Too Much Of A Good Thing?

Last week I taught at an ginormous beading conference, Bead & Button, and my head is still swirling with great ideas. I have a whole pile of index cards with notes and sketches and ideas I can't wait to explore. So the timing was perfect for me to read Susan Murphy's post on How To Turn Idea Overload Into Idea Fuel over at Thought Wrestling. My thanks to Liz Massey at Creative Liberty for the post that led me there.

Like Susan, I need to lay things out in front of me to get a more realistic picture of what's going on in my head, when there's so much going on in my head. I know I can't do it all, so I have to figure out where to start, and then do it. When there's too much of a good thing, as Susan suggests, you have to let the cream rise to the top.
 In certain situations, though, I firmly reject this sensible course of action and channel my inner Mae West: Too much of a good thing can be wonderful. That's what I was thinking yesterday when I finally had a chance to sort through goodies my sister-in-law brought me two weeks ago. These came from her bff Annette -- one of the few people who has known my husband long enough to have seen his face without a beard (I never have, and we've been married 20 years).

While cleaning out the belongings of an elderly relative of Annette's, she and Jean started a bag for me. They  ended up with four overstuffed trash can liners full of yarn and crochet cotton, small pieces of fabric cut for forgotten quilt projects, balls of fabric strips sewn together. And wonderful UFOs -- pieced quilt squares and crochet projects, mostly

As a person who generates plenty of her own UFOs, why would I take on someone else's? Well, I won't feel guilty about not finishing them the way they were intended. For example, one bit of piecing I plan to send through the washer to fray the raw edges to make a scarf. Since I do not piece, this is an opportunity I would never have otherwise. I think another couple of quilt blocks will become pockets on a pair of cargo pants. I'll take a few pieces with me for the teens to play with at a fiber camp I'm teaching at this summer. But I'm keeping all the pink crochet roses for myself.

The bonus in the bag was an envelope that holds a few grains of rice thrown at newlyweds half a century ago. Throwing rice (or birdseed) at a wedding symbolizes the guests' wishes for prosperity for the couple. When it comes to good wishes, there can never be too much of a good thing, or too long to treasure the memory of it.