Crackle Samples for Jacket

I have been trying to get things pulled together before I leave this Friday morning for a mini-vacation in Washington D.C. I want to have stuff organized well enough so it is easy to pick up and work on the crackle jacket designing when I get back. Actually, I would like to have all the preparations finished so that all I have left to do is to order the yarns I need.

But I will never get that far. I always seem to plan to get farther than I can, finish on an earlier date than is possible. That used to bother me for a long time. Now, unless there is truly a real deadline, it doesn't bother me. I know I get farther than I would have had I not set those goals that turn out to be unattainable.

So I have been going through the written work on the crackle sampling, comparing the tie-ups, treadlings, and colors with the actual woven samples. My dilemma (as always) is how to organize the stuff. I want the information to be useful in the future. That means, each sample needs to be associated with the tie-up, treadling and color information.

At first glance, it seems like the best way would be to cut the samples apart and attach to each of them the necessary information. But the necessary information is often quite long, extending at times to 3/4 of a page. OK, so then I could put each sample, with its paperwork, in a see-through plastic envelope that goes in a ring binder. This seems unnecessarily bulky and perhaps not even really useful.

Another thing I could do is to keep the samples intact and the paperwork in one piece. I like this idea best because sometimes it is really helpful to compare samples. And seeing them all together sets of different kinds of thinking about them.

OF course, I could play with the individual samples like puzzles, but then I would have to have an easy way to keep the paperwork with them. It could be difficult with some of them to identify them correctly because the differences can be fairly subtle.

So I really am coming down to the notion of keeping the samples in one piece and the written work in one piece and finding some convenient way to store them. The trick, of course, in storing them, is not to bury them so that out-of-sight becomes out-of-mind. So far what I have done is simply to put all the written materials in a file folder. Then I put the file folder in my filing cabinet. Out of sight..........

Then I have to put the woven samples some place else; they do not fit in the file folder. I have some in a box, but right now my tendency is to hang the ones with possibilities on a towel rack so they are always fairly visible. And I can easily pull off what I want to get a better look at. This may not be a pretty sight, but it does work.

Filing stuff has been an issue for each of my more creative problems. I have not solved it.l I don't know when, or even if, I will solve it. I keep hoping.