Have you ever been in a real stitching slump - no mojo, nothing interests you? Well, that's about what's happened to me the past few months. I looked at my blog this weekend and realized that I haven't really had anything stitching related to say or show in the past few months. I haven't been reading blogs either. Just in a huge slump! Well, I think I finally got out of it. I guess they call it "Life Gets In the Way". It happens - we all go through it - one thing after another - some good, some bad, but enough to just throw you off your mark. When I get like that I retreat and just be. I also tend to pull things apart - organize, throw out - it's calming. While I'm throwing out the unnecessary items in my cleaning, I also seem to deal better with what's going on at the time. Anyway, one day after weeks of purging both material and mental things, I decided to completely tear apart my stash and catalogue it. What a process!!! But the spark came back and I finally got the itch to stitch again! It was like finding an old friend.
I started with Mary's Best Handwork that I began in Utah:
I still wasn't ready to start stitching again when I picked this up, but it seemed like the path of least resistance. I had to stitch on something at the SB retreat get-together. Ya just can't go to a stitching retreat and not stitch! But my heart wasn't in it. I didn't even put her on scroll rods - my favorite way to stitch. But I worked on her for a while and now she'll get attention when DD dances on Wednesday. So then I started Angel's Song with
Loraine:
Not a lot of progress, but some - this is one night's worth.
In all my sorting and cataloging, I realized that I am a sufferer from startitis. Going through all my things made me want to start something new, but I decided that I needed to get rid of some WIPs I thought about going back to an HRH piece because I'm so lame I have three going and have the perfect wall for them:
But instead, I went back to Elizabeth Clayton:
I stopped working on her originally because I got bored after I finished the left side and the house. I didn't feel like stitching the trees, etc., on the right side. Lame!!!
Then one thing leads to another. I start putting my craft room back together, which has laid in a state of upheaval since my sister left in August!!! Once everything was back in the closet and things rearranged (pictures another time), I started getting more of an itch to create - do something. Which made me look at all the quilting goodness laying around in there. So I picked up the rotary cutter and had at it - I caught myself up on cutting out my Farmer's Wife blocks - all three months of them:
Cut off the selvages - still don't know what I'll do with these.
Cut out the blocks (all 18 or so of them - and a huge process because a lot have to be template cut).
And put them between the pages of the book. This only took me three days of work because if you notice, the fabric is marked for template piecing - not my favorite thing to do. And I better remember to be careful when I pick up the book. Last time my mind went blank, forgot all the pieces were in the book and they flew all over the craft room. Took me hours to get all the pieces together again.
Then before I know it, I'm on to another quilt - Sheer Bliss!
I could not resist getting started on this quilt when I saw it on
Cluck, Cluck, Sew. I know it's springy, but a little spring never hurts in the fall. And since I had this Jelly Roll of Bliss fabric, it was a no brainer. I cut out my sister's quilt too in the hopes of having it finished by the time I go visit her next month - finger's crossed (but don't hold your breath Cin!! :o)
So my mojo is back and I have a ton of catching up to do on blogs. I know that I've missed so much. I had some comments last time about stash that I picked up in Utah. I didn't pick up that much. Common sense was probably telling me that I didn't need anything (and if you saw my Excel spreadsheet of stash you would have to agree with me), but I picked up a little:
Not too much actually, although now that I look at the picture, there may be more things around here. The fabric at the top I picked up because SB made the cutest pillows out of Ewe Eye & Friends Petite Examplaries that I've had in my stash forever, and I thought they were adorable:
So another thing to add to my to do list!
So that's what's been going on with me. It feels good to crawl out of that dark hole I've been living in for the past couple of months!!! Thank you for all your comments and emails that you left on my last post. It always gives me a smile to see them, and I will catch up on everyone's blogs soon. I know that I've missed tons!!!
