The messy middle

So I've had a couple of weeks where lots of pieces I'm working on are in the messy middle. That place where it feels like you'll never produce anything that's any good ever again. Every layer you add seems to make it worse. You toss everything aside in disgust and go off and do some knitting instead.

I finished the piece above this morning. Below is how it was looking half an hour earlier.

Sometimes you have to cover up what's there and start anew. It shows through, but is pushed to the background. It's a case of quietening what's being so noisy on the page. It happens in life, too - taking a rest is a way of quietening the noise of 'normal' life. It gives us chance to reset and push those noisy but unimportant things out of the centre and focus on what matters.