5 Ways to Get Your Mojo Back

So, I have been gone for a while.  First, it was Teacher Appreciation Week (our school did it March 24th-28th and I was in charge of the whole shebang).  Then I got pneumonia - again.  But now I'm back with a vengeance!  I'll do a quick recap of Teacher Appreciation Week tomorrow and talk about quilting on Friday -- unless I get sick again!

My last post, I'm so sorry to say, talked about how I was avoiding doing any sewing -- and it stayed up for more than a month.  How embarrassing!  I found my mojo within a week of writing that post, and I'm sad I haven't been able to share until now.  Here's how:

 

1. I gave myself a break.

After writing that post, I realized I really needed to stop feeling guilty about not wanting to sew.  I had so much going on, I really felt stressed – and I am NOT a huge fan of organizing parties, so Teacher Appreciation Week was really stressing me out!  I told myself that I didn’t have to do anything until after that week of craziness was over – and I didn’t!  It was amazing how much more motivated I felt after that week was over, too.  I wanted to sew again!  But before the week was over, I participated in a Rainbow Flashmob on Instagram. I was accidentally assigned two different colors - blue and orange - so I did both. It was so fun!

2. I organized some areas in my sewing room. 

I know it might not look any different to anyone else, but I completely organized my little bins, wrote down every single project I'm working on, and found some room for my kids' projects.  I don't know if I'm slightly OCD or what (and really, who isn't?), but I really can't focus on any project until I have a clean space to work.  I’ve discussed it with my sisters, and we all have the same problem.  We’ve decided that maybe it’s because we get overwhelmed by too much work, so we just don’t start.  I think it’s a perfectionist thing – if you can’t do it perfectly, why even try?  So, cleaning up the things that didn’t need to be there really helped me to focus on what I needed to do.

 

3. I started eating right & exercising.

I know this doesn’t necessarily correlate with quilting, but I really noticed a difference in my motivation when I started eating really healthy and exercising.  My sister’s sister-in-law had a health challenge, and it REALLY was a challenge!  We got a point or two for everything we did perfectly each day, and the points were for things like eating no sugary treats, no fried foods, and 5 fruits & veggies each day.  To get a perfect score you had to exercise FOUR HOURS a week!  It was so hard for me – but I was killing it until I got pneumonia!  Now I’m back to my sedentary ways (I’m still in recovery and don’t want to do too much too soon), but tomorrow I’m going running with a friend and have high hopes of being healthy again.

4. I made a design wall.

I used ideas from a couple of different tutorials (from Oh, Fransson! and Ellison Lane, mostly), but basically I got some foam insulation and taped batting around it.  I just used tape because I don’t have a staple gun – we are very basic on the tools around here – and I thought it would work out okay.  It looks so good, I think!  There was a cute little photobomber in this picture – I asked him to look tough with his “sword” and this is what I got!

5. I have a deadline.

There’s nothing like a deadline to really make you go go GO!  I am going to International Quilt Market in May, and my goal of four new patterns just can’t happen – since I lost a week and a half to pneumonia, I really can’t do one more thing.  But I do think I can get three new patterns done.  I really need to focus and work hard, but now that things are tidy and I’ve got my mojo back, I really think I can do it!  I'll have an update on Friday -- we'll see how I do!

Swatch Board

So, I've always been pretty anal particular about color placement in my quilts. The thought of putting all my scraps in a paper bag and just taking fabric out piece by piece literally makes me feel super jittery.

About a year and a half ago, I got a smart phone. It was great because my camera had just died, and it was so much faster to turn on than my camera had been! (It was pretty great for other reasons too... email, music, instagram, plants vs. zombies...) So, when I was laying out my quilts, I'd just snap a picture and keep referring to it whenever I needed to. Such a great idea! And sometimes it still works, but if I take another bunch of pictures of my kids, then it gets a little lost.

 If I'm working on a really scrappy quilt, that's still pretty much the only way for me to go. But... sometimes I don't want to get distracted by instagram go searching for that picture. I have a really messy bulletin board in my sewing room, and it's the perfect place for me to put a little swatch of what I'm going to put on my quilt. I've done it a couple of times before, but I've always had a hard time getting the fabric to stick to the paper. I've tried tape, and staples, and nothing was really great.
But then last night I had an epiphany -- why not sew it onto the paper? I'm not new to sewing on paper, and I have a special needle to use just for paper, so it was pretty simple to just tack it down. Here's what I did (isn't it cute?!):

So, I made a little tutorial on how I did it.  First, I arranged the fabrics onto the paper. This was just a little project, so I only needed a half-sheet of paper. I really liked the extra stability of the doubled paper, so I'll definitely be using a double sheet in the future, even if it's a bigger project. I arranged these fabrics a few times -- I told you I'm picky careful! I have an outer and an inner fabric for this project, so I made the outer fabric around 1" x 2", and the inner 1" x 1" so I could keep them straight. Please note the green fabric on the top row in the middle -- I totally used selvedges whenever I can, so I'm only taking away about 1/2" of usable fabric. 

Then, I took off the top layer. I VERY carefully set it all in order to the side, and then used a glue stick to glue down the fabric in place.

Now, that glue is TOTALLY not going to hold your fabric for very long. So, very very carefully, you take the paper over to the sewing machine and tack it down with some quick stitching. I like to do it along the top edge of the fabric, just catching that top edge. The rest of the fabric will be a little loose, but that's okay, because gravity will take care of it for you.  Hopefully you can see that in this next picture (the top edge is to the left in the picture):

After that's done, set the inner fabrics on top of the others, setting each one a little bit down from the top of the outer fabric. If you need to add a little bit of glue, it's best to just apply it to the paper. Then, sew down these fabrics just along the tops.

And now you're done! Hang it on your bulletin board -- even if it's super messy. :)

There's all sorts of treasures up there -- I can't get rid of a single thing.  Do you see the sweet picture my little girl drew me? It's a portrait of me -- in case you couldn't tell. She is definitely a better artist than I am. :) 

The best part about this method is that I can look at it all day long, and it keeps me on track so I don't have to worry about misplacing any of the pieces.  I almost can't go wrong!

 

 

A List Person

 

I think it's safe to say, I'm a list person.   I have lists for each day, week, and month of the year, lists of all the fun we're going to have as a family, lists of projects to do around the house ... and lists and lists of projects and ideas.  Joel always jokes about it, but I think it really helps me stay organized -- and besides, if I don't have a list, I might forget something I REALLY want to do! (or buy. or read. :)

This is a little snapshot of the list I made for February -- it's ambitious, and I think I might be behind already (is it Tuesday ALREADY?!), but if I can work on MOST of this list, I think February might be a pretty good month for all I want to accomplish!

One more thing... I made this list on Saturday, which was the end of Week 3-9... isn't it amazing I checked everything off that week? :) Do you ever make a list with things you've already done, just so you have something to check off? I know my sisters and I do!