The Rainbow Project

 It being Pride month I guess it’s a good time to write about the project I’ve been working on for the last few weeks. 

For some time I’ve been struggling with my creative mojo - you know, you want to make something but you don’t know what.  Pick up a project, even buy a pattern and some supplies, get it out and…. suddenly it doesn’t seem so interesting anymore.  What is wrong with me???  I am so lucky to have the time and money to make anything I want, why don’t I get on with it???  I think it’s a case of  possibility overload. 

We have so much choice, so much we could do, that choosing something seems so arbitrary.  Then there’s the FOMO;  the next idea looks so much more interesting.  Somehow it’s easier to get started (and to keep going) with less choice, not more. When your options are restricted, your distractions are fewer.

So after many months of soul-searching, and barely started projects, I realised that what I enjoy is the process. And the learning.  New skills and techniques, discovery.  So what I  needed was a project to focus that energy, that drive I get from learning. 

So came up with the Rainbow Project.  Weave a cloth made from hand-spun fibre blended from roving in primary colours into all the colours of the rainbow.  Learning along the way - carding, blending, long-draw wooden spinning, chain plying and rigid-heddle weaving - all new skills for me. 

And so far so good.  I’ve spun and plied the wool.  Now I need to decide what form the weaving will take.  

This has been a word- heavy post.  More instalments to follow, with pictures, of the stages in the project so far. 

But in the meantime… this is where we are, today.

And PS: Thank you Pete, for the encouragement to blog about the project.  I hope to see more of your writing, on or off the web, sometime soon....?