Stuck, Part II

I made the mistake of looking at the latest issue of Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine yesterday. I was ready to sit down and relax after a couple of hours of yardwork and browsing through a new magazine full of wonderful quilts seemed like just the ticket. Except that when I started looking at pages and pages of wonderful, complex, BIG quilts I started to feel anxious and inadequate again. Because right now, much as I might want to, I can’t get my mind around even designing anything big. The really goofy thing is that "big" for me is about 30" x 30".

I managed to channel the anxiety in a positive direction and spent about 2 hours making the little piece posted below. And I like it and it made me happy. And it occurred to me that maybe part of the reason working small is so appealing to me right now is because I can finish my thought process on a small piece before I get distracted by real life. It also seems to be easier to just jump in and start messing around with something small – with bigger stuff I have this need to have a plan to fill up all that space.

Whatever the reason, anything bigger than a journal quilt seems intimidating right now. One thing I’ve learned about my quilting is that I’m not completely in control. The results are always better if I just go with what’s working instead of trying to force myself to stick to my original plan. The small stuff is working, so for now I’ll just go with it.