Monday ambitions

Good morning!

I'm sailing through my first cup of coffee and feeling like nothing can stop me from accomplishing mountains of things between now and Wednesday morning.  Wish me luck!

First up:  fondling all the beautiful fleece and mohair we dyed last week.  Next:  block the five handspun shawls that were the result of my happy vacation, and the two Silk Garden shawls that have grown off my needles when I wasn't paying much attention.  Then...well...perhaps some time at the wheel and some more work on the newest shawl.  At this point in the morning the canvas of an entire day at home seems huge and promising.

Exciting news:  I've been holding off mentioning this, but I think at this point it's safe to spill the beans...

I was recently contacted by Brenda Dayne, owner and producer of the knitting pod cast Cast-On, which she broadcasts from her home in Wales.  She saw an article about Taos Sunflower and our new business model in the most recent edition of The Yarn Market News, our industry magazine.  We'll be discussing this change in business focus and parts of our conversations will be included in her next podcast (late April, I believe).  I'll keep you posted.  In the meantime, I'll try to keep busy today to keep the butterflies at low level, in anticipation of our phone call tomorrow morning.  It's so very exciting and such an honor!

I know I've spoken often of one of my favorite blogs, Dances With Wool.  This thoughtful and peaceful woman lives on the side of a lake in Finland, just north of the arctic circle.  (She recently had an article published in Piecework Magazine, perhaps you met her there.)  I found her blog a couple of years ago, by accident, when my eyes landed on a lace shawl she had knitted of her own hand spun yarn.  I fell in love with the peaceful way she writes, and her love of home, and her illustrations.

Early this year she posted that she was actually considering not continuing her blog.  I'm sure lots of us sent her so much support that she factored that into her decision to keep going, but in a less frequent manner...and more like a letter from someone far away.  I love it still.

This past week, I was checking in with her blog and found a posting that really hit me to the core:  "Do you ever wonder?"   Part way through this posting there is a paragraph where she discusses some ideas on creativity that came from a Finnish quilter.  It was about how perhaps we are not encouraged to be creative by encouraging us to follow patterns.  I know this is a provocative thought, and she took lots of heat for it, which you can read about in her follow up posting about taking criticism.  I'd be curious to know what you all think about this quilter's outlook, if you have the time to look up these posts.  I found it very close to home for me.  I have always been pretty good at my needlework projects, starting with learning to sew at age 10 and making all mine own clothes until about 15 years ago...but I always knew I was a good technician and not creative, in the sense that I could never let myself just take a pair of scissors to fabric and go off and have fun...instead, being held to a paper pattern.  The same has followed me through my embroidery, knitting and crocheting projects.  It just makes me crazy.

The knitting of my hand spun shawls these last weeks is part of coming out of that mode, I hope.  I am continually blown away by and filled with admiration for our customer friends who buy our yarns and take them to places I could never have imagined...leaving convention behind and just having fun.  As I was telling some friends yesterday...in my mind, I feel wildly creative.  It's just something that short circuits between my mind and my hands that I'm longing to fix.  I'd love to know how you feel about all this.  ---Martie