Creatively Stumped (or, Why I Started This Blog)!

Seriously struggling with all the ideas and inspiration out there in crochet-land and knitting-land.  I cannot focus on one or two ideas and run with them.  Researching one project or pattern or yarn usually leads to another, and before I know it, I'm at one of the retail sites buying something that I wasn't looking for in the first place.  Rinse and repeat.  It's exhausting and frustrating.

I'm a natural-born reader and follower, but this character trait of mine seems to have morphed into something that hinders me creatively, in that I spend more time and energy looking at what others have done rather than doing it myself.  I desperately want to do it myself; I have that need to create and craft.  I'm not talking about content creation.  I don't have an original idea at all.  I just want to make things following a pattern or using a yarn.  And it's all so darn enticing!

Plan the First:  Limit time on social media.  Read/view/stalk my pretties and fancies once a day instead of checking every three hours to see if there's anything new out there.  Use these newfound hours to, you know, crochet or knit.

Plan the Second:  Only purchase yarn when I have a pattern in hand that I cannot wait one more minute to make.  No stash enhancement or feeding the stash.  Further to that, only purchase the yarn recommended by the designer.  No substitutions, because I don't have that skill set (apparently).

Plan the Third:  Work harder at using my stashed yarns.  Cast on without worrying that it's not the absolute best use of the yarn, or the best pattern, or the best idea.  Just try it and if I hate it, try something else.  Stop being paralyzed by the need for efficiency and perfection.

I want to have fun again.