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A Planning Week; Time to Decide What’s Next

It’s been a planning week here at the Studio. A week filled with stats, numbers, budgets, blogging, planning and lists. There are long lists of yarn, supplies, work to be done and even a list to put us back into some routines. Routines like who has which day for laundry, what we’re having for dinner when, how we’re going to keep the house clean. It’s summer and the summer routine has been upset by home repairs and some much needed painting. Who am I kidding, our routine has been off track since January and it’s been really overwhelming me.

Crocheting What’s Next

A Planning Week includes a look back at these 2 beautiful  striped custom scarves I've finished.

The scarves above look beautiful, even though there are ends to weave in. They were a custom job and are already in their new home. I’ve been crocheting on some new jobs and attempting to write a couple of new patterns during all the chaos. As you can see the scarves were some older patterns that I have crocheted longer and I will be adapting the patterns to allow you to create them either short or close to 6′ long. The patterns above are the Denver Scarf and The Sunshine Scarf. I still enjoy working on them and it was really a lovely way to spend several afternoons. The colors just flow. The beauty and calming repetitive work was really needed at the time. You can find the The Sunshine scarf and the Denver Scarf patterns here in the scarf section of the shop.

Deciding how long it will take to finish the blue striped crochet blanket is a part of a planning week.

Deciding What’s Next in New Patterns

A planning week also includes planning these new patterns for the shop. The pretty blue afghan above is a new afghan that I’ve started. It will be finished by September if all goes according to plans. I just realized that there are 4 crochet blankets started right now and I need to finish the one furthest along first. So this beauty will have to rest while I work on the others. It’s turning out quite nice as well and the colors are interesting.

There is also a couple of baby afghans that I need to write the patterns for. It all just takes time. Somehow the home repairs have just absorbed all my time. I have been worrying and it keeps me from thinking logically enough to shoot the process photos while I work. The baby blankets are now finished and I need to go back and write the patterns. It should be a quick job once I get started.

Planning Some New Painting

Planning which new projects to start and which need to sell is also filling my time. I have been painting canvases more than usual and not much of it is terribly exciting. When you start a new hobby your first few projects just aren’t that great! It feels like I am painting the same canvases over and over again.

When the photos are all put together in this gallery though, there has been more work done than I thought there was. The Blessing piano bench has just sold, as has the bench in the middle top photo. The little round table and the painted swirl table are still available while the quilt box is also sold. It is pretty exciting when I look at it this way!

Talk to you later,

Karen

P.S. You can always find my patterns at www.chocolatedogstudio/Etsy.com as well as here on the website. The painted furniture is starting to show up in the Etsy shop. Let me know if you see a piece you want to purchase. They are for sale.

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Are You Afraid?

I read this article this morning as it scrolled past on my facebook feed. It hit a sore spot with me and I had to write. Anyway here is the article and then the quote that started all this introspection.

http://storylineblog.com/2013/09/11/if-youre-not-scared-youre-not-doing-it-right/

Steven Pressfield sums it up well in his groundbreaking work, The War of Art:

“Self doubt can be an ally. This is because it serves as an indicator of aspiration. It reflects love, love of something we dream of doing, and desire, desire to do it. If you find yourself asking yourself, “Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?” chances are you are. The Counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.”
Are you doing your own thing or copying someone else’s work? Are you wondering if you are following the beat of your own drum or a rehash of yet another whatzit? I do ask myself these questions over and over again as I sew mundane things like cup cozies, baby bibs and crochet blankets.
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What I truly want to do or wish to do is the very thing I am most afraid to do.  I like sewing the baby bibs and cup cozies, but my heart is truly in design work. My heart lies deepest in working with colors, fibers and creating. I struggle to write patterns and do design work simply because the work proceeds from my fingers without much thought. It is relatively unconscious and simply flows through the arm and out of the hook. It is intuitive, and one of a kind. How can you create patterns of one of a kind creations?
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I guess I will need to figure that out in the coming months. After the last three months of recuperation from surgery I am very aware of the limitations of my body. I know that my hands are not capable of crocheting more than 1 custom adult sized blanket a month. Which makes at the very most only 12 blankets a year. How can a business be sustained on 12 blankets a year? That is the question that keeps me awake at night.
Do you have any suggestions or comments?
talk to you later,
Karen
I do have to say that this has nothing to do with 9/11 nor is it in any way to take away from losses  and grief that we as a Nation are feeling today.