A Little Zen, Curved Piecing, and a String Quilt too

The Ebb and Flow of Life

Isn’t it funny how just when you think you got it figured out life changes again and you are left reevaluating your choices, desires, and potential outcomes?

I ended the summer ready to sell, however; I had no time to produce anything so I started furiously sewing in September....At about the same time I got a job as a waitress...Just part time, just for the fun of it...The opportunity presented itself and I said sure why not...Since then I have found I am putting a lot of time in making quilts with the intention of selling them.. Initially I mulled over what others would like, what was marketable, what was good enough.  I’m here to tell you it took all the fun out of quilting for me.

Then I realized I have to just stay true to me and the rest will follow.  So I tried that and found that being true to myself is truly the key except, I'm still not sure this is what I want to do.  I think the biggest reason I am keeping Etsy is because it was a lot of work to put up and I hate to pull it down.  Hm... That leaves me with options.  Do I simply leave it up, put up items I want and just don’t worry about it?  Or do I tear it down, and just sell at craft fairs if I should so desire?

In the end I wrote myself a mission statement, a little hokey, but it allowed me to determine what I needed my goal to be concerning quilting, a craft I love but which was becoming a little less enjoyable when my intention was to sell on Etsy and be worthy of selling on Etsy.

Sara’s Mission Statement

Make what I want, learn as I go, be free to fly-results good or bad-no quota to strive.

Keep what I want, give away what I want

sell what I want,

as I want to.

Love my craft-always stay true to me.

This I hung in my sewing room as a reminder to me that this is my creative space with no limits or expectations.

So do I sell or not?  I’m not sure.  For the time being I will leave my Etsy store in place.  I will pray to God about it, (though it’s not really a stressful situation and more a questioning moment in my life), and discuss it with my husband.

In the meantime we had Quilt Sew-In with the Boulder River Quilt Guild and lordy did I need it.

I love the ladies in our Quilt Guild and highly recommend the opportunity to meet with others that will inspire you, lift you up, and totally encourage you in every way.  In the last month I started a Zendoodle small wall-hanging that utilizes thread and markers to design.  

This was fun!  After getting home I wanted to see if I could just use thread to paint the fabric and make my design simply because I wanted to see if I could.

This was the result:

All in all, for me, Zen is very liberating.

Now a little curved piecing.

 After my liberating Zen experience I must have been feeling ready to tackle anything.  I did something I have always wanted to do, curved piecing without templates.  This was fun!!!! I only wish I had more fabric to make an actual table runner.  Instead I think it is a wall hanging?   Totally see the potential for an artistic wall hanging using this method.

String Quilt

I delved into my pastels again for this one.  After I had each string block done I wanted to organize it in a different manner than I had before, so I cut, cut some more, and this is my end result.

The quilting was actually much simpler than I normally do.  I wanted to incorporate straight line quilting with flowers.  By quilting much lighter than normal it is a fluffier quilt than I am used to.  I used a simple Moda Gray for the backing.

Thank you for looking!