wound up, wind down

Ahhh. Saturday again. A week later and home still isn't cleaned, the dyeing has only just started, I've well and truly avoided the studio, some emails have been answered, some are falling off the bottom of the list, a few phone calls have been made, most of the tin toys have been unpacked.... just another week drifting by.
I'm just printing up some handspun yarn wraps so we will have more yarn in the shop today. I dragged the spinning wheel upstairs and now I need to carry it back down. What colour to spin today? Choices, choices.
I haven't much to say this morning. I'm sitting here staring at the dye colours around my fingernails, they will be like that for the next 5 months, and have just realised that I forgot to get rubber gloves at the stupidmarket this morning. Damn. Note to self: don't shop when half asleep.
Having so many tin toys out just makes one itch to wind them all up at the same time and have them buzzing and whirring away together. Occasionally when one was sitting on the shelf supposedly run down it would start to whirr and click and jiggle about, it makes you ponder how exciting automatons must have been in their hey-day. There really is a magic to tin toys, a few cogs and springs, some jerky movements and away they go. More so, I think, than huge computer operated dinosaurs and dragons, they are impressive but not as much fun as a bit of pressed tin that you can hold in your hand, turn over and watch how they work. I think it's the Meccano factor, a bit of string, a couple of pulleys and some slotted metal and you have the Eiffel Tower. Perhaps it's just me, I'm a tinkerer, I like to visualise and think about how things work. I could at this point talk about the downside of computers and their two dimensional world, a shock realisation that came with teaching that there are generations of people out there who can not think in 3D and this is where craft and making stuff can come into its own. Using your hands and solving problems through craft and making stuff is a fabulous exercise for the brain. Often before I make something I will make it over and over in my head, thinking through how to produce it before I every pick up my scissors and slice through some fabric. On this note I should let you know about a panel discussion I'm part of for theL'Oreal  Melbourne Fashion Festival, you can pop over to the Hand Eye Collective's page to check out the details, three evenings of chat about design and making. You can come and have a drink and hear me waffle on Monday evening.
Seems like I had more to say than I thought.
Cat wrangling time!