Creativity is sometimes an awkward process...

This week I began working on the Mandala Madness CAL and below is as far as I've gotten (I've finished Part 1).  For the record, I'm almost two weeks behind, which means I can see two levels beyond where I presently am in working the design.  This has some advantages.  Or so it would seem.  I can anticipate, a bit, how many colors the next section will use and how they play with each other - so it seems like this would help me pick out colors, both in the part I'm presently crocheting and in thinking about what colors will look good in the next part.  But I'm finding, in some ways, it paralyzes me from making any firm decisions about colors at all. Not only am I second-guessing the section I'm working on, but I spend the time I'm crocheting one section stewing over the next section as well.  This does not seem to me to be a good thing.  Sigh.  All the things I fear about mystery CALs are coming to fruition, and  I'm thinking it was pretty impetuous of me to jump into this one.

I've recognized my color challenged-ness in the past, but something like this presses it to the limits.  I'm going for bright, flowery and fun (thinking I'll just make a small blanket that maybe a little girl will like), but I'm afraid all I'm going to achieve is gaudy, loud and crazy.

As much as I feel intimidated by this CAL, I guess the only thing to do is press on through each next part and hope for the best.  The first best is that I will create a masterpiece (giggling).  The last best is that I will learn some things about how colors play (or fight) with each other. And I'll learn my lesson once and for all that it takes a truly special person to enjoy a mystery CAL.

And I can't help but once again see the irony of the book I'm still (sort of) reading The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women by Gail McMeekin).   Me, a woman who isn't sure she can successfully put more than three colors together, reading a book about unleashing and freely exploring my own creativity.  It's at times like these I wonder if I have even the smallest smidgen of honest creativity to my name...

But I'll keep on - for now - dabbling with colorful yarns in this CAL, and I guess I'll keep plugging through this book - as long as I can continue to renew it (it's a library book) -  and we'll see where it all leads.  Creativity is sometimes an awkward process.  But it is a process...

Joining this post with Ginny Sheller's Yarn Along