I wrapped up my year-long journal quilting project in 2012, two weeks after my daughter was born. It was a terrific project for me and one that I am tempted to repeat. If nothing else, I had something on my to do list every week that encouraged me to get into the studio for some play time, to try something new and to stretch myself a bit. I have found myself using a lot of the techniques over the last four years that I first experimented with during the project, including some of the design practice that was required to complete a new piece of work each week.
As I wrap up my #TBT posts here, I’d like to share some lessons learned from the project:
- A weekly project that prompted me to create something new was a terrific exercise for creativity. Some weeks were less creative than others, but I pushed myself to try new things and some of the results were wonderful.
- I learned how to design. I learned that I needed to set aside some time for quiet reflection and sketching and how to keep pushing on a topic until the spark came. I also learned that sometimes, it just doesn’t work and that it’s okay to pitch something in the trash and start over.
- Practically, I tried a wide variety of techniques that I might not have tried otherwise, explored many of those stitches on my machine, and improved my binding skills.
- The final lesson learned – you never know what’s going to happen. If you’d asked me at the beginning of the year to predict some of my subjects, I would have named 100 things and never mentioned “pregnancy.”
