"Svend Tang-Petersen"

.. However in the past Ive bought my
share of
fancy materials and find that most of them seem to attract fishermen more
that
fish. Most
of them usually end up somewhere at the bottom of one of my boxes

IMHO, ( attach all suitable disclaimers :-) design is problem solving,
great design is elegant, simple, solution to problems.

Design starts ( or should ) with defining the problem, NOT with defining the
materials to be used ( unless the problem is selling the material ;-).
When a tiers "problem statement" is "How do I use this material I bought to
produce a valuable pattern." the cart is before the horse, yet we all do
that, at times.

I make no claim to "always" achieving these goals, but, for me, the two most
"maturing" decisions I've made as a fly fisher are to try and

1) Decide what fly to tie on, before opening the fly box
2) Decide what to imitate, and the various qualities the fly must have to do
so, before choosing materials, buying new ones, or even starting to design a
new pattern.

Both these put defining the problem in the correct order, imho. And both
force observation and, hopefully, a more accurate definition of that
problem.

I have dozens and dozens of packages of "cool stuff" that I'd be happy to be
rid of, ... all acumulated before I realised that I proceeding bassackwards.
Only a very few of the real "special" products have found a useful place in
my tying kit, 99% just take up space, make it harder to find what I really
need, and represent money that could have been used on a fishing trip.

It's very easy to become a slave to what we "own." In this case of new
materials, once you're stuck with it, maybe spending hours trying to make it
have real value, even using up time that could have produced simple,
working, patterns. This, then, could lead to a trip to the "destination
shop" to unnecessarily spend and buy "working patterns and old standards"
...... and maybe some more "cool new stuff" ... continuing the cycle g