Tuesday, January 09, 2007

clutter of creative minds

Thanks for the birthday wishes! It would appear that I only got one on the blog (thanks, June) but actually, I've had just a birthday season...days of b-day presents, emails, many good wishes and treats. I also ate a lot of cake!

There's been a quiet lull around here, so I decided to think about this:

This is the clutter on my office coffee table. It was too overwhelming to contemplate, so I turned around and faced my desk instead. (clutter on coffee table is still completely intact, no worries.)
I took a box and emptied off my desk area, kicking up lots of dust, coughing a lot, and cleaning and clearing away dust and clutter. I reassembled the desk with the basics. It is startlingly clean. Hardly know how to handle it.



I still have this box full of stuff from my desk to confront. I did recycle a lot right away, so this box has all the hard decisions in it. I placed the box on the floor for the photo (office isn't all that big) and you can see some wool, a rubber dog bone, and a part of a dog bed just keeping the box company. We've got a lot of important "tools" in this here office.

Then I considered something upsetting. Now that I've got the clean desk, the clutter near the desk and the coffee table look bad. Uh Oh. This photo is out of focus because I was shaking or something. Too much mess was blinking in red neon in my mind. Cannot cope with all this!

The truth is that I can cope just fine. I've been working creatively in this for months. Now, I wonder, will I be able to work with a clean desk? What was in all that clutter that I used every day? What would happen if I just pitched the stuff in the box? Do I need any of it at all? Should I even consider digging out the rest of the office space?

The jury is still out on that one. In the meanwhile, I took a rest and tried a bit of beading. I strung some beads on rose colored thread, and then plied it with some Cormo wool I'd spun up long ago. I did a sample on a spindle, and it looks like this:
Conclusions:
Beads are small. They get everywhere.

You need a lot of beads to create 200+ yards of beaded handspun.

Kicking up this much dust, reshuffling one's whole workspace and then trying to string small beads? Headachey coughing.

So, is beaded handspun worth it? What about a clean workspace? (a sign of a cluttered mind, that's what I'm beginning to think...)

3 Comments:

Blogger e's knitting and spinning blog said...

I can't wait to see where your beading experiment leads you. I have been dying to try this but haven't wrapped my brain around the same questions you have.

I vote for pitching the box. I have done it many times before and didn't miss any of the things in the box;-)

January 9, 2007 at 1:21 PM  
Blogger CatonsvilleCats said...

When I have clutter, I remove the clutter to the basement. If it is there for some specified period of time and I have not missed it, I get rid of it. I used to do this on christmas vacations back in the day when my time was my own, and the period would be till the next christmas vacation.

I like the look of the knitted piece but I think it is probably easier to bead as you knit than to bead and spin.

January 10, 2007 at 7:13 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

you just made me feel so much better about my own clutter. your butterfly clip is very beautiful, i swear by those things for keeping my hair under control. happy belated birthday!

January 11, 2007 at 10:10 AM  

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