No Luck

Still haven't been able to load pictures onto Blogspot from my desktop.  I got a message a couple of days ago saying that it was now a simple matter of dragging and dropping the selected image.  But it doesn't work for me.  Neither does the old way of selecting the image and clicking on the button on the drop down screen.  It looks like, if I want to load pictures, I will have to do it on my iPad and the app.

The guild sale went fairly well.  I have a couple more people who need to connect with me and then I will sort out the 'discontinued' stock, divvy it up between three 'worthy' causes, and deliver this week so that people in need will at least have a scarf to put round their necks.  Even though the weather has been far too warm for December, that is sure to change at some point.

I was quite amazed at how much knitting I got done this year.  I guess I got a lot more knitting done during recovery, before I could start weaving, than I realized.

So far I've put two loads of scarves through the washer and dryer of knitted scarves, and there will likely be some woven items as well, once I've sorted through the inventory.

There is still a stack of handspun wool scarves that I knitted that need to be wet finished, but they aren't needed until January when they will go to the Cold Snap Music Festival.  However, I'm trying to clear some long neglected tasks off my to-do list, so while I'm in the mood for wet finishing, I thought I would do everything that I could.

There are still a few more things that need to get done and my focus tomorrow will be to deal with them.  The time for procrastination is over.  I need to clear my desk (as best I am able!) and then clear my mind so I can begin writing.

In terms of weaving, I have 8 rayon chenille warps ready to be woven, an order of place mats on the small loom, ready to weave, and one shawl woven on the big loom.  Only 11 more to do.  My fringe twisting elf has finished all the shawls she had and is waiting for more.  I will have to find my 'round tuit' and get cracking!

Currently reading North of Normal by Cea Sunrise Person

The Goal

There is a bit of a hokey tv show I got hooked on during convalescence for my broken ankle called Canada's Worst Driver.

One of the 'isms' they are constantly telling the bad drivers is to "look where you want to go".

It's a good thing to remember for life in general.

Having successfully navigated the show schedule, I am now facing the deadlines for the next 7 months.  In order to not feel overwhelmed, especially when I'm so very tired, I decided that I really need to just focus on the next deadline and not worry too much about what comes next.

I am well aware of what is coming up - in many cases all too quickly - but if I'm going to continue to successfully navigate the shoals of my upcoming calendar, I need to not panic about the things that are in the distance but to stay in the present.  Stay in the 'now'.  Stay focused on the next deadline.

The weather forecast for tomorrow looks good so we will head south, with a couple of stops along the way.  We'll stay overnight, then finish the trip Wednesday morning, tackling Seattle traffic during daylight..

We have dust masks, 'rubber' gloves, changes of clothing, an order of boxes awaiting us and taping gun.  We have a place to store some of the yarn since we will not be able to bring everything back in one trip.  I have a couple names of people 'local' who I will contact to see about the yarn I can't bring back.  We have an open ended trip planned because we truly don't know what awaits us.

Once I get home I'll swing into gear on the next job in the queue.  Until then, I'm not going to think about that long line of hurdles - too much.  It's elephant eating time - one bite, one bite, one bite....

Dis/Organization

one corner of my storeroom....


I confess - I'm a packrat. My DH is even worse. Therefore it is fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on your preference) that my tolerance for clutter is rather high.

But face it - in order to put things away, there must be a place to put them! And when your stuff outnumbers the places to put them there isn't much option left but to put the stuff in boxes and stack the boxes where ever there is room to stack them.

Which is one reason why I'm determined to use up some of my stash. No stash, nothing to put away..........

So it is that I am digging into the box in the foreground with the bit of white showing. This is the box with the painted soy protein and Tencel warps that I have been steadily picking away at for - oh it seems like months! In fact it probably has been months. :} And it will be some months yet because there are 12 more painted warps in that box, each warp producing 4 scarves. At a week (average) per warp, that's another 3 months before I'm done. Not counting the time I'll be away beginning in September.......

And then you see the box behind that one? The one piled high with more warps? Yup - another box full of painted warps destined to be shawls.

The shelves above the boxes are filled with mostly wool that I use in workshops. It's not enough I have my production stash, I also have my workshop stash. The yarns that I send out for the various topics I teach. And then of course there's my re-sale stash.

Then there are the binders full of handouts and bins of teaching samples to store somewhere.

Last but not least there are the drawers full of paperwork necessary to run a business. Not to mention various and sundry parts and pieces of booth apparatus for doing shows, a box or two of loom parts I daren't get rid of in case they are needed late some night for emergency repairs, tools, and accessories required for the weaving process etc.

Is it any wonder I close my eyes to the mess most times and call it 'creative chaos'?

Little Pockets

One of the challenges in getting my studio organized was trying to figure out what to do with all the little stuff that one uses on a daily/weekly basis. One wants it close to hand, but out of the way.

A friend gave me this shoe storage bag for Christmas one year. It's been great for storing those every day things, and some of the weird stuff that I don't know where to put but need to put 'away' somewhere.

As you can see, I could use a dozen more pockets, but so far I've been living with the vertical clutter in preference to the horizontal clutter these items would create on my work space. :)

You can also see my other secret weapon in terms of organization. Post-It Notes. Lots and lots of Post-It Notes. In many colours and shapes. Sometimes I use the colours for different tasks. Sometimes I just grab the first pad of them that comes to hand!

I write down scratch notes for warps - Length, Width, EPI - and toss them into the box with the wound warp so I don't forget what I did. Sometimes a wound warp will languish for months (nay, years!) before I finally get to weaving it. :( Sometimes what seemed like A Good Idea At The Time doesn't seem like such a great idea later, so that box may get shoved onto a shelf somewhere until I can come up with A Better Idea. :}

Progress on The Job List continues, and as is wont to do, grows in about equal proportion to my crossing things off. :} Life. Gotta love it. :D

Getting A Grip on Work

Job List

Weave chenille warps
Wind Bamboo Rain
Wind Silk Boucle
Wind tea towel warp
Review S&W
Review DPW
Weave shawl warps
Hem afghans
Hem tea towels
Wet finish tea towels (one load – 24 towels)
Hem tea towels (as above)
Dye Skeins
Knit sample of Bamboo Rain
Knit Bamboo Rain shawl

I am a big fan of job lists. Lists keep my head screwed on straight and my feet firmly on the straight and narrow headed toward my goals.

The bad news is that my job lists look a lot like the above. The big problem is that several, if not most of the above jobs cannot be completed in a week, never mind a day.

And so I get discouraged and start feeling overwhelmed because I begin to feel as though I'm not accomplishing anything, even when I am.

So I re-thought my approach to job lists this weekend, and I've re-formatted how I make the list up.

Now instead of saying "weave chenille warps" I follow that with:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

That's how many warps I want to do before company comes on the 22nd. As I weave each warp, I can cross off the last number so that I can see the count coming down. :)

Since I've been managing one warp a day, I should be able to ace getting those 7 warps woven. After deciding to just do one warp a day to give myself time to get other stuff accomplished, I'm also hoping to cone off the 9 cones of Bamboo Rain in order to get that box up and off of the floor next to the small loom. Where I'll put the skeins until I can dye them I'm not quite sure yet. My storage space is crammed to the rafters already and I need to move all the boxes I've been saving to re-use for shipping somewhere and the storage area seems the most logical place.

But I did ship out two boxes of inventory last week so there are two small shelves empty so perhaps I can get some things onto those small shelves.

I really need to clear out some room - with two of us in the studio, it's going to be cramped quarters unless I deal with the clutter. Long past due, really.

Organized?

I hesitate to admit that the following photos, which show primarily one wall of my storage area are the after shots!

The first photo is looking from north to south.....




...then looking from south to north.

In this photo, you can also see on the right a shelving unit that sticks out east to west from the east wall.

The first photo is one of the sections Karena worked on when she came this morning. It's primarily my cotton inventory. She was very impressed at how much I'd used up and how much room was emptied so that she could move other things onto the shelves and off the floor.

The second photo is the wool section, which we haven't touched yet. Behind the metal rack to the right hand side is the bamboo and Tencel and other odd things like linen and novelties. The back wall, which you can't see very much of holds mostly the woven textiles.

The boxes on the floor contain a variety of things - painted warps, surplus loom parts (mechanical dobby bits and pieces), booth curtaining and draping, display props. All the detritus needed for the various facets of my micro-business of producing and selling textiles.

What you don't see here is the whole other off site storage unit I have for the steam press and the overstock yarn, the rest of the copies of Magic, Weave a V, CDWeaver samples, etc., etc., etc.

What people don't realize right away about being organized is that you have to have sufficient room for your stuff. If your stuff over runs your space, being organized becomes a constant dance to juggle boxes and bags of your stuff so you can get at what you need, when you need it.

Which is one reason why I am on a mission to reduce my stash. I can't get rid of the loom parts, booth props and display stuff, but I can use up some of my yarn!

Besides, if I can use up enough of the old stuff, I can justify buying some new stuff! :^)