My fellow knitting designer Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer is doing a very interesting series over at her blog Taking Time to Smell the Roses. She's calling it What Will It Become?—and each post focuses on a yarn and her design plans for it. I marvel at her focus, and it's making me think I have designing ADD. That's odd, because I have no other kind of ADD in my life whatsoever. Why designing?

I sometimes wonder if I struggle not because I don't have enough ideas, but because I have too many. I don't know. I do know that I am thinking about my designing (and sometimes the lack of it) quite a bit these days. I'm not coming to any conclusions, and I wonder if I am just chasing my tail. It's very disconcerting. Clearly, I need a weekend retreat on the Zen of Knitwear Design.

Thanks to my mother, I have a large collection of Threads Magazine dating all the way back to issue #1. There used to be a guest column on the last page of each issue, and one column in particular has stuck with me over lo these many years. The writer talked about how she would walk through a fabric store and imagine each piece of fabric made up into something beautiful. On one trip, she went home with a length of very expensive olive-green wool jersey. She talked about how the act of cutting into the fabric would ruin it forever, and she came to the conclusion that she wasn't really buying fabric, she was buying potential. I know exactly what she means. I have Rubbermaid bins full of potential in my yarn storage room.

I also have a pile of things on my desk for which patterns need to be written: a kids' sweater, two cowls, a lace scarf, and—as of last night—a cushy winter hat. It's not like I am not producing. Of course, I'd like to be producing more. Some sweater designs would be nice, but they seem to be beyond my capacity at the moment. I can't even get patterns written for the things on my desk.

Enough angst. I have to cast on for a baby blanket.

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The husband brought home 5 new hens and a rooster yesterday (the rooster and two hens are Buff Orpingtons, and the other two hens are Rhode Island Reds). The rooster is quite handsome and full of himself, although he doesn't seem to be vicious. He also crows a lot. I am not sure what we are going to do if baby chicks begin appearing. The husband doesn't seem to know, either—at least, he hasn't answered me the three times I have asked him what's going to happen if baby chicks begin appearing. Hmmm.

I got spinach planted today in the garden. I ordered some heirloom lettuce varieties, and they haven't come yet or I would have planted them, too. All of the varieties in my garden this year are going to be heirlooms. I like to know what I am eating and I would prefer it not have been engineered in a lab.

Do go check out Jackie's blog. She's got some really excellent foodie posts, too.