The best laid plans or how to felt a sweater.

Have you ever watched an ice skater before a performance or a pilot before a flight? They mentally skate or fly their plan, sometimes following a tape outline on the floor. Well, when I planned to make a wool tote and show you every step of the project, that's what I did mentally. Then I got out what I thought was an old wool sweater. I had not looked it in years. The damn thing's acrylic!

Now, if you are not into fiber, that may not sound like a big deal to you. It is. The first step in the project was to felt it. Let me describe felting a sweater to you.

Take an old 100% wool sweater, size XXL and put it in a bathtub of hot water and a bit of dish soap. The water should not be scalding. Swirl the sweater around a few times with your hand. Drain the water. Refill with cold water. For good measure, throw in a couple of trays of ice cubes. Swirl the sweater around with you hand. Drain the water.Lay the sweater out to dry on a few old towels. Your 100% wool sweater, size XXL should now be about the right size to fit a toddler.

Next, take an old 100% acrylic sweater, size XXL. Punch some holes in a steel drum. Add some of those big old round river rocks. Now, put in the sweater. Toss the whole thing in a geyser, scalding sulfuric water, anaerobic bacteria and all. Wait to the geyser blows. Watch the steel drum fly into a convenient nearby glacier lake. Take the sweater out of the steel drum. Lay the sweater out to dry on a few old towels. Your 100% acrylic sweater may have a few holes from the rocks but otherwise will be exactly the same XXL sweater you started with.    

So it's back to the drawing board to find a project to demonstrate my creative process for you.      

Look Both Ways

I'm not much into New Year's Resolutions and all that but what I have found the past few years is that a New Year's Theme works best for me. In the past, I have had verbs like "collaborate" or "try". In trying to come up with this year's word, I thought a lot about what it means to be a creativity coach. One thing stands out to me. That if I am going to coach others about their creativity, I have to be creative myself. How simple is that? Yet I know people who are trying to encourage others and haven't picked up a ___, sat down at ___, or turned on their ___, in months or years. Crazy, huh?

So this year's theme is not "create". No, that would be too simple. This year's theme is "Project". It can be a noun or a verb. So projecting into the future, I am going to share some projects with you. I'll share the creative process. How do I come up with ideas? How those ideas become reality? How do I address the problems that arise? I will show you the step-by-step process with photographs and instructions.

This will be a stretch for me.  It will force me to remember to take photographs, and to break things down into parts. Then I will have to explain those parts in a way you can not only understand but repeat and follow, if you want. I will have to show my mistakes. I will have to create within a time frame so that I don't lose your interest. I'll have several things going on at once since that's the way I work.

My first Project will be a tote bag made from an old wool sweater. So watch this space!

(Sorry it's been so long. We had a death in the family.)