Embrace the Chaos: Intuitive Stitching
Do you ever have LIFE coming at you from every direction, and you can’t help but feel overwhelmed??
Okay, that really sounds like I trying to sell you self-help books or something. I promise I am not. But I want to explore a little concept with you. EMBRACE THE CHAOS.
When we feel stress in our lives it’s very easy to get overwhelmed. And something I’ve really learned in the past couple of years is that stress isn’t always bad. There is such a thing as good stress.
That can sound like kind of a far-fetched concept, but here is how I look at it. Sometimes there are a lot of things on my to-do list that need to be checked off. It can be the sheer quantity that makes it stressful - but each individual task could actually be something we enjoy doing! Or our schedules are jam-packed, but it’s all things we enjoy and look forward to. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t stress involved with trying to have the energy to fit everything in.
Just because we feel stressed doesn’t mean that we aren’t grateful. And just because we feel overwhelmed doesn’t mean we aren’t excited! Emotions are confusing and trying to narrow down how we are feeling into one precise feeling may actually be doing us a disservice. It’s okay to feel “conflicting” emotions simultaneously.
set parameters that will help your creativity flourish
- keep reading →
As most of you know I am deep in the Beta version of my BB Art Journals class. I am LOVING every minute of it, but trust me when I say it’s A LOT of work! So my brain and energy have really been moving in that singular direction for the past couple of months.
This last week I did what probably most of us have done at one time or another and threw out my back. OUCH. I was in pain and could hardly move. (I’m getting better now, just taking it easy) But, my body left me with no choice other than to put a halt to everything I was doing and be laid up on the couch for a couple of days. I don’t know about you, but rest doesn’t always come so easily when I have a lot of important things to check off of my list!
So what did I do? I tried to make the best out of a bad situation. I tried to use the time that I was resting my body to also rejuvenate my creative energy. I decided to work on a stitching project that was LOW pressure but HIGH satisfaction. That’s how this stitching project was born.
Setting parameters will help your creativity flourish!
Here are some of the loose parameters that I gave myself for this project →
limited color palette
natural colors such as earth tones.
2. limited supplies
fabrics & textiles
3. method
intuitive stitching
4. goal (project outcome)
massive amounts of TEXTURE
& tactile elements
5. goal (feeling/emotion)
to be free & to feel revived creativity.
to create without a plan.
I made a conscious effort to not think more than 1 step ahead. (this is not always easy! it takes practice)
take each fabric as it comes (I prepped by putting scrap fabrics in my color way in a basket, then I pulled from it)
do not think about stitching too much, but rather, just stitch!
Think about choosing some gentle guidelines to follow next time you go to create! Sometimes having too many choices is overwhelming! Embrace the chaos and use it to enhance your creativity rather than the chaos overwhelming you.
