A Prairie Home Quilts

I’ve been thinking a bit lately about my sewing space.  It’s suppose to be a creative place but most of the time when I’m in the room, it doesn’t inspire creativity.  For my birthday last year, my sweet DIL got me this wall decal.

The problem is that my soul doesn’t feel very “mended” when I’m in there sewing.  The room is not bringing me much joy…  most of the time I don’t even feel like going in there.

Hmm.  Could this be part of the problem?

I think it’s time to start asking the tough questions.  Why & What questions.  Why don’t I feel like going in there?  What is bugging me about it?  What can I do to change it so that I feel creative when I walk in to that space?  I’m even avoiding the computer in here and I used to spend a lot of time on that computer.

Hmm.  Could this be part of the problem?

While I was away, I spent some time thinking about why and what…  mostly what I don’t like about my space and what I want to do about it.

One last shot of the room in its current state.

Oh my goodness!  Look at that disgusting ironing board cover!  I know that’s what you’re thinking.  It’s okay.  I’m thinking the same thing…   Here is some more of what I want to change:

When I’m sewing,  my main light source is behind me and I have my back to my design wall.  I don’t like all the furniture around the edges of the room.  It gives me lots of floor space but I don’t need it.  I need more table space for cutting and sewing.  I want to be able to machine quilt and I can’t very well with the sewing table I’m using now.  I don’t like using my grandmother’s dry sink for the mini ironing board.  I don’t like how I have my computer desk set up and want more space to work and spread papers out.  I don’t like the curtains.  There’s a mess in the closet that has little to do with sewing and/or quilting.  My fabric stash (what little there is of it) is in another room.  My rulers, scissors and other tools are a jumble in drawers in a rolling cart in the closet.  I think that about covers it.  Oh, and I think I need some more stuff on the walls.  They are pretty bare.

I have my work cut out for me.

Because I know that I’m more productive in the long run if I work on multiple projects at the same time and taking into account my current need to be more productive, I’m finding it necessary to work round-robin-style on the following projects:

1. Leftovers Again
2. Plaid Bargello
3. Striped Shirt Boxes
4. Crooked Path Table Topper
5. Scrappy Patchwork of the Crosses
6. Nevada
7. Baby Girl Bug
8. Variable Star
9. Plaid 9 Patch
10. Rocky Glen
11. Streak of Lightning
12. Bold Streak
13. Field of Flowers
14. Rose Basket
15. Layer Cake

Beginning this week, here’s to being more productive.  Stay tuned for updates. . .  assuming, of course, that I’ll have internet access during my next two house sitting jobs.  Have I mentioned how frustrating it is not to have internet access while I’m house sitting? Otherwise it’ll just be an update. Singular.

• Let your mind wander and dream
• Forget the rules and follow your instinct
• Embrace life

More advice found while eating Dove Extra Dark Chocolate Promises.

Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything. Eugene Delacroix (1798 – 1863)

I found this quote on the tag of my Good Earth Sweet & Spicy tea today.  It was like a personal message just for me.  It made me smile.  On the projects I’ve been working on recently, I’ve been obsessing a bit over my mismatched seams.  I’ve been making myself a little crazy unsewing seams.  Several seams I’ve unsewn more than once.   All in pursuit of perfection.  To what end I’m wondering?

What is perfection? Isn’t it different for everybody? Can we attain it then?

Then it hit me and I had to laugh out loud. I used to have a little sticky note on my computer reminding me to accept every day as perfect just as it comes.  When I just accept everything as perfect, there is no need to seek perfection. Perfection is already there, all around me.  I accept it.  To continually seek perfection just seems to leave me more and more dissatisfied.

Perfection:  It’s all in my attitude.

Now, can I transfer this acceptance of all things as perfection just as they come to my quilt seams and blocks? I think I’m going to give it a try.  I’m sure I’ll get more quilts done.

• Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.
• Don’t be afraid to give of yourself.
• Get out there and make your dreams happen.

Advice found while eating Dove Extra Dark Chocolate Promises and working on those three [not fun, but hanging over me like little dark clouds] computer projects.

Much like Meg Ryan’s character in You’ve Got Mail, I’m not expecting  any answers–I’m just sending these comments and questions off into the cosmic void.  [I'm not even bothering to put them into coherent paragraphs...]  It’s become apparent to me that I enjoy starting new projects more than finishing old ones.   Okay, that fact has been apparent to me for a couple of decades actually…  but I do finish things. Eventually. What I should say is that this has become more of a concern during recent weeks. I have noticed lately that I further procrastinate on finishing old projects by continuing to dream up and start more and more new projects.  [Who needs patterns and magazines when your brain is overflowing with ideas??  I fell asleep the other day thinking of a pattern for a Christmas tree skirt and woke up with a pattern idea for kitchen accessories too.]  What’s even more problematic is that recently I’ve started cutting out several new projects without even beginning to sew the last projects I cut out–ones that were just started within the last few weeks.  Is it an obssession? A new disease?  Why do I enjoy dreaming up new ideas, figuring the yardage, and printing and/or cutting the fabric bits for these projects?  Why am I then letting these new projects  languish at that point??  And then starting another project??? Is there a point where your WIP and UFO list, like a fabric stash and number of question marks at the end of a sentence, becomes utterly ridiculous?   Who determines that point anyway? Or is all of this because I have these three other little non-quilting projects to do that I’m totally avoiding? Is starting more and more projects a way to feel too busy to do the non-quilting projects?  I know it’s one way to avoid doing housework. Am I afraid that once I lower the presser foot to the fabric that I won’t be able to quit until I have half a dozen projects  to the completed top stage?  [Hey, I've done my share of quilt binging.]  But then I’d really be behind on those non-quilting projects.  Which would probably cause me to want to start even more projects! That’s it!  I’m a quilt binger or a quiltaholic or something.  Hmmm.  Actually, I think I just answered my own questions… [Thank you, Cosmic Void.] Yes, I’d much rather do the fun stuff and only the fun stuff. I need to get motivated to finish up those three computer-related, non-quilting projects.  And yet I have no valid excuse for not doing them.   It’s funny to me that they are computer projects that are quilting related but not quilting projects.  And, get this…  I’ve started those three projects… just haven’t finished them. I think I need a taskmaster–someone to tell me what I should be doing when and making sure I get it done.  My mother would be a good candidate.  Nevermind.  I’d surely rebel and run for the hills screaming. Perhaps just some dark chocolate would help.

While I was sitting at my desk, I looked up at my inspiration board with family pictures and was inspired to do another four letter word block for Tonya.  I decided it would be good to do another block for more practice, and because I wanted to do a word that no one else had done.  [Something about the need to be original? Unique? Who knows.] After I finished the block, all I can say is that I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to do wonky letters and I’m sure it’s all the fault of my elementary school teachers.

Yes, it’ll definitely take several years of therapy for my brain to do wonky. You see, in elementary school every year I received the dreaded “N” for penmanship.  “N” as in needs improvement, not satisfactory, not up to par, not normal, nasty and a whole slew of other negative “N” words.  Once in sixth grade, my teacher held up my paper in front of the whole class as a messy example of what a paper should not look like.  I was mortified… wanted to die… felt like I was standing in front of the whole class in my underwear.  [Mr. Gross if you're out there, you should be paying for my therapy!]

So where am I going with this you ask?  Well, because I was traumatized and humiliated for my penmanship [hey, it's not like I wasn't trying to do my best!] I decided to show up those negative Nellies and Neds. In Junior High [Middle School for those of you under 50], I worked really hard at improving my handwriting. I filled notebooks with my handwriting practice. I spent many hours writing 10, 20 & 30 page letters every week to my BFF. I even spent several years graffiti-ing everything in sight with block letters. Block letters with stripes, polka dots, and drop shadows.  Lots of L-O-V-E in the shape of a heart.  [The school custodians must have loved washing my artwork off the desks everyday.]

Yup, I practiced so hard that now my penmanship is too neat and as a result, I’m having a hard time doing wonky. That’s got to be the reason. It’s certainly not because I have an organized, neat freak personality. [No offense to any organized neat freaks who might be reading this.  Really.  I have two children who are organized neat freaks and I love them anyway.]  So Tonya, here is my second, four letter, unwonky word block for you.

A nice, neat [big, fat?] KISS.

As you can see, I still like going all the way to the edge with my letters.  I’m not sure what that says about me, but I’m sure it says something.