Were those holidays? Since my last post I've been working without cease (other than the requisite holiday feasting days and ensuing recovery periods). The twenty custom orders that I acquired in December were all completed in time, and now I'm happily taking my time completing a few more that I picked up, while dreaming of my new spring collections. I get so excited about my creative ideas and concepts that I can't sleep at night, which inevitably leads to my downfall - not enough sleep makes me easy prey for the lurking rhinovirus, just watching and waiting for the day when I'm too tired and weak to fight it off...but I digress. What it comes down to is that I love my work, and I love being so busy that the time flies. I barely noticed the arrival of 2010, but I have high hopes for the growth of reFurbished and RE:PLAY BAGS. It's already time to coordinate a photo shoot for the website, if only I had the product already! I have my collections plotted out, right down to the names and colours - so it's simply a matter of putting my nose to the grindstone and churning them out, one by one. The trick is to keep them hidden so I don't sell them before the photo shoot - I was carrying one of my bags just before the holidays, having sworn that I wouldn't sell it to anyone because it's for next fall's line (getting way ahead of myself, but I do like to be prepared!), and as soon as Merianne said "Oh, I really, REALLY love that bag" I knew I was going home with my stuff in a plastic bag. I'm not complaining, but I really do need to control the urge to carry them if I'm not ready to part with them! Maybe she'll let me borrow it back when I need it.
Sometimes I just can't focus because I fixate on other projects. For instance, yesterday I found a white fox coat at Talize (my favourite local secondhand store). It cost me almost nothing, becauses there were several tears in the fur and the lining is torn and stained. The fur itself is clean, fluffy, and the coat has a marvellous hood. I knew this fox was destined to be worn, not taken apart. As of this evening, I've patched the tears, removed the liner, and lengthened the sleeves using a fox collar that I already had (I'm 6' tall, and I like my wrists covered!). Every time I make myself put down the coat and start something else, I can't get my mind to let go of "what am I going to use for the liner?". My brain goes where it wants to, and eventually a solution just creeps in from the edge somehow, looking like a coincidence. Almost everything I've made had an element of serendipity in its makeup - or maybe it's just that I've trained myself to see the potential in every scrap, so I don't overlook it when tab A fits into slot B, or the curve of that scrap matches the curve of this one.
My biggest rule in working this way has been "Don't think, just do". If I stop and think too hard about how remarkable it is that I can do this, that I can make things and sell them and have people love them, I'll trip. So I just keep doing it.
So welcome to 2010. May it be a creative and inspiring year for the world.
