Stuck in a Holding Pattern: Felting without Finishing

I’m stuck.  Stuck, stuck, stuck.  It’s not that I haven’t been creative and somewhat productive, but I just can’t seem to finish anything.  I have needle-felted and wet felted many colorful little pieces over the past few weeks (I counted 62 in all), but I can’t seem to get myself to make them into finished products.  They will eventually be rings, bracelets, hair clips, etc., but for some reason, I just keep starting new projects instead of finishing these.  Actually, come to think of it, I do have about a dozen finished products sitting around, but I haven’t managed to get those listed on Etsy.  That would involve taking and editing photos and writing detailed descriptions – not that difficult, but I can’t bring myself to do it.  Every day, I just reach for the wool and start poking something new.

Oh yeah, and by the way (in case you hadn’t noticed), I seem to have writer’s block as well.  And here again, it’s not that I haven’t written anything, it’s that I can’t seem to finish a blog post.  Last week (or was it the week before?), I wrote a post, but I never published it.  I typed up a rough draft, but then I didn’t get around to the final steps of revising my writing and adding the photos and links for it.  And I had taken the photos weeks before that but never got around to editing them.  Ughhh!  What is going on with me?

I’m hoping that writing this -- and yes, publishing it! -- will snap me out of this holding pattern and get me moving forward again.  I still haven’t gotten to the bottom of what’s holding me back, but I think I just need to push past it.  

Some of my unfinished felted Zazzy Peacock creations -- hopefully, soon to make it over to my Etsy shop.

Finding Inspiration at the Bethesda Fine Arts Festival

Wow, it’s really hard to stay on track when life throws you curveballs!   Metaphorically speaking, I’ve been off my game the last few weeks.  Among other things, my youngest spent five days in the hospital with a skin infection and allergic reactions to antibiotics. Needless to say, I spent the week fretting over him, sleeping on a foldout hospital chair, and arguing with doctors.  I could write a whole blog of advice on how to advocate for your child in the hospital, but I’ll cut to the chase:  If you can go straight to a specialist, do that!  The pediatricians didn’t know what to do with my son, and it took a few days and transferring to another hospital to see the specialists who knew how to treat him.  If I had taken him directly to a dermatologist’s office instead of to the emergency room, chances are we would have greatly shortened the hospital stay or avoided it altogether.

After being so strong in the hospital, I promptly fell apart as soon as we got home – migraines, back spasms, etc. – and spent the better part of the following week in bed.  By this past weekend, it had been two weeks since I painted, felted, blogged or exercised. (Have I mentioned I’m an exercise fanatic and that it keeps me sane?)  I needed to turn things around and get back to doing the things that make me feel good.  Luckily, it was Mother's Day weekend, and I could get the family to do something artsy with me without too much complaining.  So we headed to the Bethesda Fine Arts Festival for some fresh air and inspiration.   And it seems to have done the trick.  I spent all day yesterday needle-felting and remembered how therapeutic it can be to poke soft, colorful wool with a barbed needle.  I even managed to do a little photo shoot, even though that's not my favorite thing to do.  And here I am today – writing again. :-)

Here are a few examples of the wonderful work by the talented and inspiring artists we saw this weekend:

I absolutely flipped over this table by Douglas Durkee of Infinity Furnishings!

Tanya Tyree's Raku sculptures are so beautiful!

The black and white photography of Chris Coffey is simply breathtaking.
My husband has a few of these on his Father's Day wish list.

We actually bought some beautiful photography by Edward Holland and Mark MacKinnon. I'll share those too once I get them up and take some photos myself.  Thanks for looking!

A New Hook for My Colorful Animal Print Swirls

Felted leopard handbag hook holding
a leather bag I hand-painted with a
leopard print after accidentally
splattering it with nail polish.

One of my pet peeves is restaurants that have rounded back chairs.  You can't hang your handbag on the back of those chairs! Where am I supposed to put my purse?  I'm not putting it on a dirty restaurant floor, if I can help it.  If possible I use an extra chair; otherwise, I end up keeping my bag on my lap, which is not comfortable.  Then I discovered these great little purse hooks or hangers that you can carry around in case of such an "emergency."  It has a magnet that keeps in flat in your handbag, and then it opens up into a hook.  You place the flat round part on the table, and voila -- you can hang your bag.  


The problem was, I couldn't really find one I liked.  The solution:  I decided to make some, of course.  So here are my latest felted purse hangers.  My  favorite designs are the ones that look like the swirled branches of the animal print trees I'm so fond of painting.  It's really fun to take a design from one medium and translate it into another. I love combining bold beautiful colors with leopard, giraffe, tiger, and ocelot patterns.  It's a lot of work to needle-felt these intricate little animal prints and swirls, but I think they're worth it.  I also made some purse hooks with yin yang and peacock motifs that I'll be adding to my shop soon.  Next, I think I'll try making some of these designs into rings and pendants too.

Zazzy Peacock purse hooks with colorful swirls and animal prints, available in my Etsy shop

Thanks for looking at my latest creations!


Related posts:  Loving the Swirl of Life  (to learn more about my swirl tree paintings and the universal meaning of swirls).
So I Have a Thing for Peacocks

View of the handbag hooks in the closed position
Visit my Zazzy Peacock Etsy shop to see these and lots more!

My painting, "Peacock Ocelot Tree," shows the origins of my animal print swirl designs