In which much is done and nothing is accomplished. Sunday Sewing Stats

This all started when I ordered the WRONG FMQ FOOT for Nina.  Who, apparently, is considered a New Machine and not an Old Machine as I had been led to believe by various sources on the Internet.  Moral?  Call, visit, patronize your local sewing machine shop.  They do know their business and it will probably save you from a huge headache.  But, everything does  happen for a reason and as a result of my phone call to the local Bernina shop (local being 1hr away) I was informed about a Huge Quilt Show at the Chautauqua Institution next weekend which I will be attending!  Whew hew!  Nevertheless, the Hummingbirds & Hexagons quilt is now on hold as I wait for the FMQ foot to proceed with quilting...

Ramble Warning: If you'd like to Jump Ahead to Sunday's Sewing Stats Be My Guest!

On Thursday, after the stall on the H&H quilting, I was feeling particularly overwhelmed by the worldwide web. To say I had become overstimulated is an understatement.  I began feeling that I didn't know whether I was having any original creative thoughts anymore.  Was this My Idea or did I glean this from someone else's beautiful photo on Flickr, a blog, Pinterest, Google Image search...  I love sharing ideas and inspiration with each other.  In fact, I intend to post some free PDFs of patterns I've come up with to share with whoever wants them.  After all, isn't that part of the tradition we all share as quilters?  Recycling patterns and fabric handed down to us from generation to generation?  Reproducing the past stories told in fabric and creating them anew with our own interpretation?  Even the modern quilting movement and its use of minimalist layouts, solid colors, asymmetrical compositions and pixelated piecing borrows many of its design elements from modern architecture, painting, and the influence of electronic media.  Who is to say what is a truly original idea anymore...so why do I care?  Even though I am a confident thirty-something-year-old who is comfortable with what she is and what she is not...I still carry on like an insecure teenager worrying about originality.

Regardless of whether it is right or wrong - I just had to prove that I could come with something original.

Stash Shot

Thursday night I raided my stash in the hopes of inspiring myself.  Instead I found a lot of ideas which required additional fabric.  I took photos of special things I am struggling with what to do with, you may visit them here if you'd like.  Then I went to bed with nothing accomplished and feeling utterly despondent.  The Mr. hates this aspect of Me, this is truly when I am Rebecca Lynne (i.e. First and Middle name...hence the title of the blog...as opposed to just Rebecca who is a much happier albeit cheekier person all in all).  When I am feeling creatively stumped I am particularly awful to be around.  Then Friday morning as I walked Portia a fog receded from my brain and I glimpsed something in my head that I just had to create! Yay!  I spent the girls' nap on Friday raiding my stash to see if I could cull enough from it to make my Eureka (as dubbed by Helen) and decided it was too special to grab just anything and I needed to be patient to gather the appropriate materials.

Ugh.  Back to square one.  I decided that I needed to make something small, quick, easy.  Something I could finish quickly and say "there, that makes me feel better" because, as you know, the finishing of something always brings a great sigh of satisfaction doesn't it?  I'll just do something small I said to myself.

Hahahahaa...famous last words.

Enter indecision.  First I decided I'll just whip up an I Spy placement as suggested by Toni's Thursday Think Tank.  Yes, well, that led me to my Heather Ross Far Far Away I & II stash and the notorious, hmmm, do I want to cut into this for this project issue reared its ugly head.  Sooo...I set that aside.  Then I thought I can practice paper piecing and make my darling a paper pieced cupcake, but what was I going to make a paper pieced cupcake for?  A placemat, a pillow, the beginnings of a quilt?  Agh!!!  At this point half of my random stash is on the floor and I'm looking at the "large quilts I have started and need to finish pile" with disdain.

Then I remembered a gift deadline and that jolted me out of my funk.  It wasn't something I had a driving urge to create...but it was something quick, easy, and simple.  Exactly the kind of project I needed.  Custom Burp Cloths which I took enough pics of to create a tutorial for anyone interested AND I got to practice some Free Motion Quilting as well!

Custom Burp Cloth with Wavy Line FMQ

After that I was jazzed up enough (yes, jazzed, I don't know where that came from...but there it is) that I grabbed a whole stack of green fabric and started cutting it up to try something that I had seen and wanted to try for awhile.  Originality go hang, I just needed to cut and cut and cut.  Whatever issues I had before were out the window and resulted in this:

After creating two of these blocks I felt so much better that I was able to work on the Across the Sea Quilt again.  Deep breath.  Sometimes you just have to exorcise those demons.  What will I be doing with these blocks?  Which measure roughly 9" all said and done...hmm, I have hobbled a plan but I'd like to keep it in my head for a bit lest it alter in an attempt to describe it.  Don't worry I'll update you later when I have gotten over the chaotic jumble that is my brain.

If you've gotten this far - Congratulations.  That was a scary view into my creative process and quite a mental vent if I do say so.  Now for the more practical side of things.  Sunday's Stats where I figure out my project goals for the week.

Sunday Sewing Stats

I did particularly bad with last week's goals.  So this week I am going to be kinder and set my sights a bit smaller...

Sewing Goals for the Week of September 18, 2011
- Across the Sea QAL: FINISH TOP & BACK!!!***
- 100 Quilts for Kids: Finish Cutting, start sewing top...ideally finish (HA!)
- Hummingbirds & Hexagons: Wait for FMQ foot to arrive...won't touch until I finish something else FIRST!
- Tumbling Blocks: Continue Ironing and Try sewing a Row?  Good faith effort here Helen!
- Everything else on hold [Botanika, Fall/Spring, Spinning Stars, Secret Project, Eureka]

Other Goals
- Finish Chalkboard Project DONE!  Posting this week.
- Complete Celebrate Color project  DONE! Posting this week.


Other Other Goals
- Control my urge to start anything new!


What are your goals this week?  Is there anyway I can help you meet them?  Leave me a comment below and we can nudge each other along...

- rebecca lynne