Which Came First?

"The torpid artist seeks inspiration at any cost, by virtue or by vice, by friend or by fiend, by prayer or by wine."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Inspiration is a funny thing... Sometimes it hides away within the nooks and crannies of your fevered imagination. Sometimes it can be danged hard to find. And sometimes it is everywhere you look.

Every time I think that's it; I'm done; All my ideas are already out there; the well has gone dry like a bone...



Something catches my eye...










Sets my pulse racing...










Leads me to another horizon...










Turns my ideas upside down...










Ignites a new spark...









And fills the wellspring to overflowing.





This weekend I went to Ann Arbor Michigan to catch up with Chris from Briar Rose. I needed to pick up Cherry Country(Chris and I have worked out a joint custody agreement. She gets the shawl every other weekend and for three weeks on summer vacation.)

I also needed to peruse yarn colors for another project I had in mind. A mosaic knit kimono jacket called Northern Lights.

But while I was there, inspiration leapt out of the front hall closet, mowed me down, and accosted me.

It was a creative mugging.




First it was buttons...










Then it was hand dyed ribbon...









And it already WAS beads...








So which comes first: the chicken or the egg?

To quote Rhett Butler, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!"

But...


The buttons or the yarn?

The design or the fiber?

The color or the shape?

Now THOSE are questions worth considering...