Goings On

Things are afoot. There have been secretive goings-on.

And there still are!

Lately, I have been doing some planning. Not your everyday, garden-variety planning, mind you. Hardcore planning. With paper and calculators and calendars. And hope. And caution. And back-up plans. The kind of planning you do when you are hoping to pull off some big cool things, but aren't sure yet if you'll be able to swing it.

So. Many plans for many potential endeavors are slowly forming and shifting and taking shape in my brain.

And I'm not going to tell you what they are yet. Because they might not happen. Or they might not come to fruition when I expect them to, and instead go down at a totally different time. So they will stay under my hat. In my brain. Percolating.

But I can tell you one thing that's going to happen.

Over the next few weeks, my shop is going to experience a renaissance.

Over the last several months, I have been neglecting my shop a bit. When I moved in August, it was really stressful (because moving is always really stressful for me, and even though I ended up in awesome new digs, this move was insanely un-smooth). I felt off-kilter for a while, and it showed in my dyeing. I found myself dyeing different colors than I usually do, and drawn to different textures than I usually am. It wasn't bad, per se, but there was less variety in my shop.

And right as I was starting to find my way back to on-kilter (because if you can be off-kilter, I for one maintain that you must be able to be on-kilter as well), my aunt died. She was sweet and kind and lovely. And it hurt. A lot. I scaled back my fiber commitments for a while, because I just didn't feel up to dealing with much of anything.

And when I started getting back to all my fibery pursuits, I still didn't feel good. I did all the things I do, dyeing and carding new batts for the shop, answering convo's and emails, hanging out on Twitter and Ravelry, and trying to find my rhythm again, but I didn't feel well.

My artistic spark was gone. I didn't feel drawn to it, I didn't feel driven to create, and even colors didn't matter to me the way they usually do. And it snowed. We had one of the snowiest winters we've had in years. Snowfall after snowfall, with the sky always gray and overcast and the light always slanted and dreary and the wind always bitter cold.

I'm not sure what happened. It was no one thing, but rather several little things, and the passage of time. Whatever it was, I'm starting to feel better. I still miss her a lot, but for the first time in a long time, I have my spark back.

Colors are amazing again. I am overflowing with ideas for new colorways and new series of themed batts. And I'm feeling drawn to the colors and textures I haven't used in a while. My old favorites, like old friends I haven't seen since last summer, and new combinations sizzling in my mind's eye waiting to soak into wool for all the world to see.

So I can tell you one thing.

I bought 10 lbs. of wool.

And, at least in terms of dyeing, I'm back in my groove.

So these are the before pictures.

(The wool is bigger than I am!)

The after pictures will show up in my shop over the next few weeks,

in the form of dozens of new batts.

Yes. Dozens.

Yay!