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Fabric Play

May 16, 2013 by 13 Comments

If there was only one piece of advice I could give to those starting out or even on their way but struggling to create, I know exactly what I would say. Always make time to play! Always. Pink sis Boom playIt doesn’t matter what medium you are using–fabric, paint, pencils, film, etc. Set aside time to play. No limits on what you produce. No expectations. No rules.

Deep inside each of us is a loud voice, our internal editor, our harshest critic. This voice likes to be the driving force in all things, at all times. It takes a lot of patience and a lifetime of practice to keep it in its place. The very nature of play is foreign to the internal editor, which makes play the perfect exercise to exorcise that pesky devil.

This is yet another reason I love fabric scraps. Having a little stash of scraps at the ready means I can play whenever I have a free moment. I admit, I spend a great deal of time playing. This is where the ideas come from, where the sparks of creative fire reside. Everything that says “Melissa P” comes from this spirit of play.

Play has no hard and fast rules, except one….let go. Let go of every negative and critical thought. Let go of every past triumph or failure. These are obvious enough, although not necessarily easy. But there’s one more thing to let go of, something you might find counter-intuitive, even anathema. You must let go of your dreams and fantasies for the future. Yes, you read that right…let go of the dreams of glory.

Oh, I know this not a popular idea. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone pinning this thought on Pinterest boards, that’s for sure. In fact, our culture seems to teach us that our lofty goals and dreams of our 15 minutes of fame are the only thing that will make us better, more important people. If only we reach far enough, all our dreams will come true.

It’s deceptive. And very harmful to reaching your full potential, not just as a creative but as a human being. You see, our potential doesn’t lie out there in the stars waiting for us to grasp it. It lies within us. And we must turn inward to reach it.

Play is a way of making room for our potential. It isn’t about pretending to be something we hope to be one day. It isn’t about presenting a different face to the world, trying on masks and personae. It’s about being authentic and true to ourselves in an atmosphere without judgment or rules. It’s from this place that growth begins, releasing the possibilities that have been lying dormant all our lives.

If I could wish one thing for all of you, it would be for you to know the liberating  joy of play.

Filed Under: creativity, musings, sis boom, writing

A Few Things

March 11, 2013 by 7 Comments

The hour lost to Daylight Savings Time is really haunting me. I love the fact that it’s lighter longer, but the change always seems overwhelmingly difficult to adjust to. (Did you know that there are more heart attacks in the week following a time change? Strange, but true. More accidents and injuries as well. Just Google it and see what I mean.)Orange NasturtiumsI’m still working on finishing some deadline projects. And expecting a few more to come my way. I haven’t had as much time to do the “just for fun” sewing I was hoping to in March. But that’s life. And I’m happy to be doing them, nonetheless. The “just for fun” stuff will happen eventually. In the meantime, I’d like to share a couple links for you to check out. Rag WreathThis rag wreath is for St. Patrick’s Day with it’s glitter shamrocks, but you could substitute other floral picks for a Spring theme and keep it up for a few months. Or change up the fabrics for any occasion you wish. You can find my instructions for this at Free Spirit’s blog. (These fabrics are from Jenean Morrison‘s two most recent collections for Free Spirit.)

For a bit of color from Guatemala, check out Linda’s post over at Dragon Threads. Her recent trip to Guatemala was filled with textiles and gorgeous color. My imagination has spent hours and hours and hours in Guatemala. I’ve read stacks of books about the place and its history. These photos just confirm what I already “knew” about the vibrancy of the Mayan culture and its art.

(If you’re wondering why my fascination with Guatemala…here’s a lesser known fact about me: I wrote a first draft of a thriller/adventure novel set in Guatemala. My second Nanowrimo experience. The draft, quite literally, went up in smoke. Which is a long story in itself. Yes, there’s a storyteller hidden inside this seamstress/sewist/quilter/designer. But you might have guessed that already.)

Filed Under: blog buddies, books, crafts, fabric, freebie, tutorials, writing

Just Do It

February 1, 2013 by 7 Comments

drops on leavesDoing. It isn’t always as easy as it sounds. So many traps lie in the way. Usually, those traps seem innocuous or even necessary in themselves. But often, they are excuses for why we aren’t doing.

There’s no end to the things that can get in the way of our Doing. And because we can just add Doing to our long list of things we want to get to in the future, we put it off until later. Until a more convenient time, when things slow down or the spirit moves or we finally feel up to the challenge. Or maybe you want everything to be just right so your Doing will be perfect and without pitfalls.

That last one is a very large trap. Very large indeed. It seems sensible, this perfecting and planning in preparation for the Doing. Even if it all takes place in your head. But the danger of falling into daydreams is real. They distract you from the Doing in heady, almost drug-like ways. You become a lotus eater, lost to the true purpose of your life, content to stagnate.

In this case, you must be your own Odysseus. You must restrain yourself from indulging and drag yourself away from those daydreams. You must act! You must do! 

Yes, it can be a bit scary. Yes, you might fail, maybe evenly spectacularly. And yes, you could be disappointed that your daydreams don’t come true. All of that is possible. And none of it is enough to justify procrastinating.

But something else will happen, something subtle and magical. You will set in motion a chain of events that will lead you to real growth, real adventures and an entirely new outlook on yourself and your place in the world. You will look back on the days before your started Doing and wonder why you took so long to begin.

Filed Under: musings, plants, words, writing

A Little Imagination Goes A Long Way

January 6, 2013 by 4 Comments

Hong Kong Orchid“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” 
― Albert Einstein

No discussion of my process would be complete without covering the importance of imagination. I wholeheartedly agree with Einstein. Knowledge has a very important place: skills are necessary to carry out a vision. But without imagination, there is no vision. Without imagination, life is dry and mundane. Nurturing your imagination is crucial to finding your own voice, developing your own style. It is from your imagination that creativity takes flight.

If you don’t already have a well developed imagination, if you rely on the solidity of facts and find comfort in knowledge, you may see the flights of imagination as an exercise in failure. There’s no doubt, the possibility of failure is ever present. The difference between someone who lives a creative life with a highly developed imagination and the knowledge lover is perspective. The creative soul knows failure is the beginning of the next story; whereas the knowledge lover sees only an ending–a humiliating, avoidable ending.

You won’t always find highly creative people talking about their failures. There is a tendency to see this as a fault, that somehow they are being inauthentic by not letting us in all their foibles and failings. I see it differently. The people who are living full creative lives don’t have time to wallow in failure. It’s a luxury they, and you, cannot afford. Any lengthy discussion of particular failures is counterproductive. The important thing is not that they failed, but what they did after the failure occurred. 

Imagination and creativity are forward moving. They do not dwell on the past. They do not perpetually revisit previous successes any more than their failures. If you want to grow your imagination and develop your creative spirit, you must let go of your insecurities and doubts. You must set down the accolades and praise from your prior triumphs. There is no other way to soar. 

There are nurturing things you can do for yourself right now. Things that will build your creative muscles and give you strength for the hard work. Don’t wait until later–until next month, next year or the next phase of your life. Start now. Start here:

  • Spend time with people who are imaginative and creative. Even if you can only find these people online. Even if it’s simply a tentative reaching out to other like-minded souls.
  • Do! There is no substitute for doing. None. Nada. Zip. 
  • Observe. This is not in place of doing but in conjunction with it. Train yourself to notice the small details. You’ll be amazed at all the things you’ve missed.
  • Forget about playing it safe. Take a chance and give yourself permission to fail.

There are additional things. However, these are the ones I personally consider the most important. If you want to move forward creatively this year, don’t put it off.  Jump right in and starting flailing. I’m here cheering you on. I’ll even toss you a pole and fish you out if you need it. 

Filed Under: creativity, musings, Uncategorized, writing

The Boring Middle and A Bit On My Process

May 21, 2012 by 4 Comments

We’re in the middle of things here.  The boring middle. I bet you didn’t even know it. It’s true though. Lots of neat things coming up over the next month or so. I can’t share them yet and it’s killing me.  Because these are fun projects and cool things. However, it isn’t up to me, so we’ll just have to wait out the boring middle.Going Places Bag SketchIn the meantime I’m working on turning some projects into patterns. Like this one. I’m almost done with the writing and the diagramming. Two more complicated diagrams and I’ll be ready to get photos.Going Places Bag Sketch InsideI’ve been thinking a bit about my process lately. It isn’t something I give much thought to under normal circumstances. But I’m starting to think about it in relative terms. Mostly, because I have a tendency to think most people are like me–that they create the same way I do, get ideas the same way, etc. I suppose we all have this tendency to default everyone to our “normal”.

Some of the things need to be mulled over a bit more before writing about them. For now, I thought it would be a good exercise to show you one way that my process works. For this bag, it started with some doodling. I have several Moleskine journals for this kind of doodling and recording. I wish I could say they are all nearly full but that would be a lie. A big fat one too.  They’re woefully thin on doodles and sketches. However, good things pop up in there. Like this.

I had no visual image of the bag when I started. I just began sketching lines. The lines turned into the bag. The bag took on some shape, got some personality and finally looked like something I could interpret into fabric. More sketches followed but these were the technical things–what would the pieces look like, how many, rough sizes, etc. From there, it went to the cutting table and the simple pencil lines became a three dimensional bag in colorful fabrics. 

All of that is the easy part. For me at least. It’s the pattern writing part that seems to drag. Switching brains like that isn’t always easy. I would much rather get back to the fabric and discover the next project. I can hear it even now, chattering in the background.

Filed Under: art, creativity, fabric, musings, sketching, writing

Ah, the Memories

November 9, 2010 by 6 Comments
Image obtained from The Graphics Fairy at graphicsfairy.blogspot.com
Today is my eldest niece’s birthday.  She’s ten months older than I am so she will always be blazing the path ahead.  Naturally, we share a lot of memories.  I am often the keeper of these joint memories; however, last night she reminded me of something we did seven years ago this month.  I had forgotten all about November and Nanowrimo.  I’m glad she didn’t.
Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month.  During the month of November you commit to writing 50,000 words of a novel.  The experience is not about quality but about quantity.  About sitting yourself down every day and producing.  You turn the internal editor off and you write what’s there.  That’s the only way you can get to 50,000 words in 30 days.  If you can get in the habit of showing up to write, you have a better chance of producing writing.  As opposed to keeping a running list of bright ideas.  Ideas are fine, but the hard work is done when you sit down and start spilling words.  Nanowrimo gives you a taste of what it takes to make something big happen.
And you learn a lot along the way.  Not just about writing–about how hard it is to sit in front of the screen with your mind frozen and your internal editor screaming at you that you’re belittling the profession and who do you think you are.  Not just about how you need to do as Amy Tan has suggested and write all the pond scum so you can get to what is worthwhile.  You actually learn about yourself.  You learn that you really can do something so outrageous as 50,000 words in one month.  And that’s a scary thought.  
It’s easier to think we do not produce creatively because we can’t.  We like to tell ourselves that we lack skills or we don’t have the talent.  (Let’s not even get into the excuses of time and money.)  We say things like “It’s impossible.”  We prefer to deflect and reject.  Unfortunately, being dishonest with ourselves can be dangerous.  We ignore the messages and stomp on our own dreams because we don’t own up to who we are.  It requires courage to accept that we have a responsibility and a great deal of grit to carry it through.
The essentials are the same regardless of your craft.  Showing up and putting out are absolutely necessary to your creative life.  You may be at the beginning of a creative journey making small seemingly insignificant things on occasion.  You may be looking to expand your creative life beyond the craft you have mastered.  Whoever you are and whatever situation you are in, you are capable of far more than you currently believe. 
Thank you, Manda, for reminding me about what I can do when I put my stubborn mind to something.  For reminding me of how it feels to accomplish something outrageous. 
Filed Under: family, writing