my creative week.... drawing, quilting, coping

Welcome to this week's creativity round up, where I've been obsessed with finishing this big bed quilt!

I took time each day this week to listen to the lectures sent by Art Apothecary, on ways to be more creative, and the health benefit to making art. Pictures to follow on the above quilt but allow me to share one little drawing exercise meant to encourage your own wisdom and inner muse.

we were to think of a question or problem to solve. write it down. choose a color to begin (red was mine) close our eyes and just scribble. Then choose the next color crayon (purple) close eyes and make marks, choose another color (magenta for me) close eyes and make marks, then a fourth color (gold) close eyes and make another mark. Then start to look for meaning in colors... how do you feel about that color, for me red meant chaos, purple meant spiritual, magenta represented fun, and gold was for growth. 

next ask what those lines represent to you... and this was harder. scribbles chaos or the problem, for me it's all our neighbors infringe on peace our space disturb us continually and don't care about anyone but themselves. I resent them causing us to wake up at night, their smoke fires, their loudness and not being able to stop them. Purple circular lines felt to me like prayer covering the problems. Like our spirit is bigger than the problem, or might encapsulate the problems. Magenta in a sort of boundary is the effort to limit the effect of it on our enjoyment but how... gold in wavy solid foundation area I don't know

on to the quilting

I made all these 12" finished blocks last Christmas, octagons surrounded with christmas scraps in pineapple designs. The finished quilt will be about 72". Big to quilt on my small machine

the open cabinet takes up half the room! I listen to books on audio as I sew

...even when the cabinet back is lifted up to make more surface area. I began to think about my physical limitations seriously. 

I wear two braces for my spine, all the time. I have a meniscus tear on the left knee and a completely torn off Posterior cruciate ligament in the right knee. Since I did the diamond dots project last year, I now seem to have an upper back spasm that happens out of the blue.

 I need to take great care with movement, and pushing and pulling on a heavy quilt to make sure the stitches are perfect can cause nerve and muscle pain that last days.

but I love quilting and only have my little machine. Like many people, I have to learn to cope with injury and illness, and still keep creating. I am not happy with the quality of my quilting since I know how to do it perfectly, I now have to accept that I am not able to do as good a job as I used to. I still strive for excellence but now if I run off the seam line or over stitch doing free motion, I try to give myself grace. 

I quilted these blocks in 5 big sections then join by pulling the backing away, sewing on the regular seam line the two units to go together. I pull the backing out of the way so that when opened up, the backing can be pulled over the seam and hand stitched down.

 

backing fabric ready to hand stitch to cover the new seam

 Then I re-quilt this new seam line. I looked on line to learn how to cut a snow flake. I started with a 6" square of freezer paper, folded, cut my own template to free motion quilt around in the white sections between blocks

this quilt is 99% quilted with cotton thread, but one block got gold metallic, heh heh. 

I am loving the machinger gloves my friend Cindy said were wonderful. They truly are. Lightweight, but just the right amount of stick to move the quilt around while free motion sewing. Get some.

Yesterday I started with this, one side unit to be sewn on, hand stitched, and free motion snowflakes... it's all going MUCH slower than I thought since I've done this technique in the past, but I'm more injured now, grace, grace, grace.... 

scrappy backing sections too!

I have a Horn sewing cabinet that is narrow when the back is down, but when it's put up like it is now, it gives me support of a bigger quilt. DH removed my machine so I could have a flat surface for the tedious hand stitching of this last seam before quilting in the ditch, and snowflakes. 

the snoop-ervisor came in to inspect the changes to my room

I'm thinking this vintage red with gold swirls would make a fine border also because I have the yard and half required to do the border! lol I plan to quilt the borders before joining too, by necessity. I might bind them first if I can figure out how to join striped binding after the whole thing is together, I barely have enough to do it. 

I love sewing with scraps because you never know what will show up!!! 

I used to enter competitions like Paducah, Houston, etc. It's hard to lose control over the machine now like where I ran off the rails above, but I'm in a new place in my life and must remember to show myself kindness too.

do any of you have to cope with injuries that interrupt the creative process? 

I was part of a research paper written on that problem years ago, by a doctoral candidate in S. Africa

happy arting to all!

https://superscrappy.blogspot.com

patchwork Sunday       

oh Scrap Sundays

design wall Mondays at smallquiltsanddollquilts
lovelaughquilt.mondays 

http://www.inquiringquilter.com/ Wednesday wait loss

Midweek makers wednesdays  

http://www.myquiltinfatuation.com/ 

https://confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com/ 

off the wall Fridays   

peacock party

tgiffriday

finished or not

face off!

 slow stitching Sundays        

https://myblog-lunchbreak.blogspot.com/