Mentors

 I love the idea of mentoring.  My dad was a very good mentor. My daughter followed in his footsteps.  Mentors must be chosen with care.  A recommendation from a trusted friend or teacher is a good place to start.  I personally don’t recommend that everyone should be a mentor or teacher.  A bad mentor can leave you cleaning up the mess that they taught you was absolutely necessary for years.  If a mentor pushes more is better in terms of supplies turn and run away as fast as you can.  Don’t get me wrong, especially in the arts you need a certain amount of resources also known as supplies. 

More is not better. Let me explain why. Do you have so many supplies that you spend more time searching for the supplies to start your project than it takes to make your artwork?  Do you find it’s faster to rebuy what you need to use rather than take the time to look for them? How many rooms are filled with supplies for the art projects? Do you have extra supplies stored in the garage or basement up to the ceiling? Do the amount of supplies you have, cause you anxiety? Do you spend too much money on your supplies?  Could you survive an epidemic or the Zombie apocalypse with no problem?  If you answered yes to one or more of these questions you picked the wrong mentor. The great part about the solution is that you don’t need a mentor to fix the problem.

All you need is a few good friends willing to help you out. Take my friend Louise for example. Louise on more occasions than I can count has willingly come to my house and filled her car up with yarn.  Her family lives in an area with no local yarn or craft stores. Over 2 hours from a Walmart. So she has brought a lot of my for no better word for it is a horde of yarn home with her. Her family is enjoying the bounty. 

I have donated to my local knitting guild. In fact I filled up the back of a Ford F150 pickup truck with yarn and still had too much. I have donated odds and ends with leftover yarn for camp projects. Had more friends pick out yarn for their next project and still had too much yarn. I have mailed yarn to random people who could not afford yarn. 

What I am politely trying to say is this will take time.  Each time you give away more of your yarn or other art stash it will hurt. You will berate yourself for spending so much money. You will berate yourself for not completing the projects you planned. You will feel like you let yourself and your family down. You will have second thoughts about giving all those supplies away. This is all perfectly normal.  You will also find more supplies that you totally forgot about. This is normal too. 

In the end after more than a few years of going through this process please know that your family will be very appreciative of your efforts. I have helped clean out enough family members homes to know that this is true.  

I brought this up because in talking with my taller half we talked about my former mentor. How it took 3 Goodwill trucks to haul away her stash of yarn. It took them months of selling random 66 gallon trash bags stuffed to the brim with yarn at $5 a bag to get rid of it all. My goal is not to be that person. To get my yarn supplies into one room   Then leave the multi purpose room to its original design. To be a sewing, jewelry making and guest room rolled into one neat and tidy space. 

As I am writing this, I have filled up bags of yarn to the tune of 6 cubic feet.  Then I found 2 more boxes that I had forgotten about to go through. Well after I finish this post, you know what I will be doing. 

All this while resisting the urge to buy more yarn.  

Helping Younger Artists

As an artist I know how a fabric store, big box craft store, local yarn shop, local bead shop, you can fill in your favorite shop if I failed to list it can be like a Candy or Toy store to a kid.  I really get that. Finding projects to do is an art project in it self. Completing that purchased project is another project in it self.  Which leads to the beginning of a conversation with artists over the age of 60. Yes I did say 60.  

Now is the time to evaluate all your art supplies. You need to start asking rational questions like am I going to finish this project? Do I still love the project? Was this project a splurge because you weren’t feeling well? Did you buy the project when your kids were little and you knew you’d find time to make it for them? Do I still want to do the project? Does your kid want the completed project now that they are adults? That fabric was lovely and I know I can find something to go with it, but never did. I love the yarn, but I’ve torn out that sweater three times. I am not teaching that anymore, do I still need to keep the supplies. You can add whatever questions you want here. I know everybody’s will be different. The item was on sale for a really good price.

I don’t expect you to do it in a day, after all it took decades to accumulate all these supplies. However, you aren’t getting any younger. Your spouse and kids are hoping that you’ll get rid of a lot of it. My humble suggestion is to divide your art into different areas. Focusing only on one drawer or one tub at a time will make the job easier. I have a 5 minute Zenning rule that I go by. I set the timer to 5 minutes.  If at the end of 5 minutes I am frustrated, I stop. If at the end of 5 minutes, I am into it I keep going.  I know I’ve been doing this for a couple years now, so I feel like in talk about it. This is an evolving process. You might look at some thing 10 or 12 times before you decide to either finish it or it Has to leave the house or the studio. 

When it leaves you have many options. You can amass stuff and having a yard sale, I did not find this very successful. What I did find successful was gifting to friends. Gifting to mothers with young kids who wanted to learn a craft but had no money to buy supplies, Be sure to try to doing this when we are not on holiday surge postage it will save you about 20%. You can give some of the simpler items to adult day programs.  You can send upscale supplies to younger artists who have no money for supplies. You can Donate to Goodwill. I have a friend who I know I can give lots of yarn to for other weavers.  You can use yarn or material as package padding if you are sending a gift to a crafter. You can donate to church quilt groups, material is so expensive right now. I got rid of 2 car loads this way and the church ladies loved the fabric. 

I know that everyone one will have a different route.  However you choose to go on this journey is fine.  This is a journey that can be gut wrenching at times. Don’t beat yourself up for past purchases. Don’t beat yourself up because your eyes were bigger and faster than your hands. Don’t feel you have to do this in a day. I have been on this journey for almost 3 years. Remember to give bins away so you won’t have the urge to refill them. Redesign your work space. 

This will clear a lot of mental weight off your shoulders. You will start creating more when you know where everything is. You will have less UFO’s. You will feel better about you. You will have more time to create.  This will make you very happy. If it doesn’t, at least your spouse and kids will be happy. 

22

You might have noticed that my knitting has slowed to a crawl. My hands are being very cranky. So I have been filling my time with deep cleaning. It is starting to take some thought as to what is going to get cleaned next. I have also taken out the sewing machine to catch up on repairs and make a few items for this October's Taglit fundraiser. I need to come up with new an exciting gifts that people have not seen before. I also want to use as many supplies from my art supply stash as possible. As I am organizing things, I have found that I have more art supplies than I thought I did. So look for some awesome new stuff in October.

With out futher ado here is hat 22 and part of the new quilt.

Huge Boxes

I am beginning to think that 60 to 80 quart storage boxes might not be the best for art supplies.  So I am in the process of moving my jewelry making supplies to a more usable space. I am hoping that this will help with the avoidance of duplicate purchases. Also the 2 hour set up every time I want to make something.  Wish me luck in the process.  

This Weeks Word is Busy

It has been a very busy week around here.  There was a lot of cleaning in the craft room. About a dozen projects got tinked to remake into other things, most were my failures that I just put aside. Out of the "ashes" will come a lot of new energy and a slew of premie blankets.  I am also 1/3 of the way through a poncho. I finished 4 very small projects on Friday. Tomorrow I hope to take some photos of my finished work, then add to my one million rows challenge counter.  

I have also found a younger artist to take some of the items that I have no more use for and am hoping to see some great art from this young woman. This in it self is very freeing to me. It also keeps things out of the landfill.  I also don't feel as if I am throwing things with perfectly good uses away.  I also gave a full carrier bag of yarn to 2 knitters that I know.  This all came from going through each bag of yarn in the craft room. 

I was sick earlier in the week. I am feeling better now.  I think I caught the ear infection before I needed antibiotics.  I was also up with Eric most of last night.  He has caught an awful cold.  I spent a lot of time suctioning him along with just the usual mommy cuddles.  We are all hoping for a quite night tonight.  

I was also very effecent last night.  I had all 4 loads of laundry finished by 7 am his morning.  It seems that Eric is asleep so I will call it a night. V