Sometimes we just expect too much of ourselves

Last year (was that really only last year?) Cheryl Arkison visited my quilt guild to teach some classes.  One of my take aways was her idea that everything you make doesn't have to become something.

So it's okay to play with a technique but not necessarily make a quilt out of it or even a small pouch.  It could just be itself. After all not all seeds sprout. Doesn't it seem that thinking like that can be sad?  It seems like a failure.  Practice is a good thing.  It's practice so you get better at doing something. It is something.  It's not a failure to sprout, it's a step towards  becoming more able to do something.  It's a tool to help you make a thing not the thing.

Practice is a thing and it does produce products. But what the product is, well there are no set measurements and it might not be as useful as some other products, and that's all okay.

I needed to get over my fear of sewing curves.  I needed to quiet my inner voice that would instantly shout  at me "You Can't Sew Curves" whenever I looked at a curvy pattern. I set out to sew a 100 curves and over the period of two weeks I did just that.

Most mornings I eagerly got up and sewed 10-12 curves while I drank my morning cup of tea. I sewed sixty-five 5.5" unfinished curved blocks and thirty-six smaller ones in sizes from 1.5' to 4.5".  They were all taped on my wall so I could watch my project grow.  I called them "Carpe Curva" - Seize the Curve. I took photos of them. I shared them. I enjoyed looking at them.  I spent two evening figuring out how to piece the smaller ones together so that they would work with all the bigger ones.  2.5" and 4 .5" blocks don't like working with 5.5" blocks unless you have lots of them.  I put the smaller ones together into a 15" square and placed that slightly off centre amongst my 5.5' blocks.

I thought I had a quilt ready to piece . But the arrangement has stuck to the wall for a week now. The excitement of the sew was  over.

Sometime in the last 24 hours I have decided that I don't like the 15" block of smaller curves in the middle of all of the bigger ones.You know I think at 65 blocks I finally realized that I could sew curves.  The goal was 100 and I like sticking to the plan so I sewed the smaller ones as reinforcements to the belief that I can sew curves. And it worked. I can sew curves. Yes I glued the curve instead of pinning it but that was the technique I was practicing.  It worked. So my goal was achieved.

Now what to do with all the curves.Well. While it would be okay to just have a stack of blocks to use in some future project, I want it to be a regular part of my world reminding me of the value of practice. The 64 blocks I am going to be sew together mostly in the way that they went on the wall.

Every day as I placed my blocks on the wall, I considered their placement.  It made me happy as I saw secondary patterns emerge.There maybe a little adjustment  in the lower right corner. A grey scale photo shows me that there is a possible problem with the value distribution of the colours.

The 15' square is going on the back with the remaining stray blocks.

Carpe Curva will become a quilt to remind me that I can sew curves. A practice piece for me to enjoy.

Carpe Curva

I started a new project the other day.  It wasn't like I had all my projects completed and I needed something to do.  In actual fact I was working actively on at least 6 projects and was trying to focus my energies on getting those completed.  But I started a new project in spite of it all.

Two weekends ago I took part in a virtual retreat organized by Jo Avery and Karen Lewis in the UK.  It was so much fun and a great learning experience. The Sunday project was a fantasy butterfly block which incorporated curved piecing and foundation paper piecing. Similar to a New York Beauty block, I was excited to try it.  New York Beauty quilt is one of my bucket list quilts. A quilt I would make when my skill set was advanced enough to have success.  I am a cautious quilter. So this project was a stepping stone to my quilt dream.

Curves I love.  Making curves not so much. I had managed a few with success. The first game changer moment came last summer while making the Summer Sampler. Jen Carlton-Bailly's Cul de Sac block was filled with curves. She  provided video tutorials for the newbie curve sewer which recommended using glue instead of pins. Along with her acrylic templates, the block came together beautifully.  I can do this! And I did make more curved blocks throughout the sampler without problem using glue.

My fantasy butterfly block was a success.

Jo Avery provided her pattern for making a New York Beauty along with the butterfly block. I was feeling some success making curves. And with the "stay at home" orders I definitely had the time to try.  But I felt doubt; my inner voice was still telling me I wasn't ready.  This time I wasn't going to let that little voice win.

I was going to change my paradigm and believe that the curves would not hold me back. How? I would sew a 100 curves. If I sewed that many curves surely I would feel comfortable sewing them.  I had the fabric. I had the time. I had the templates and I had the glue. 

Enter my new project -- 100 curves solely for the sake of making 100 curves. My plan was to make 10 curves a day using my Kona solid stash. No other demands or expectations. Just practice  improving my skill to make a New York Beauty quilt.  I didn't even consider the palette until the first sewing morning.  Pink was the easy choice. I like it a lot so I had a good supply.  It was spring and pink goes with green -- two colours. A happy palette for just sewing random curves.  My view the first morning added the third colour - the ground was covered in snow.

Within a couple of hours this is what I had.

Day 2 was bright and sunny and the snow was melting. Yellow got added.

Around the same time as I started this, my son asked me if I missed anything about teaching elementary school.  My morning swing I answered - whenever I was on playground duty I always took the time to having a swing.  These curves reminded me of those swings, swings I would have eagerly anticipated when the snows melted.

By the third day, I began to think I could have a quilt.  I had seized the inspiration and my circumstances. Carpe Diem - I had seized the day. Carpe curves. The google gods told me the Latin for curve is "curva". Carpe Curva has begun.

Lightening My Load

I like setting goals for myself. I like writing lists and crossing the items off as they get completed. It has been my practice for many years now to make myself a list of goals at the beginning of the new year, to keep it handy to judge my progress and to check off items at year's end. It gives me a sense of purpose throughout the year and a sense of accomplishment at the year's end.  This year is no different other than I am publicly announcing my intentions.

This year is going to be about "lightening my load".  There is a lengthy list of how this can happen which is too daunting to share.  In my creative life, however, the completion of unfinished stitching projects will be part of reducing the weight I carry.

My quilting guild has had a UFO challenge for the past two years. After submitting your list of unfinished projects at the beginning of the year, you hopefully work on getting them done throughout the year  with the expectation of winning a prize or at least some personal satisfaction.  After doing this for two years, I was feeling pretty comfortable that I only had about 15 such projects. 

My friend Ann (@Laughing Gas Quilts), who has a way of making reality a little more real, recommended digging the unfinished projects out and taking a photograph of them.  I didn't realize the shock value of doing this.  I was expecting perhaps 20 projects.  The photographs stopped at 32! And with the 10 others that I know I have but didn't photograph that's 42 projects in various stages of unfinishedness.  This is not a happy thought. It is actually quite a heavy thought, one which could drag creative pursuits to a halt.  It actually made my load heavier even before I got a chance to lighten it. Since running off to a deserted island with just these projects for entertainment is not a option, I need to get to work at finishing at least some of these. 

Now I like to number my lists and to set numeric goals for myself. For example, in 2016 I set a goal of knitting 16 pairs of socks.  I did.  In 2017, I again set the goal of 17 pairs of knitted socks and took great pride in super-passing my expectations by knitting 24 pairs. (I can be a bit of an overachiever at times.) But with these UFOs I am not sure what to do.  Should I try to do 20 projects in 2020? Can I do 20 of these projects? Do I want to do 20? I want to have less waiting to be finished and my heart tells me to aim for half but my head tells me that is too much. My compromise is that I am going to work on 20 of these projects this year and move them forward and to write about each of those 20.  I might not finish them but I will move them closer to being done.  At year's end, it will be very interesting to see how much I have actually accomplished in making my stitching year about the process of lightening my load rather than about the number of actual finishes. And who knows maybe I will have some finishes to share.

Just to make this all the more real, here are the photographs of my 32 unfinished projects.

Wish me luck and please stay tuned to give me moral support in getting some of this weight off. I need the support because my reality isn't just going to be about finishing the unfinished. New projects have already been started. The first six weeks of 2020 have been about more than just pondering the next blog post. Cheers. 

This is my somewhere

It's the start of a new year and of a new decade. It seems like a good time to try something new, something that I have thought about for a long time, something that is a little outside my comfort zone and something that feels a little like a school project.  This is my blog and it's all of those things.

First thanks for taking the time to visit. Perhaps you have been following me on Instagram where you have discovered that I like to sew by hand, make bags on my machine, knit socks, or travel the world.  If so you know that SewGolly is my Instagram name.  Perhaps you have wondered the origin of that name. It is a combination of several ideas all with personal connections.  My dad used to call me "George". One of his favourite expressions was to say "Golly Gingos".  I often call myself "Gilly". I like to sew.  SewGeorge didn't sound right and I didn't want people calling me Gilly but Golly made me think of my dad and it was similar to my name so it was chosen.  SewGolly had a nice ring. I liked it. Most importantly it could be whatever I made it. That's like this blog; it's going to be what I make it.

Expect to see my stitching whether by hand or by machine, with thread or wool or maybe something else. These are my Mandolin EPP quilt blocks -- all hand sewn. 

Expect to see these two - Matthew and Kent. Definitely my best work.

Expect handknit socks and shawls and sweaters but mostly socks.

Expect to see my feet, sometimes with others, in lots of different places.  These feet (mine and K) are at the Tablelands, Newfoundland where the Earth's mantle is exposed.

 Expect to see fascinating images --teepee closure at Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump.

And expect to see water from wherever I may find it. In this photo, it's Bermuda.

Putting this together has been like a school project and I feel like one of the elementary school kids, whom I taught, in doing it.  As their teacher I would have told them, they had to start somewhere.  This is my somewhere.