Stress

I don't know what it is about stress and my inability to deal with it. When I encounter a family member's life threatening occurance, it seems to inhibit my ability to be creative. The ordeal has happened, it has been dealt with for the present time, but that ominous cloud that seems to hover up there in my subconscious, just won't let me pass on into my right brain. I seem to feel that I must continue to stay focused on that issue and continue to live with the stress.

At last I decided to go into my studio and see what would happen. After looking around at a quilt I had laying next to my machine, half quilted, another on the design wall, waiting for inspiration, I picked up a baggie filled with leftover 2 inch squares of fabric and began to sew them together. Please understand that I am not a perfectionist when it comes to the technical aspects of quilt making or sewing. But I tediously worked with each piece to make a perfect 1/4 inch seam. If it didn't appear to be perfect, I patiently ripped it apart and sewed the seam again. Of course, once I had all these four patches sew together, I then felt that I had to create a quilt design to place them into. I could not think of anything that I wanted to do with a huge stack of four patches. So I began to go through all my of quilt books and magazines. I came upon the "perfect" plan in one of Kaffe Fasset's books. Or so I thought. But no. As I put it on my design wall, it looked horrible. It is far too structured. I cannot do another traditional quilt. It bores me to tears, and I know that is something that I will never complete. Don't be offended if you love traditional quilts. I love them too. I just cannot make one. I could begin one, but I would never, never, ever complete it.

So here I am with this stack of four patch squares, and AHA. Why not just do what I enjoy doing? Grab a basket of random scraps and start sewing them all around these perfect, little four patches. Oh, what a stress relief! Hello right brain!