Tag: goals

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Seven Days

I was going to write about something else today, but while I was in and out of the kitchen and porch grilling dinner, I found this lovely creature:

It is a Luna moth.  I have only seen one other Luna moth, also where I live, a couple of years ago.  The one I found today was clinging to the doorjamb of my porch door.  Since I am short, I almost missed seeing it.  While my dinner cooked, I watched the motionless moth, taking in the rare sight for as long as I could.  These moths are not considered rare, but they are not always observed as they are nocturnal and only live for about seven days (more information here).

This evening I have been pondering measuring progress in seven day increments, one week to us, but an entire lifetime for the Luna moth.  I caught myself feeling bad about all the times this past week that I goofed off instead of stitching, writing, drawing or being otherwise creatively productive.  Over the past year, a few things have happened that reminded me of how short of a time we are here, and as a result, I have been more aware of how much time I waste in a day.  I still struggle with time management, and it is easy to get overwhelmed by balancing things I want to do with the things I have to do ASAP.  I know I am not the only one with these issues!

Finding the Luna moth today reminds me not to dwell on what I haven’t done, but celebrate what I have done, and to look ahead seven days to what I can try to accomplish.  I am going to head downstairs to see if my little moth is still on the porch, and look for some fabric to match that delicate celadon color.  I won’t spend too much time looking for the fabric, I have some older projects that I want to stitch.  How much will I get done in the next seven days?

 

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Happy Distractions

Yikes!  If I miss a week of posts, it is because I am in a groove with something, or just really having fun.  Or, both situations – if I’m in a creative or other productive groove, I’m having fun.  Last week flew by from canning green tomato relish, and preparing and participating in a local art festival.  I was not a vendor at the festival, but I volunteered to demo my stitching and fabric collage techniques.  Here are a couple of views of my table of creative collage chaos:

The weather was perfect, and I enjoyed renewing acquaintances with local artists.  We all agreed that we need to get together more and promote our skills in the community, and encourage others to learn new things.  One of my goals is find ways to stitch more out in public view, and talk to people about what I am doing.  There are many ways to accomplish this: make something while waiting for an appointment, get out and sketch while on break, have artist trading cards to give away to anyone who asks about what you are doing.  Talk about why art is important to you, and why you like your chosen media.  Have fun!

 

 

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Another Daily Challenge

No, this doesn’t directly involve art quilting or any stitching, but it is all about my ongoing attempts at art journaling.  I am, for the third year, trying to complete the 60 day Index Card a Day (ICAD) challenge.  Check out the link, the artist that puts on the challenge has a great website full of ideas and tips for mixed media art journaling.  While I struggle to journal on a regular basis, I do believe it is a great way for artists and those who want to be creative to work on skills, habits and ideas.

Getting back to the ICAD event, the challenge creator posts lists of themes or prompts for each day of the challenge.  Sometimes, the daily prompt just doesn’t do anything for me.  That’s when I tend to go astray in keep up with the challenge.  When the prompt is something like “meerkat” or “cassette tape,” my mind wanders to things I much rather do, stitching, making a cake, taking a walk.  The first year I attempted the ICAD challenge, it did not go well.  I completed only 11 cards, and half of those were done six months after the challenge ended.

Last year, I fared better; thirty-three cards completed.  These are not intended to be great works of art, and I try to keep the time put into them to 15 minutes per card.  Of course, some take a bit longer, and I still want to fill in the gaps of the cards I didn’t attempt.

Today, I am six days into the challenge, and I have six cards:

Will I keep up the early momentum?  Now that I’ve blogged about it, I hope that I will.  The challenge started last Saturday, so I will post my weekly progress on Tuesdays.

 

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Day by Day, Tantalizing Threads

A  very quick post today… I am more than halfway through my stitch out project of all the colors of House of Embroidery threads.

I don’t know yet how I am going to join all of the postcards that I am making in the course of this adventure.  I initially wanted to make them into a little fabric book, but I might make them into a flat wall hanging to put in my booth at quilt shows, as I have some of the colors available when I am on the road.

I’m enjoying seeing the colors stitched out, and I am looking forward to using these threads more in my collages when I get through this daily project.

 

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On Thursday, check back for my progress on yet another daily project that I just started, the annual Index Card a Day Challenge.

 

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Three Strikes

Today’s post is a tough lesson in the reality of learning a new creative skill.  A lot of what gets made is not very good.  It is very difficult to admit that something (or in this case, three things) that I’ve spent a lot of time and materials on, is rubbish.  But there are a few positive things to take from this week’s work.  One, I finished three 8 X  10″ pieces.  Two, I tried some techniques that have potential.  Take a look:

I love the hand stitching that I did on these, and I am pleased with the effects created by the machine couching of the funky yarns.

What keeps tripping me up is the final assembly and quilting.  These three pieces were pillowcase bound and then lightly quilted to secure the layers.  I ended up with some lumpy areas and wavy edges.  The last one was especially troublesome:

These are just not up to my creative vision, and certainly showing my lack of technical skill.  Even though they are three strikes, I refuse to be called “out,” the only way I can get better with my quilting skills is to make more.  The really bad thing is that the color combination is making me crave Neapolitan ice cream!