"Be willing to make decisions. That's the most important quality in a good leader. Don't fall victim to what I call the "ready aim-aim-aim-aim syndrome." You must be willing to fire."
George S. Patton
Every so often I go into a creative slump and I struggle to find inspiration or motivation to get started again.
To me the excitment of creating a new design is what inspires me to work and when I have already used an idea or design, or if I am making multiple items with the same design I find it difficult to stay on track. At a time like this is when I find reorganizing and cleaning out the physical clutter helps me reorganize and declutter my thoughts.
The adage of quilters is "she who dies with the most fabric wins", well I have decided that I don't want to compete for the title anymore. In an effort to become more focused I must not only get rid of distraction but I must also pare down the amount of supplies that overflow from every shelf in my sewing studio. If there are so many things in your studio that they become an obstacle to your creativity, then what is the point of having it all surrounding you?
I have started looking at the things I surround myself with and trying to decide what are the items that are the most special to me and what items are those that inspire me. The next step is to see what items are essential to what I create and is most likely to get used. Multiples of items are also a problem, I am sure I am not the only one that forgets I already have a 6 inch square ruler and end up buying a new one on sale. Then there is the ever growing pile of 2, 3, 4, etc, inch strips that are leftovers from a project that need to be sorted or at the very least be given a home.
My target is to get started on Monday, Sept 20th and between creating items for my holiday craft show season I will sort, toss, give away and donate as much as I possibly can. I vow to not purchase anymore fabric unless it is needed for a custom item, but will use whatever I already have available in my stash to create. As I arm myself with some storage bins and trash bags I know that this will be a long and tedious project but I have vowed that my sewing studio will not begin another year in the same condition.
2 comments:
I totally agree! I have made a concentrated effort to limit fabric purchases and to use what I have. For me, it is easy to get caught up in the aquiring phase and ignore the creating phase. I have also found that after completing a quilt, I enjoy the cleaning and reorganizing of my space as it clears my mind and enables more ideas to flow.
Trying to find the balance between having enough supplies on hand for the inspirations that hit and too many that you can't remember what you have to be inspired by can be a tough balancing act. I am somewhere near that tipping point with my jewelry supplies and find myself being pickier at trade shows these days.
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