Sunday, February 14, 2010

Getting my mojo back!!!!!!!

CIMG7199

After months and months without my sewing machine I have finally managed to get it repaired... again... and have been giving it a really good workout!! This time the problem was the power to the foot pedal - the cord needed replacing. The part itself wasn't too expensive, but when you add the cost of the service in....

This time I decided to fore-go the boring curtain making that awaits me and focus on the creative stitching that has been occupying my thoughts. And what a great decision that turned out to be!

I set my self up with an audio book and headphones and started free-machine stitching... I'd forgotten how much I love doing this!!! The audio book gives me something to focus on and takes away the drone of the sewing machine, leaving my hands to do the work without over-thinking... Somehow it's relaxing... I don't know how this works, but without the audio book it just doesn't work for me.

I was trying to explain this to B last night... he didn't get it so I don't mind if you don't either :) I was also trying to explain to him that when I look at each of my pieces of artwork I can remember the story that I was listening to as I stitched - is this weird?... It's kinda like how certain smells make you think of a particular time, place, or person...

So at every opportunity this week I have been stitching and loving it!! And yesterday the pieces all fell into place...

I have a tendency to jump right in and not do any sampling, and end up with a big project started, without knowing exactly how (or even if) it will go together. I started to do this yesterday... I'd created this great strip of free-machined-stitching throughout the week that was just too good to use in the way that I'd originally planned and so I started thinking of bigger and better projects for it.

The problem was I didn't really know if it would work out as I was hoping, or how I would actually put it together, and I didn't have all of the materials needed and I really wanted to keep working. So I decided to cut it up!! and it turned out to be another great decision!! Certain things came to me yesterday...
1) If I just took a piece off the end I could test out my ideas for my bigger-better project;
2) Because I had stitched onto soluble fabric, it isn't hard to add more to the end and keep stitching and make it grow so that it is big enough for my bigger-better project; and
3) I had really enjoyed the free-machine-stitching and so if cutting it up didn't work, it wouldn't hurt to start again and I would get to enjoy the process again.

And so in overcoming my fear of 'wasting time sampling' I have discovered that I could enjoy the process and get some useful results as well!! I will do the bigger-better-project because I now know that it WILL work!! But first I will continue to focus on smaller and sale-able which was my intention in the first place... (To make some things to sell through http://www.etsy.com/and Made It)

I'm sorry that I've been a bit 'vague' with the details but I don't want to give anything away - I'd rather show the finished results (which I think look pretty stunning!) and so until then here's just a peak of what I'm working on...

free machine stitching

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