I think that’s why I’m currently both fascinated and petrified by Art Journaling (that and I know I’d start and then quit doing it after a couple of days when it dawns on me that 1) I suck and 2) I have a blog to journal in already).

Doesn’t keep me from looking up stuff about it on the internet though, and pondering whether any of the multitudes of old spiral notebooks and journals that people have given me would work, or if I have any colored pencils (I don’t, though I do have a pack of crayola markers and a couple of prismacolor markers I picked up secondhand).  And then convincing myself that I really do have enough projects (I do), and I don’t need another one right now (I don’t), and that I’m not really starved for creative outlets (I’m not).

I suppose it’s good that I can see my own patterns:

1. hey that’s cool
2. I should try it
3. this is fun
4. then I get distracted like a magpie in a mirror factory and find something else that looks cool… repeat ad nauseum

At the same time, forcing myself to work on one thing while I am interested in doing another isn’t all that great either.  It’s hard to explain the random impulses – and I wonder if I shouldn’t just purge all the craft stuff entirely and force myself to pick and stick with one (which would probably be sewing/needlework) – and then I look at the yarn and my spinning fleeces and think how lovely they are, or the various books teaching various things, or my giant and ever expanding recipe bookmarks folder… and it just doesn’t happen.

And then I wonder if I should just stick with writing – since I seem to do that every day, both for fun, for semi-work, and for work – and try to cultivate an appreciation for various forms of creativity that I don’t have, rather than immediately wanting to TRY all of them.

I thought I’d be safe, since they’ve already washed the fleece and would be dyeing tonight.

I was wrong.

I now have a vat on my back porch (ok, it’s a bucket) full of barely washed fleece, indigo, and the water that we washed the fleece in – yes, the dirty stuff.  I’m apparently to let that sit on the porch in the sun for 7-10 days, stirring daily, in order to create an organic fermentation/chemical reaction that will bind the indigo (a non water-soluble dye) into my fleece.

So I’ll have blue fleece.

Otherwise, I’ll have dingy fleece and a really smelly bright blue mess.  We’ll see what happens.  Come to think of it, right now what I have is dingy fleece and a really smelly bright blue mess.  I have blue-ish fingernails too.

I also got some uncarded wool, which – at first glance – is going to be a lot of fun.  My wool cards create small rolags (rolag = fluffy bit of carded wool in a little tube), and I’m trying to spin this at a thick DK/thin worsted weight off the rolags, spinning woollen.  This means I get about 2 drops per rolag, sitting down.  However – the hand washed, hand combed fleece really does spin a lot easier than the commercially prepared rovings, I think because it’s not so compact – the lanolin might help as well.

Also, I’m not having to spin from the fold, since the rolags are prepared for spinning woolen.

Spinning takes a lot longer when you have to card all the wool first.