Help with inspiration

Hi Sunny Taria had the same problem a few weeks ago. I don't know if she's got her "groove" back yet or not..... sometimes it just takes a while. What about just some dinner napkins or beverage coasters? Something easy and mindless...... never fear - your creativity will return soon - with the weather we're having here in Washington, maybe it went on a trip to the Bahamas!

Patti in Seattle

Leave it. Walk away. Forget quilting. For a couple days, couple weeks, just forget. Don't pick up a magazine, book, website, nothing (not us of course!). Read a trashy "bosom heaver" (ie romance novel), watch soppy Julia Roberts DVDs, play with animals or children (or both), walk along the beach or through a forest/national park. Spoil yourself silly.

In a little while, ideas will start popping into your head. Draw them quickly onto paper (not too much effort - whatever you have to hand will do) and put them on your sewing table. Start to flick through a book/mag and find the easiest pattern out (I've gone for plain squares with sashing). Start to cut them and sew them up. Don't cut all the pieces at once - only about a quarter. You will look at them and say "I don't know" and then you'll get more ideas specific to that quilt (I have). Sketch them quickly. Leave it. The urge will come. Follow it but don't rush.

Pretty soon you'll be back to norman. Promise.

Hugs

Sharon, what marvelous advice- "Pretty soon you'll be back to norman. " Can you send Norman this way when you're finished with him? ROFLOL

I tend to freeze up for another reason. I'm a perfectionist (wish I was NOT) I have all these wonderful ideas to make amazing quilts. I can't make them. I don't have the artisitic ability, the color sense or the stick-to-it-ness. Yeah, I know..... I make decent quilts, and sometimes I make a really nice quilt, but I cannot make the amazing quilts that I *want* to make. It causes me to start a project, get discouraged, and then try something else. Sometimes I freeze up before I even really get started. That's when I leave my sewing for a while- sometimes a LONG while. When I feel ready then I go back to it. Some quilts take years..... but I do finish one every now and then. VBG Ya just can't force it. Let yourself have some time and space. The Muse

Hugs,

Leslie & The Furbabies > Leave it. Walk away. Forget quilting. For a couple days, couple weeks,

Norman is pretty special. He doesn't occur very often down here. Actually I can't take credit for that wonderful saying - those of you with young kids will know it comes from the Rugrats. They have some amazing sayings (most of which are true) and I still love sitting down to watch them. Don't like Rugrats grown Up but I adore the young ones. I am a mix of mostly Chucky with a bit of Phil and Lil thrown in. I'm not brave like Tommy and I'm most definitely not Angelica.

Thanks for the good words. Sharon, your suggestions are good and sound and ultimately I know that's what will bring me back. Leslie, I share those same frustrations with you. I know that's a huge part of my problem. I get so discouraged. I look at the amazing work in the quilting shows and magazines and in my head I can do work like that, then I read the bios and always it's "using my engineeering background" and "after my master's degree in art" and "as a graphic artist" and that sort of thing. These people are artists, trained and experienced. I have zero artistic training and not likely to get any. And I'm not a natural talent. I can mix colors in really fun ways f rom time to time, but design totally escapes me.

I go to a round robin of art quilters. Those women are amazing and they inspire me. Three are really incredible "paint" artists, two professional. Several others have extensive artistic training. One who I don't think was trained in art school is perhaps the most amazing. She goes to seminars and training sessions with the really big name quilt artists and then incorporates what she learns into her work. Wow. Her work is gorgeous. And she is so generous about bringing information back from her seminars. I feel like a fake in the midst of these talented women

I find myself at the age of 50 terribly contemplative. All my life I put my family first. My husband's career before mine. My children's needs before my work or even my intellectual needs. I never "made my mark." I worked and I did some good work. I wrote some good articles, sounded real smart a couple times. But I never did anythign that will be remembered after I'm gone (except give birth, LOL). These years, with my boys grown, was to be the time of my life to dig in, put my work first. To study and write and create. Well, illness put a stop to that. Now I hesitate to take classes because I know I'll never be able to go enough to make it work. I find that I am terribly self-pitying. I not only admire the amazing people around me creating incredible, prize winning quilts, I envy them and covet their abilities. But at my point in life, it's unlikely that I'll attain such a level. Especially considering the dearth of energy I have and the frequent life interruptions -- the days I spend in pain unable to read, watch, think. The days when I am unbearably confused.

Oh I'm sorry. Apologies for letting my self-pity get to me and for blurting way, way too much information. LOL.

I will get back to work at some point. I'm moving my quilting area from the basement room into my very own room -- 11 x 12 with my stash sauna acting as a closet. It's been the "computer" room and I've had to step over people to get to the sauna, which has resulted in taking too much out and now all is in pandemonium. I can't find anything. So I will spend this week cleaning, straightening, finding forgotten things. And next week for the very first time I'll have "my very own room". I just hope I can recall my creativity from the Bahamas in time to make the move worthwhile.

Thanks and hugs for the help, Sunny

And yes, I th> Hi Sunny

On 21 Jan 2007 21:12:20 -0800, "Sunny" wrote:

Sunny, It is OK to have a pity party every now and then. I know when I was first dx'ed with glaucoma I was in so much self denial and was just too young to have this happen to me. I joined a network of people suffering from the same problem and got a phone call one day. It was from a lady about 75 years old and she told me, go ahead have a pity part, you are only 25 years old, it isn't suppose to happen to people your age. Of course that was 26 years ago, too. But she went on to tell me she also had pity parties some times and even planned them and locked herself in her room and told her children not to come over and if they did she wouldn't come out for them on that day. I guess it took me 2 or 3 months to deal with that. When dx'ed with fibromyalgia, well even though I had worked in the medical field I had never heard of it, I read a lot and cried a lot and then decided I was going to make the best of it and I have. When I had cancer when I was only 32 years old I was at the point in my life, lowest point I believe that I just didn't care. I got over it with no major complications. Then in 2004 when I was dx'ed with diabetes, I said, so what, just have to watch what I eat and I live with it daily and keep it under control. Some days it is harder than others but I seem to make it through them. The hardest thing in my life to this date is losing my mother though. Although I had taken care of her for years, and knew I had done everything I could to make her happy and comfortable, it still just about killed me. I have a lot of pity parties, mainly now because of the way my sister's have treated me. I have become very insecure, I want people to like me and I probably try to hard, but I have always been this way. I think one reason is because I am FAT and everyone else in my family was very thin, even my father just weighs 148 lbs. I paid more attention to the books and got a good education, and my sister's paid more attention to the boys and parties and we all three ended up with sorry husbands. I love everyone on this newsgroup, even those that are not friendly towards me. I just pray for them.

I know I am not a quilter yet but I am going to get there, life just keeps getting in the way. I know I have a lot of different opinions that other people, but I think that comes from growing up in the back hills of KY. I have no self confidence in most things, my job I did and when I lost it due to my illness and had to go on disability I lost all self confidence, because I lost the one thing I was good at. I said all this to say go a head and have your pity part, they are all deserved and to say you did nothing on this earth is ludicrous, you raised a family, have a husband and kids to be proud of and as you said yourself you wrote some good articles, who knows in years to come someone may come across that article and say look here what Sunny did and it become something special to the world. I don't have children but I know that being a housewife, house-daughter in my case is hard work, keeping this house up is about all I can handle between my pain and losing my eye sight so quickly and taking care of my dad and his affairs.

Sunny you have made a mark on this earth, you have encouraged others, myself included and we will not forget that.

I will lift you up in my prayers and myself too, because I need to get rid of this worrying about if people like me or not and also try to develop some self-confidence.

Sorry so long, but I just had to say what I did to get to my point.

Jacqueline in KY

(((((((((((((Sunny)))))))))))))

It sounds from your post that we are very much in the same frame of mind at the mo. That's why I have decided to make 2007 "The Year of Me". Yep that's what I've decided and so far I've taken little baby steps towards it. For instance, and this may shock some of you, I am horribly, totally, incomprehensibly addicted to Days of Our Lives and The Bold and the Beautiful. True. During this forced break from work (ie schoolholidays) I have made time to watch both shows, religiously, each day - well almost. And I love it. The kids know it and respect it. Husband makes fun of it. But it's "me" time.

I've also decided that the Year of Me is when I become fitter and learn to love Me more. On this resolution I'm at the Commando Crawl stage. Haven't quite managed to give myself the time but I'm getting there.

Let's do it together Sunny - baby steps and encouragement all the way

Sounds like the next time you go fabric shopping, you should get some blenders!

To get out of a rut and practice with fabric selection, why not buy a small kit, baby or twin size maybe, anything as long as you like it. Challenge yourself to swap out one of the fabric selections in the kit, using either something in your stash or buying a new piece.

Or -Find a friend who will play, and choose a simple design using a light, a medium and a dark (double Irish chain maybe). The challenge is to swap a piece of fabric, then use your friend's fabric to set the color scheme for your quilt. Afterwards, you can enjoy seeing how different they look. Roberta in D

"Sunny" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news: snipped-for-privacy@m58g2000cwm.googlegroups.com...

You sound like you may have Fibro and those of us that do --you have our empathy. Not our sympathy--that's Moms work--but empathy....knowing SOMEDAY you will get back to it. Just give it TIME and give YOURSELF time. I KNOW it's hard, BTDT, more than once. Some days you can't even turn a mag page cause it hurts tooo much.

Once we get resettled, I'll have DS put our website back up and you can see my 10 Minute Quilt...... I could only sit/stand/work for 10 min before I had to go lie down again --soooooooooo I made a quilt--10 min and then go rest--get up--do something else for 10 min and then rest. I NEVER would have finished if it hadn't been for a few gals on this NG. Even made dinner 10 min at a time...peeled taters-go lie down--get back up-- chop taters, go lie down, get back up put taters on--go sit in the recliner whilst it cooked...fortunately my guys helped make the rest of dinner.

Now I am waiting for my Butterfly Studio to be done and I SHOULD be able to sew once again..short periods and working my way up. My goal is to obtain 20 FULL MINUTES without having to take a break...but I *WILL* do it. In the meantime, I'm perusing mags, quilting books from the library, reading here, and FINALLY have QNN to where it'll work quite well on my compie. Hard? I never said it was easy and if I alluded to such then my writing isn't that good this AM and I apologize.

My Studio will have a chair to rest in..a TV to watch Simply Quilts and other quilting tapes...so I will be 'thinking' quilts even when I'm resting :) This didn't happen overnight--talk about YEARS of trail and error of what will or won't work. You have to figure out your own schedule and even GET A TIMER and set it--I did and it really helped tremendously so I wouldn't overdo. Frustrated-you betcha.....but I decided it would NOT get me down

And it did, so I came here and got the 'moral support' that I needed and I went back and tried again. Oh, some of the RCTQ'ers don't know how much they have helped--just by BEING HERE......and some do cause I've been 'hounding them' for their ideas and help and they gave it to me:) And I'm grateful

Enuf for now. HTH a least a lil bit.

Cyberhugs and Butterfly Kisses

Butterfly

Butterfly, You described my way of doing things to a T. Fibro is not the easiest thing to live with but it can be done, as you and I have proven and many more people. You know, I use to try to gain info from support groups on line but I found that so many of them gave up and just complained all the time that it depressed me and I was better off without that type of company. I also know that for the last almost two years I have not been the best of company to people because all I want to talk about is my mother. I am just so glad that I have no regrets in what I did or didn't do for her. I think it has been easier on me that my sister's due to that reason.

I love the way you sometimes sign your emails, I guess since I am from what is quickly becoming black bear country I could say bear hugs, but for those of us with fms, that sounds a little harsh.

Everyone have a good day,

Jacqueline in KY

Butterfly and Jacqueline, Thank you for those eloquent words and execellant advice. I don't have fibro. I do have an autoimmune disease called Sjogren's Syndrome. If anyone is interested in learning more about it, contact me privately and I will explain. It's very like lupus with a few interesting twists and very unknown. I'd never heard of it until somebody said I have it.

And I agree about the support groups -- incredible support and information but it doesn't work to make my illness into my identity.

I usually keep a pretty good hold on things. But when I'm overwhelmed then it all goes kersplat, LOL.

The angst over my lack of skills and talent is silly, but it's a thing apart (usually) from being ill. I ache to make something amazing. Polly, I got your message and yes, that is an amazing thing to make and is the top of my list. Thank you for incredible perspective.

Right now, I am just a silly woman looking back up the road, the way I've travelled, and farther down the road, the way I'm headed, and thinking altogether too much of myself. I promise, I will get back to work, even if it's not a prize winning epic of a quilt.

Hugs to all of you -- and special soft hugs to the fibro sisters :) Sunny

Sunny, I realize you haven't been quilting very long, so everything looks wonderful and you want to do it all. When I first started I thought I'd love to make quilts with all those wonderful points, triangles, etc. Over the years I've realized it won't happen! I've found I hate cutting accurately,and don't like having to have everything match perfectly. This is why I'm cleaning out a lot of patterns and books--I realize I'll never do this type of work. As for the art quilts--I love them, especially landscapes. However, I doubt I'll ever piece my backgrounds or skies-use fabric already the way I want it. I was talking with a friend the other day and she agrees, it takes some time to find your niche and what you really want to do. Maybe if you tried a different approach and tried something very different for you, it would help with the block. Or possibly, walking away from the whole thing for a while might get you going again. Tell your head you refuse to think about quilting----eventually it'll rebel and decide for you. Gen

I fear this is going to sound like the teacher always within me (though I haven't taught formally for many years!).

I have a feeling that you are trying to run before you have even been taught how to walk! You say that you see all the beautiful things in shows and get frustrated because you can't do them. You do have flashes of inspiration and real skill - as you have shown us. So, not being able to consistently create what to you are masterpieces is frustrating. I wonder if you are like a musician longing to play concerti, but who has not let learnt to play scales properly? If you don't master basics to some extent, you won't be able to progress with a solid foundation. There are geniuses out there, of course there are; but most of us aren't! Similarly with fabric: unless you try out fabric, you won't learn how to 'handle' it. You have to practise fabric choice and placement. I think I remember you picked a large-scale print to go with other 'pretties' that you found. This is quite a difficult trick to master - large-scale prints are not easy (for me, anyway!). Roberta is right - you have been picking focus fabrics, but are perhaps lacking foundation fabrics and blenders.

I think you want to try to make jaw-droppingly gorgeous art quilts. You have certainly made a great start there - look at the reception that 'Red' had here when you showed us the partial pictures.

Before you can get to those quilts, perhaps you need to 'practise the scales' - make some blocks first; get used to handling fabric and putting different prints and colours together. If all else fails, remember the 'mantra' of light, medium and dark. Learn how your fabrics fit into the value scale. Perhaps you have an inherent sense of the rightness of value balance and because you haven't considered your fabrics in those terms, you try and your eye sees they are not in balance, so rejects them as 'unworthy'.

Use your computer, if you can, to help in the question of value: put fabrics together, scan them and then turn the resultant picture into black and white. Value is probably more important than colour in the end.

Sorry if this is of no help whatsoever. There may be a grain or two >g< . In message , Sunny writes

Ooooh, Sharon!! Love Days of Our Lives, too!! I have watched it since I was in high school (when Julie was a teenager) Uh-oh dating myself, huh?

Patti, More than a grain or two. You are exactly right about my need to gain experience with basics. I have a small mountain of half-square triangles I'vebeen working on over the past couple weeks. All sizes -- just to practice. maybe someday I'll put them together into some sort of scrappy "Practice Quilt". Also I've been working on set-in seams. Grrrrrrrrr. My bane.

I do find it hard to cut into my precious fabric without assurance that the end result will be good. LOL. I use up my "uglies" for practice and right now I have some of the ugliest, wonkiest, most off-kilter eight-point stars you've ever seen. Why can't I master this "simple" block?????? I am going to include an 8-point star in my next quilt, somewhere or somehow, or be darned trying.

Anyway you're right. Frustration comes from lack of experience and skill. And I need more work. I think what I need mostly to do is hunker down and pay no attention to my whining stash and sewing machine for a while. Maybe I'll crochet for a while.

Hugs, Sunny

Don't do 'support groups' other than right here on RCTQ :) I just haven't been able to sit long enuf at any given time to dedicate myself to any of them. I have read a bit on one of the artie groups but that didn't last very long..lots of flaming going on. Not worth my time. For the longest time, it was: do I wanna sew or do I wanna type. Now that the swollen hand tendons have settled a bit (wear braces to bed every night) the decision is easier to make-- lil of both--typing mainly in the AM when my hands are in need of limbering up (thanks to spell check ;) and then sewing on/off during the day (not appropriate at present time) and back on here in the late PM. It is a conscious decision.

HTH Butterfly (Butterfly For President)

I am concerned for you butterfly, just how are you going to make it in the white house? LOL

No really I have a lot of the same problems with my hands, that is why I am scared of cutting, can I do it right, well my hands give out on me, etc. I use to play the piano but had to give it up due to my hands.

At least your family is understanding, mine just think I am lazy.

Jacquel>Don't do 'support groups' other than right here on RCTQ :) I just haven't

ROFLOL - You should see one of mine. Oh man! I had a brilliant idea - cut triangles from 7" square blocks and join to another triangle to make diamond. Join diamonds to make star. Okay, I managed half a star alright, but joining those two halves - eeewwwwwwww. Got me a giant volcano (inverted) in the middle. Rippit, rippit, sew it back and still have one. In the bin she went.

Lookin' at who all's been in the white house lately, Missy Butterfly has noooooo problems! Not with us as her faithful staff anyhoo.