Lesson Learned: Go With Your instincts!

I know y’all thought I was slacking on getting the Strawberry candle mat started.  But honest, I’m not!  I know, I KNOW, I said that I would start the tutorial at the beginning of the week, but I ran into a problem…..

I dyed up the wools that I would need to make the strawberry candle mat last weekend.  The greens turned out beautiful and at the time, when I had the fat quarter of dyed strawberry wool hanging out on the clothesline to dry, I was really happy with that color too.

However, once it was dry, my instincts kept telling me that the strawberry color was too pink.  I really wanted more red with just tinges of pink in the mottling. 

I should have listened to my instincts right then because I would have, in the long run, saved a lot of time.

I decided that pink mottled strawberries would look nice too and forgetting that I tend to be a perfectionist with getting just the perfect color, or maybe I was deliberately ignoring the fact that I tend to be a perfectionist when it comes to matching a color that is in my head, I went ahead and started making strawberries out of that pretty pink mottled wool.

If you could only hear the screaming that went on in my head as I was stitching the first strawberry on.  One voice (the powerful, go with your instinct one) was saying, “Holy Cow, this strawberry is WAAAAAAAy too pink, STOP. NOW.  GO. DYE. RED.”

And the other voice in my head (the nicer one that tends to be more patient) is saying, “hmmm… it is a little pink but let’s just see how it looks with the whole grouping of strawberries.  Perhaps once I stitch in the little green seeds, the strawberries will look perfect.”

And so, the nicer patient voice won the battle and I continued wasting my time by stitching, stuffing, stemming and seeding those little pink strawberries. 

And then I realized ….

My instinct voice in my head was right all along.  Holy cow, these strawberries aren’t a juicy luscious red.  They’re an unripe sour pink!

So, it’s back to the dye pot for me to get a good luscious strawberry red color. 

Now I have a really nice fat quarter of mottled pink colored wool that I will find a use for.  I actually have a Fuchsia flower design that I drew up months ago that this color will be purrrrrrrfect for, so now I’m anxious to finish up the strawberry mat so that I can make the Fuchsia  one!

And so, my strawberry mat will be redone and because of the wonderfullness of forgiving wools, I’m able to easily remove those stitched in strawberries without disturbing the green leaves or the black background wools underneath.  Cottons, as nice as they are to work with, aren’t as forgiving, so pulled-out stitching would have been very noticeable.

 

In other news in the current life of ME, the Census job might be winding down.  We’re pretty much done with our area and all that’s left are the difficult cases that have to be revisited. 

Everyone that we visit has to answer just a few simple basic questions, but we’ve all encountered at least a few that either slam the door in our faces, call us names and then slam the door in our faces, or simply stare at us silently, making us break out in hives because we’re so scared that he might cut us up and put us in his woodchipper.

Sorry, was that a little too graphic?  :)

Those are the ones that we have to revisit. 

I’ve really toughen up since I first started.  I now laugh in the face of abusive people.  The other day someone told me to “GET OUT, YOU’RE BOTHERING ME.  YOU’RE A CRIMINAL!!”

And you know what?  I laughed at him, ignored him and continued to interview his sweet, kind, and embarrassed elderly mother who offered me a cold beverage before I left.

When I first started this job, anytime someone yelled at me, I’d stop working, go home and sulk.  Now?  I take it as a challenge.  I can sweet talk just about anyone into giving me the information that I have to get.  All I have to do is get them to laugh and I’ve got them wound around my little finger.

So I’m going to go back to the silent, scary one with the woodchipper in his yard … along with someone else, of course, and I’m going to get what I’m paid to get from this guy.

OK, hopefully, I can get some strawberry red wool dyed and hanging out on my clothesline today. 

I’ll post the tutorial soon, I promise!

Happy Day everyone!