About a month ago, I had a eureka moment.
I look at pictures online. I draw ideas in countless spiral bound notebooks. I NEVER look back at these. Never use them for a reference or for inspiration.
Determined to start something new one afternoon, I thought to look at some of my “inspiration” files on my computer for a kick start & realized that this is just ridiculous. I don’t really want my computer on all the time – then I get distracted by FB, other blogs, links, etc.
Here I was, notebooks on hand, with more than enough inspiration contained. Why wasn’t I using the resources I had – why weren’t they inspiring to me? So I thought about it & realized – it’s the color. Eureka!
Out came a box of crayons and I started drawing ideas. It worked! Over the course of an evening, I had something I could work with and got down to the business of sewing. It was very encouraging. From here on, I work in color!
Where have I used this new skill you’re wondering? Well, for one - Amy Powers' Happy Go Lucky Stitchalong. I haven’t gotten very far in the creation stage, but I’m super happy about my design layout! The best part about the crayon pallet was that I could coordinate it with my embroidery flosses. Now when I sit down to stitch, because of my new colorful outline, I have a very clear plan of what to do. This is a project that will eventually hang above my desk, 25 1” squares of things that make me happy.
The next project I used this on was a small wall hanging. I love the tree motif & have been wanting to incorporate it into a new series of “Mazal Tov” wall art pieces for my Etsy shop. ("Mazal Tov" is in Hebrew & is a common expression for "Congratulations" at happy and significant occasions or events -literally meaning "Good Luck".) Last year I did something similar without trees.
Notice the crochet bead strands on the side of the piece? Inspiration from the necklace I was making! Having a few projects going at once and all the supplies laying around on my worktable turned out to be messy, but serendipitous!
Perhaps this isn’t the most world-changing eureka moment … but for me, I’m hoping that it helps get more projects out of my head and into creation. Maybe I’ll go back through some of my sketchbooks and color in project drafts to see if any of them develop into something more. It’s pretty popular nowadays to keep inspiration bookmarked online somewhere & one way or another (Pinterest, FaceBook Likes, Delicious, Flickr, Tumblr, etc…), I’ve always done that, or organized photo ideas into folders on my desktop. But it never got me anywhere. Now I think I have a solution. How do you get from inspiration to creation?
