Coping With Free Will

I couldn't find a good image of Buridan's ass, so
you get infinity instead.

I have alluded previously to the struggles of prioritization, and now that all the hot deadlines have been passed, this is a matter that's bubbled back up to the top.  I have a little bit of breathing room at the moment: no displays, competitions, peerage regalia, or other shenanigans are in the offing, and although I have been contacted about a commission (eep!) that's still in the discussion phase.  So I'm an unusual state of complete liberty to pursue whatever I want, a state I have not seen in ... over two years, I think.

Regrettably, that often leads to hitting reload on Facebook a ridiculous number of times and/or falling down the black hole of TV Tropes. 

For to prevent the effusion of blood precious free time, I had already created several itemized lists of Things I Could Be Doing.  There's a mending list, there's a household-goods-to-make list (e.g., banners [PAINTED THIS TIME]; heraldic butt-cushions for the X-chairs), there's a new-clothes-and-accessories list, und so weiter.  This helps a little bit--just pick something off a list!  Anything!  They're all Approved Projects!--but I realized that many of the line items require some amount of prep work: materials I don't have on hand, or learning a new skill, or greater pre-planning.  Additionally, weekday evenings are limited enough in time and brain capacity that they are usually not suited to starting a new undertaking.

I'd already evolved the idea of having a couple of works-in-progress available in the Sewing Crap Cart that sits next to the couch; things that I can just pick up and work on with minimal brain intervention.  (Right now, for instance, there's that darn winter sock I haven't finished {though I have finally gotten to the heel flap!}; a half-done embroidered daisy; a slow-moving Celtic-interlace embroidery I've been working on for about five years now; and what should be a box o' mending but it has suffered scope creep and I need to put actual mending in it.)   This has worked moderately well and I've spent some evenings nibbling away at the backlog.  But I've also made an effort to pre-source materials for things I know I want to get to at some point. I have a bunch of tablets and I've borrowed a proper loom for when I'm ready to take a crack at a tablet-woven fillet; this weekend, I picked up a variety pack of plain wooden beads to try making those thread-wrapped buttons the Elizabethans were fond of; and I'm going to make a shopping list for a GIANT BANNER-PAINTING FEST that will take place this summer.  (The heraldic cushions may be delayed while we wait for my dashing consort's arms to pass {or not}.)

Tangentially, I've felt a little strange about the fact that I haven't made a new dress for myself in a couple of years (and the most recent one is, in fact, too small for me at my present fighting weight, ahem).  But let's take a look at my wardrobe unlock'd (links are to photos of me in said garment):

• six chemises (plus one that can only be worn for 16th century)
• three 14th c. restrictive layers (red linen, brown linen, red wool)
• three 14th c. versatile layers (green wool, brown stippled wool, blue silk)
• three 15th c. gamurra (blue wool, minty wool, purple silk)
• one 16th c. gown (super fancy)

(And this isn't even counting tunics and bog shmatas and the like.)  There are people who go to three times as many events as I do, who have half the number of clothes! I do have a couple of dresses in the pipeline I'd like to get to, but these are all in pretty good shape and look pretty good on me, so I want to concentrate my efforts on doing better by my dashing consort.  Or, if I need to make something for myself, it should be filling an actual gap; a second pair of hose, a better hood with proper gores, the aforementioned fillet, etc.  That said, I will absolutely permit mending time on these: last night, for instance, I did repairs on the red linen, and I redid some of the eyelets on the red wool--they were too small to begin with and shredding open due to cheap-ass thread, leading to vast annoyance whenever I try to lace it up. 

I do have a couple remaining items to get off my conscience (the banner lining is staring threateningly at me), but now I want to prioritize getting Himself properly set up for Pennsic.  Now that he's actually been to war, I think we both have a clearer notion of what his comfort requires.  (He's also expressed some discomfort in his range of arm motion, so I will need to explore some better tailoring in that department.)  But at the very least, here's my aspirational list:

• Make the flat cap I cut out last year (!)
• One or two more shirts are probably in order.
• Refit the jerkin and Venetians my lovely & talented apprentice sister made up for him--not her fault, the pattern I sent her was too big--and possibly add sleeves to make it a doublet.  Also lacing holes.
• Add lacing holes to the linen suit I made for him last year.
• All these lacing holes mean I need to make a metric assload of lacing points, with aglets.  *sob* (I wonder if I can justify dropping 46 quid on a dozen pre-made ones from the Tudor Tailor.  On the one hand, fuuuuuuuuuck that's expensive.  On the other hand, I am provably incompetent at agleting.)
• It'd be nice to throw in a warm over-tunic for late night potty runs or whatever.
• I'm super tempted to make him a 14th-century outfit.  I mean, I always intended to; but the aforementioned possible commission is for a Charles de Blois pourpoint, so if I gotta learn the technology anyways...
• though this means not just the tunic, but also braies, hose, and probably a hood.  OH LOOK SCOPE CREEP

All that, and paint a bunch of banners, and make myself a headband with fake braids, in four months, along with all my other commitments?