My brain just isn’t working. I went to bed at 9pm last night exhausted from I don’t know what. I woke up tired, forgetting what I was doing from one moment to the next. In my studio I tried to make some potholders, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it. I stitched a girl on one and just stared at it, not knowing what to do next. I tried a bunch of different things and nothing worked. Or if it did I didn’t know it. Even writing this now, I’m stopping and staring off into space. I feel like an old machine that needs to be cranked up to get started, then I wind down and need cranking again.
I looked to my Shibori Quilt, almost finished, just a quarter of it left to tack. But the thought of doing it made me want to sleep. Sleep, more sleep, curled up under a blanket in a dark room, like a worm in a cocoon who doesn’t know about someday. I curled up in my pink chair, the one Jon bought for me years ago, the one I brought over with me from my old studio. I closed my eyes, not willing to give in, to give up, and let my mind drift. After a while, I don’t know how long, I heard the crank, someone was turning the crank again, I got up and opened my sewing box with Laura’s appliques. This my brain could handle, my applique pillows make no sense anyway, that’s just where my mind is at.
I found the pink fabric with the white flowers and turned it over, the stitched flowers a skeleton of the themselves on the front of it. The grey poodle, perfect with the pink, slightly off center and the leaping antelope above it. The rest came and went, moved, and came and went until it stayed. Except the yellow Mardi Gras mask, which always knew it’s place. The three white poodles came last, after lunch, like puffy clouds or dreams.
Well, I have been feeling much the same way and some of my other friends have said this too. Honestly, maybe it is some weird virus (if it is not the alignment of the stars or something)
Or February. I tend to blame myself as well, thinking “why can’t I get moving, be more productive?”
But when it is someone else, I can see, and say, that it is just an inward time for you, just as real and valid as your periods of high creativity, and you won’t feel this way forever. So, be kind to yourself and let yourself have this tiny mini vacation! Or maybe it is when your creativity and energy is sort of evolving or something, like a caterpillar in a cocoon.
The applique pillows make perfect sense. We are just not quite evolved yet to understand!
I will send you a picture of Yellow Horse when the light is right.
I do think February may have something to do with it Jo-Anne. And i think it’s true the pillows make sense if I don’t think about it.
Maria:
If this pillow is not sold i would like to buy it. i have 3 poodles and it would look nice in my home.
thanks
kathy konz
Hi Kathy I do think it is sold already. but thanks!
Oh my Maria, I totally get this. I had a 1+1/2 hr. poodle dream today.I would eat,drink and just be poodle if I could! Doesn’t a small sabatical to warm sunny Fla. sound great just about now?
Cindy
Yes Yes! Cindy Sun and poodle dreams….
I’ve heard that you are ill, Maria. I hope you will take some time off and get well.
Poodle Dreams is such fun and pretty, too. Sure hope you are feeling better, Maria. Our bodies sure do slow us down when they need to rest.
Maybe you just need a day off? We all need to recharge sometimes. Anyway, the Poodle Dreams pillow is beautiful. I had a poodle skirt as a child. It was a circular, full skirt, made of red felt (I think, can that be right?) with a black poodle applique just like your gray one.
Isn’t memory an interesting thing Barbara,never quite sure about it.
Love this creation. I have found, when I have a day of being ‘off,’ that I’m being nudged into getting out of my own way to let something else come through.
I’ve learned not to fight it.
Smart of you Suzanne.
Maria, I hope you are feeling much better this morning. You have such a good husband to see that you needed to rest. Have a good day!