In Search of Clarity

I think that if you click on the picture you can just make out option #2 (at bottom) and option #3 (at top).

I confess I'm not actually loving this warp. Perhaps it's the colour combination which I mentioned previously isn't amongst my favourites.

But right now, making something I personally love to bits isn't a priority.

Now that pain levels are manageable and my time of confinement nearly over (5 more sleeps til I see the surgeon) I have been thinking through possibilities for the future.

Since my teaching dates in May got cancelled - a mixed blessing because I realize now I probably would not have fared well doing a long airplane journey, hefting heavy bags through huge airports, then spending two days on my feet - it also means I have no guaranteed income for the month of May. :(

And since I'm self-employed and our household relies on me bringing in a certain amount of income, well, I've had to do some serious thinking about my business and where I might go with it.

Doug is pretty desperate to retire, but he's got less than 2 years until he's 65 so I keep reminding him about the extended medical benefits he gets as a full time employee with Home Depot and how badly we need them. Especially now that I'm facing weeks, possibly months, of physio-therapy. If we run out of physio benefits, we will have to pay for it out of our own pockets so it would be really handy if he still had a regular paycheque out of which to pay them.

And because the studio in no way brings in enough money to cover that on top of whatever else the studio pays for - utilities, van lease, etc.

So what I have I deduced so far? Well it's been a process of elimination.

Number one on the list is to finish dyeing the yarn that needs to be dyed in order to sell it and then not do that anymore. Part of the reason is because I have more medical procedures coming up and lifting huge containers of water and wet yarn isn't something I should really be doing long term. Since I don't consider myself a particularly skilled dyer I won't mind giving that up.

Number two on the list is to discontinue making any more kits. It seems that no matter how well I try to explain things, someone somewhere misunderstands and then complains that my kits are 'no good'. So I just won't bother with them any more. (I do still have yarn left to make the colour gamp kits although I have removed them from my Art Fire store. If you really want one or two email me - preferably before I use that yarn up making placemats.)

So what will I do? I mentioned around the new year that I'd been talking with a publisher about writing an e-book. Since my recuperation is going to take some weeks/months, it seems like now might be a really good time to start working on the manuscript.

I have other (volunteer) committments that have been ignored for a rather long time, foremost among them transcribing the WeaveCast podcasts. I'd hoped to be able to work on those while I wasn't able to weave but since I couldn't tolerate having my foot down until this week, well, that didn't happen. However since it's going to take a while to get up to speed, instead of watching daytime dreck tv I will be working on the transcriptions.

Stash reduction will continue to be a priority. If this warp doesn't use up the last of the extremely fine linen I will put on one more tea towel warp in order to use it up.

And then I need to start working on inventory for the fall sales which begin in September. For far too long I've not had the mental wherewithall to really dig into my creative well for new designs. Working with the rayon chenille and the Diversified Plain Weave I will have at least one new scarf design for the fall sales.

As far as teaching goes, I'm going to leave that on idle for the time being. I have another surgery scheduled sometime around next February. Surgery that will once again prevent me from weaving for about 6 weeks - or doing much of anything else for that matter. So until that's done and I - hopefully - have a clean bill of health, I think that trying to find a whole lot of teaching dates doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

So what does that leave me? Pretty much in Neutral. And worrying about where my income is going to come from. :( But I have decided that I'm not going to cancel Complex Weavers/Convergence. That's what plastic is for after all?