Saturday, December 7, 2019

Bother and Tarnation

Two habits that can help us avoid mistakes 

In a time of hustle and bustle, it is easy make mistakes! With a bit of "behavior check and change" we can help ourselves avoid them.
 
 Sometimes when we are working on craft we get this sneaky little feeling that we're about to make a tragic blunder.  If we are distracted, worried or in a hurry, we will miss that teeny tiny inkling of intuition that tells us to slow down and pay attention, and we go ahead and blunder on to an either a disappointing, sad, costly or even tragic outcome.

Sometimes, they are “happy accidents” in the words of Bob Ross, but those more often result not from hurry and distraction, but from letting ourselves flow into areas we are unsure of.  The kind of accidents I'm talking about may just end up being wasteful and irreversible calamities.

The split second before I did this to a spindolyn base that I had grown fond of while I was working on it, I had a moments hesitation, and stupidly did not pause to reflect on my hesitation.

Hmm thought I, as I tapped gently with the mallet to force the pegs into the glue holes, why isn’t this going in? Right then and there is when I should have paused to investigate the answer to this question. At the very moment that I tapped a little harder to force the situation, I had a lightening thought, oh crap, did I change the drill bit from the one just a slight bit smaller up to the correct size? 

And then crack! The lovely piece split in two, never to be repaired. Of course, it didn’t just split, the whole thing went skittering across my cluttered work bench. As it did, it shoved the whorl into a sharp thing which marred the whorl and sent some scissors flying which gouged a deep gash across the bottom of the un-assembled ambit base.

Bother and tarnation indeed. We might develop over time good crafting habits, like keeping a organized workspace and staying focused, only to abandon them to hurry, worry and distraction.
So, my notes to self that I share in hopes you might find it useful!

1)  Focus and listen to the quiet of your mind as you work. If you give your mind the space it needs to really enjoy your craft,  you will be able to hear and heed the little warnings. You may also hear the tinkling of inspiration and the gentle guidings toward the real “happy accidents.”
2) Haste makes waste, almost always.

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