Mojo Murderer

Sometimes you've got mojo, sometimes you don't, and sometimes it's taken from you. Welcome to my morning.

The plan of the day included some gardening, grocery shopping, reviewing yesterday's dyed goods, blogging and dyeing all.the.things., not necessarily in that order. The shopping and gardening was all good. The reviewing of yesterday's work was not.

Yesterday I worked on a custom order. I'm excited about the order. The customer and I have worked together to design a color for her that is destined for a sweater. I love that process. I get to be half of the creation of that garment in providing the supply. I thrill at seeing finished projects made with my yarn.

I wasn't thrilled when I reviewed this yarn. It's still on the drying rack, fresh from yesterday's process. Magic generally happens on the drying rack. Colors bloom there, developing into their final glory. Indeed, that happened in this case, however the end result wasn't what we were aiming for. There are inconsistencies from skein to skein outside of my acceptable "hand dyed" tolerance, and spots where dye simply didn't take up properly. I'm not 100% sure why this happened, but I'm 100% sure I'm not shipping this. I'm not happy with the end product.  Is there anything wrong with the yarn? No. Is there something wrong with the color? No. In fact, it's quite beautiful. It would honestly make a lovely sweater. Simply not this sweater for this person.

Reasonably, this disappoints me. My first response is to "fix it" but dyeing over in this case is not the answer. It won't make it better, only less consistent. My second response is to "do over" but, alas, I haven't got enough stock of one of the dyes to do so. (Interestingly enough, I placed that order yesterday, before knowledge of this disaster.) And, finally, my third response is "serve the customer" and so I did with a message honestly explaining the problem, my apologies, and the timeline upon which I can resolve the issue.

Still, this robbed me of my mojo. I had planned on spending several hours dyeing yarn today. Now, I have no desire to do so. Part of that is coming from my need to fix problems before moving on to other things. It's also in part to just plain being disappointed. I know at this point my mojo is gone and I would be forcing my creative process, which never ends well. Did I fail? No. Some part of the process did, and that happens. Yet, it still affects me.

So, what to do? Why, move the patio furniture out in to the sun and blog to you all from a leisurely posture. Let the process happen. Relax, wait for the stock order, regain the mojo and begin again fresh. I think instead of mixing dye, I'll mix up a fruity drink and work on some new design swatches instead.

How do you handle things when your mojo gets murdered? I'm always interested in learning how other creatives process.