Exactly What I Needed This Fiber Arts Friday

Remnants of the ongoing creative design production

Hello everyone - it's Fee-Fi(ber)-F.O. Friday - boy, where oh where is the summer disappearing to? It's the second Friday in August for crying out loud.

This Friday's post comes to you courtesy of toil (not a big fan of that word, but) and trouble and great guest blog posts. (Note: there's a wonderful indie yarn dyer/producer that blogs at Toil and Trouble Yarn, and the yarn is nice fiber eye candy too, if you're interested ...).

As most of you know who regularly read this blog, I've been designing crochet and knit items for a little while now. It is an ever-increasing portion of how I make my livelihood, and for that I couldn't be happier. Of course, as all of you who regularly read this blog also know, there have been hiccups along the way. C'est la vie, eh? Well, last week I had another of those minor hiccups with a yarn company gatekeeper-type (all names/identities kept secret to protect the guilty). Now, this yarn company and I have had a multi-year, rather rocky relationship. It culminated in an email exchange last week that I still find baffling. Yarn company gatekeeper asks specifics about yarn support request for upcoming publication design, I respond with information after receiving feedback from publication on what can be successfully revealed which I tell to yarn company gatekeeper; yarn company gatekeeper (almost instantly) then informs me that I need to provide more information and only then will said yarn support request be honored (although, of course, yarn company gatekeeper-type has unilaterally moved the gatepost over the course of the email exchange): I let yarn company gatekeeper know general information about the project, but that clearly wasn't enough. 

Between a rock and a hard place, I did the best thing I could - I declined the yarn support. As someone with several decades of work history under my belt, I'm pretty much done with corporate gatekeepers and double speak. I will not apologize for that stance because I have come by it the hard way.

Ok. That was the toil and trouble part.

Then, just today, I open an email from Cloth, Paper, Scissors (one of the many email newletter/blog updates I receive from a suite of Interweave Press publications), and read some of the most inspiring words from a mixed media artist turned guest blogger Ken T. Youngstrom. Here's a snippet:

"You know it now and you can feel it—so do it. Do what you love—now. Do it at night. Wake up two hours early. Make it your second job. Replace your television schedule with a making stuff schedule. Whatever you have to do. Do it. Now.

Don’t figure it out—because you won’t. I still haven’t; no one has. Don’t wait for clients, don't wait to be debt free, don’t wait for the right situation, for things to settle down; ... Don’t wait for fewer hours at work, don’t wait for summer, don’t wait for winter ...—don’t wait." (linky here to entire blog post)

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. This man is clearly living in my head. How does he know I've been getting up and working on designs for a couple of hours each morning? How does he know that my television schedule is, in fact, my making stuff schedule. How does he know that I don't have it all figured out, but I'm forging ahead anyway? 

How, how, how?

One of the few things I do know is that I love my creative output (in all its forms), and no yarn company gatekeeper is going to hold me back. I respect that yarn company gatekeeper has a job to do. So do I. 

And I'll do it the best way I know how. The way that works for me, and that I firmly believe will ultimately benefit the crafty public. If that doesn't fit in with this particular yarn gatekeeper's plans for genuflection and complete yarny revelation well ... then ... alright. 

Now definitely make certain you get on over to Andrea's blog at Wisdom Begins in Wonder to see what's firing up everybody else this week. And thank you, Ken T. Youngstrom. You are so speaking my language.