Current List of Goals

I keep a list of future possible projects and guiding principles around for reference.  They change from time to time.  Right now, this is the list:

• comb a whole lot of Romney
• focus on making lovely handspun stuff for me to use and wear, not for gifts
• knit first pair of socks
• learn sprang
• learn to knit a sweater
• learn to weave plain weave and to use a loom
• make enough handspun clothes for an outfit
• make small handspun shoulder bag
• no more synthetic dyes (use up what dyed wool I have on hand)
• spin and weave hooded jacket
• spin flax
• spin from stash to cull stash
• spin the rest of the merino to get rid of it
• stash enhancement: buy more BFL fibre! buy local!
• take a risk and spin the good stuff; don't hold off out of fear, there is more good wool out there
• use my wool combs more often because combed fibre is so very, very nice
• use up stashed skeins of handspun yarn
• weave linen into Ms and Os cloth

I look at that list and think, oh, that one I could almost scratch off but it's so good and I'll probably come back to it so I'll keep it around...I've got materials for this one which is a good start...I want to do this, that, and the other but I lack opportunity/role models/intestinal fortitude...which to do first...why am I doing that, it's not even on the list...that one won't happen for ages...maybe I should drop such-and-such a one...ah, I know exactly how I want that one to turn out and there's a risk it won't so I will brace myself to make lots of practice pieces until I get it right or I find I am actually pursuing a dead end.

The other thing I think is this: there is so much I don't know how to do yet and so much I haven't done.  That is a cool thought.  I like to learn.

I drove out one day in the Virginia countryside on a two-lane highway.  A deer ran straight across the road and kept going.  I'm used to deer on Vancouver Island.  They're lightly built.  They amble and dawdle, and they hold up traffic.  This Virginia deer looked seriously motivated.  I drove on toward to the shop, found it closed, and turned back.  Two hunting dogs came up the bank, sniffed the deer's trail, and crossed when traffic cleared.

Not promising to go flat out like that deer but I do mean to make progress on the list.