Today Sophie started a new season of gymnastics at our city Parks & Rec program. It is an 8 week class and she takes it a couple times a year. My boys took this same class, and the highlight of the hour is always the same – running and jumping in the Foam Pit. (A swimming-pool sized hole in the gym that is filled with large squares of foam) Sometimes they swing on the rings like Tarzan (or Jane?) and drop into the pit. Sometimes they run and jump off a spring board into the pit…but the result is always the same. The biggest smiles and giggles you've ever seen or heard. Pure Joy. Even I look forward to the foam pit. Vicariously.
As I watched the kids, I thought – "That's the way it should be when we start a new project. We should be willing to bounce off the spring board (the inspiration), fly through the air (leap with no expectations), smile and giggle like crazy when we land in the squishy swimming pool of foam. (try something new and enjoy the process, no matter what the outcome)
Why don't we do this more often? TIME.
We are all so busy that we think every creative effort has to be productive. We curse the time wasted when we experiment with something new and it doesn't turn out perfect. We plan everything out with obsessive efficiency and sew blocks like we are a factory worker making 500 shirts a day. Why do we do this? Quilting is supposed to be FUN!
Well ok, I know some of you are saying…'I don't do that!' … so I am speaking to those of you who are productivity oriented, and you know who you are. *smile*
There was a great article in the NY Times this last week, about the importance of play.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/garden/06play.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=children%20play&st=cse
It was about children, but I think it really applies to all of us. My creative time is my playtime, and if I don't get it regularly, I really go nuts. Repetitive quilting is my meditation time. When I am working out a design problem, I seem to be working on other subconscious problems at the same time. I come out of my studio after a few hours, feeling like I have accomplished and solved so much more than just a quilt. Do you know what I mean?
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Luana – Thank you for your blog! If not for the internet quilting/sewing community I would be isolated. My husband is production oriented. He doesn’t understand the other side of the coin (me), but he does respect it because he wants me to be happy. And by the same token, I take a lesson from the “just get it done” advocates from time to time. Just don’t ask me to cut corners or make a project without love and attention to detail.
Your thoughts on playtime are so relevant. Fabric play for me is therapeutic. I love knowing that you and many other women (and men) experience this as well. Artistic pursuits require an open mind, free thought to allow deep feelings and ideas to bubble up to the level of concrete reality.
I am always looking for affordable ways to organize and store my “stuff” – I can’t justify spending more on the storage than I do on the fabric!
I have been what my mother calls a “Material Girl” since I was little and used the scraps from her projects to wrap around my dolls. I loved to go to the fabric store with my mom and touch all the different fabrics – I still find it difficult to buy fabric without touching it first – and I think it was that way that I became a fabric addict. Consequently, I have a tendency to buy more than I need for a project, so that I’ll have something leftover that I can use again, or just look at and play with. My husband continuously laments my stash, which has grown to a sizable amount in the last 10 years as I’ve had kids and do a great deal of apparel sewing for them. My biggest problem is that I tend to save pieces that are really too small to do anything else with, so I’ve made a concerted effort during the past months to truly assess the “leftovers” for size and likelihood that they’ll get used. And I’ve been making an effort to use more fabric from my stash, rather than buy more, since we have to move across the country in May and there really is a lot of fabric (and thread and buttons and embellishments).
When you look at your fabrics that you really love, do you feel like you should use them or that you should save them for something special? I have several pieces that I haven’t used and which I’m just waiting for the right project for. This past summer I made a dress from a rayon challis that I’d had in my stash for 10 years. I’d planned to use it for a garment but never got around to making it so it sat. Then when I needed to make a dress for my husband’s high school reunion, I chose a pattern and it was like the rayon was calling me from its storage box. It really was the perfect fabric.
I have a piece I got from eQuilter years ago and I’m just waiting for the right person to have a baby girl so I can make a quilt with it.