
September 19, 2008 at 6:22 pm
M,
I have to wonder how many times you would have liked to tell me “thank you for sharing”!
J
margaretsyarns said,
September 19, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Trust me, Janet, you are not on my “thank you for sharing list”. You are SOOO creative and always have great ideas! Keep ‘em comin’!
Suzanne Deal-Fitzgerald said,
November 2, 2008 at 10:58 pm
oh, man, it must have been me! I think I remember saying it too.
But then you thanked me, and if figured you’d do it your way anyway! So…have you done it yet?