After finishing up one of my streaming pillows this morning, I found myself vacuuming my studio. And I wasn’t just getting the scraps off the throw rugs, I was on my hands and knees sucking up the dust bunnies under the furniture. That’s when I knew something was wrong. The only times I choose to clean instead of work is when I’m anxious about something or I’m trying to avoid something.
This time it was both. I wanted to work on my Goddess Potholders today, but I was obviously a little nervous about starting. Once I knew what was happening, I couldn’t avoid it anymore, so I talked myself into starting. “Just choose a color to begin with.” I said out loud ” Stop thinking about it so much and it will come”. So I went to my solid colors and chose one that would work with pink thread ( I have to get to the fabric store, I only have pink and green thread left).
As I was cutting the batting and backing a favorite and familiar image came to me, a lamp. Then I thought a Goddess of Light would have a lamp. So I Googled Goddess of Light and the first one I came to said the Goddess of Light trusts her intuition. That was enough for me. I trusted in the lamp and Goddess of Light Trusts Her Heart became my first Goddess Potholder of the day. I guess she lead the way because I made three more after that.
I”ll have them and more done and for sale by the end of the week, as long as I can keep myself from vacuuming.
REally, really, really need one of these for my author daughter,
who has published the Frankie the walk ‘n roll dog series
Please inform me how I can get one
Thank you
I love how you describe your process – you are so talented – yet it does not come without a whole birthing process – makes your wonderful creations so much more powerful. So – this streaming process – you just sit at the sewing machine and move the fabric around and come up with all this amazing detail? Does it just flow like that or do you sketch first? Just amazing – I love your stuff.
Michelle, I used to the images when I first started, but since I’ve begun the streaming pieces I just sit at my machine with the fabric under it and begin. It’s so much more fulfilling.
Yes, Michelle, I just sit at the machine and start sewing. The words and images come.
I usually feel guilty for NOT vacuuming! Living with 2 Labs and 2 cats, dust bunnies abound. As long as they stay under the furniture, I don’t go looking for them. But, when they roll out onto my lovely wood floors like tumbleweeds from an old Western movie……..I need to take action! Sometimes, I just scoop them up in my hand, forget the vacuum. I have a 1950’s style dish towel that pictures a woman all dressed up and wearing heels, bending over her bath tub, scrubbing it clean. The inscription on the towel reads: “A clean house is a sign of a wasted life”.
I found myself removing an area rug from under the kitchen table, dragging it out and then vacuuming like a mad woman yesterday. The house and hearth are immaculate. Of all the household chores vacuuming is the worse for me. I never do it. When I came to my senses I realized I was avoiding a task I felt extremely overwhelmed to undertake. I refocused my thinking and started the health insurance issues I have to deal with. Baby steps. Listing then beginning the phone calls.Just to begin and chip away at this felt satisfying.
Self doubt and procrastination are enemies of mine. Baby steps.
That makes the result so much more amazing – that you just free do it! So it does come from somewhere deep within and just pour out – like song writing or – book writing! Thank you – LOVE the peri-menopause one!
Oh Maria i LOVE it! I can’t wait till you have some for sale!