I've been preparing to be creative for years -- collecting fabric, thread, beads, even old keys. Stuff. Beloved Creativity Coach always says that "you have to have stuff" because you never know what will speak to you. So on this particular Thursday, I was ready -- except for the fear. What do I do? What if it sucks? What if I waste a bunch of my "stuff"? All the questions that have stopped me in the past, sent me fleeing to someone else's pattern, someone else's vision.
Not today.
I started rifling stuff and pulling fabric out of my cupboard and I stumbled upon some miniature Dresden plate templates I'd found at the AQS show in Des Moines.
Then.
And then.
So suddenly I'm making Dresden plate flowers and planning how to add vines and leaves and beads and . . . and then I'm stuck again. What if it's not perfect? If I'm going to go to all this time and effort, I really want it to be perfect.
BCC again: "You can't judge perfect." Perfect is relative; no one sees "perfect" the same way. Some might believe the perfect woman to be a size 2 with over-collagened lips, but I prefer to look at a woman who's lived and worked and eaten a piece of cheesecake or two. To some, the perfect quilt is one where every corner matches exactly and is layered with so many quilting stitches that it could stand alone in a corner. But one of my favorites was a Sun Bonnet Sue quilt completed by a group of club ladies where a few of the Sues looked as if they'd spent too much time in the punch.
One of my mantras (besides "Calm your ass down") is "Fail often to succeed sooner." In this case, failing is just trying out ideas. A voice in my brain (the one who needs to leave me the hell alone) whispers, "You need to get this right the first time." Why? Who says I can't try a different shape or different colors? When I started sketching a plan for the layout, the first thing I put on paper was a left to right growth pattern for the flowers -- the expected arrangement. But I knew I wanted there to be a surprise -- something unexpected so I kept drawing. I brought the flowers in from the right, then from above. I played with different background shapes -- horizontal versus vertical; wide versus skinny. Then I got the idea to take the vine off the page -- so it's not only what you see but what you don't. There's something going on out of view. But I needed time to get to that idea -- an idea that I'm excited about and can't wait to get back to to see what happens next.
It's got to be more about the "process" than the "product". A very wise woman who's been helping me said, if you know exactly where you're headed and go straight there, you're going to miss a lot of cool stuff on the side roads. I could churn out jelly roll quilts ("product") until I burn out the foot pedal on my sewing machine, but what do I really have in the end? What have I learned along the way ("process")?
So my Dresden plate flowers are still in "process". I'll keep you posted.
