Coffee, Quilts, and other things that go “K” in the night

Tomorrow is Chinese New Year’s Eve. For the first time in my six years here, we will spend most of the evening in Taipei. We are meeting our friend Joe in Taipei at 3:30 for coffee, discussion of a paper I’m helping him with, and dinner. I should say I’ll be doing the coffee and paper discussion part. Dave will wander around that part of Taipei and join us for the dinner portion of the afternoon/evening. To start the festivities, Dave and I will catch a bus from our neighborhood about 2:30 to go to the nearest MRT station that will take us to the Taipei station where we’ll meet Joe.

As most of you know, I have just over a week of semester break left. Once the Chinese New Year holiday is past, we will gear up for back to school. You may also know that during the break from classes, I’ve been putting in most of my “working hours” at a coffee shop about a half mile from our apartment. I do it because it takes care of a variety of goals and objectives in one fell swoop. Or at least on a regular basis without having to put a lot of time and thought into it. For example, my nearly daily trip to the coffee shop does at least four things for me.

1. It keeps me focused on my work without overtaking my home life.
2. I get exercise walking here and walking home.
3. I get great coffee!  ❤
4. I have an interesting social group here, even though we don’t speak the same language.

OK, now you may wonder what the connection is among all of these seemingly isolated pieces of information. Particularly, how does quilting fit into it? (Coffee fits in with everything. Am I right?)

Any other day, if I were leaving for Taipei at 2:30 in the afternoon, I’d come to the coffee shop when they open and work for a few hours and drink coffee. But . . . . .

THEY ARE CLOSED TOMORROW!

Whatever will I do? Luckily, they will be open the following day, New Year’s Day proper. So I can’t fault them too much. They are, after all, only taking one day, when many places can take up to a week or more. For example, the neighborhood near campus will be quite quiet tomorrow.

So I decided that since they’re having their day off tomorrow, I’ll stay home and do something else that doesn’t contaminate my home space with work. I’m going to work on some quilting projects. Sure I could work on other stuff, but guess what? I’m not going to. I’m giving myself this gift of time.

The reality is I’m coming to terms with the fact that I can never really catch up. That I’m going to have to rethink my commitments and obligations, so that I can rearrange my life accordingly. In the meantime, I can have a nice chunk of sewing time tomorrow. I’ll be sharing some of the results of tomorrow’s escapades here. I actually feel more excitement than I have in a while. I think it’s a good sign.

 

91 days until 60. 

Quilting Retreat: Planning or Resisting?

To Quilt or Not To Quilt

Antique Quilts (Photo credit: Quiltsalad)

It was only a few weeks ago, when I was getting ready to pack up my quilting and accept the fact that I simply didn’t have time for it in my life right now. And as I wrote that post on new year’s day, it came to me that packing up my quilting stuff to eliminate the constant pressure of NOT getting to it, didn’t mean that I had to give it up entirely. I just needed to “contain” it, by giving it some pockets of time. That way, I could still look forward to enjoying some quilting time, but not feel frustrated by seeing everything out on a day-to day basis. Some quilting time would definitely be better than no quilting time. Right?

So I set up a couple of days during this semester break for a personal quilting retreat. This is self-directed. No one expecting me to show up somewhere at a specified time. No retreat leader or other participants to wonder where I am if I don’t show up. I only have to show up to the cutting table and the sewing machine on Thursday morning–36 hours from now.

But I have mixed feelings it. While I’d like to get back to quilting, I feel like the three writing projects, along with the textbook project, are all pushing on me–deadlines looming. And while these deadlines are real, my willingness to abandon a play-date with quilting without a fight seems a little suspicious. In fact, now that I think about it, even though I originally protested the idea of packing up my quilting stuff (and just getting it out for just such planned occasions), packing it up turned out not to be that big a deal. So what to I want? To think about quilting? Or do I want to quilt? Something is definitely going on.

My first clue came about a week ago, I was looking at my fabric stash, arranged in cubbies behind my work desk. Whenever I’m working on my teaching or writing projects, I can just turn in my chair and see the colorful fabrics behind me. I love looking at the colors and dreaming about the possibilities of the quilts that could be created with these fabrics. But on this particular day a week ago, I had a surprising thought about my fabric stash.

I’m not really sure I want to cut into my stash!

What?! Isn’t that what a fabric stash is for? Since it’s impossible to quilt without using some fabric—presumably from my stash, I needed to explore where that thought was coming from. I took a new journal that I had been saving for something “special,” and I headed to my neighborhood coffee shop to do some exploratory writing.

Quilting Memories

I started by thinking about how focused I had been on putting together Logan’s quilt top during the semester break last year–wait TWO years ago! Of course, I already knew about this time difference before writing the post, but this was a major discovery in my journal. How I thought that it had just been a year since the last time I had done some serious quilting, but it’s already been two years. In other words, when I first made the decision to bring my quilting to Taiwan and picked up some fabric, it was for Logan’s quilt. I put it together a few months later, and with a few minor exceptions, that’s been it. What a wake-up call!

Another discovery from my journal was my inability to settle on a project. I am looking at ideas now, but I was reminded that my last couple quilting times were less than satisfying. First, I was inspired to try some techniques I found in Rule-Breaking Quilts by Kathryn Schmidt. While I really enjoy the quilts in the book, my attempts haven’t been too exciting thus far.  My expectations might be too high. Or I may have just given up too soon. My time was limited after all. If I give it another go, and just RELAX about it, maybe it will be more satisfying.

The second project I tried recently involved a set of 18 pinwheel blocks that I made years ago. This is me with one of the pinwheel blocks on my last fabric-finding mission. A couple of months ago, I had pressed all of these blocks, FINALLY squared them off, and was going to finish piecing the last few odds and ends I had. But I couldn’t get my seams to line up. I couldn’t find my seam ripper. I was trying to hard to make time for quilting; almost like crossing it off my to-do list, rather than just enjoying the experience. Plus, I can’t decide what to do with them next. I have started to look at a few pattern ideas, and maybe I’ll actually take the plunge and just enjoy the moment.

I’m noticing a theme here, one that showed up in my journal in a startling way. I started the journal to explore why I was reluctant to cut into my stash. Why do I hoard and collect fabric and color only to hesitate to cut into it? What is the point of a stash that won’t give way to creation? And here’s what I wrote:

Maybe it’s not breaking-up the collection as much as the fear of doing something that isn’t good enough! Good enough for whom? Wow! Who am I trying to impress?

Quilting is a hobby, a break from the stress. I need to stop building pressure into it. Who wouldn’t want to avoid two days of evaluative play time? How can I enjoy myself if I have hidden agendas about what it means and what the results should be? I don’t plan to teach quilting. I’m not planning to enter contests. It’s just supposed to be fun?

Am I resisting fun?

There was a time in my life, before going to graduate school when I made a point of taking a fun break every week. It might be a day to go look at fabric, or a museum, breakfast out, and coffee, meet with a friend. Spend time on crafts. Try new recipes! Read a book! There were lots of choices. I even kept a journal about the ways to keep fun in my life. Go back to the past when I intentionally included fun in my life. I’ve gotten too far away from it. Fun has become expendable.

I feel so stressed at the moment, that I feel like I want to get more of a handle on things before the retreat. I think if I plan play with the idea a little bit more, taking a few minutes each day for the next week, I might enjoy it more. I can find patterns and fabrics I want to explore. I can take a little more time to write about what I want to try. I can focus on process instead of product, and exorcise some of the crazy anxiety that I seem to have about somehow “doing it right,” whatever that means.

If you’ll excuse the pun,it becomes important to “patch” up my relationship with quilting. I have many good memories associated with it. It’s time to recapture those, and figure out where all this negativity is coming from. I have left quilting behind several times, and it always draws me back. Now that I’ve made these discoveries, another week might allow me to approach the quilting retreat with a more playful attitude. I can take time to determine what quilting activities I want to do, what fabrics I want to use, look through patterns. Get a little more self-directing about what will happen while still maintaining the fun and spontaneity. The last thing I need right now is one more thing on my to-do list. That is not the role I want quilting to have in my life.

Anyone want to cast their vote or opinion into the mix? Am I just putting off my quilting yet again, or is it a good idea to “retreat” and regroup for a more thought-out experience. Perhaps an oxymoron.

Stay tuned to Friday’s post to find out what I decide.  🙂

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An Idea Whose Time Has Not Yet Come. Or . . .

“Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.” ― Eckhart Tolle

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I wish I could say that the picture on the left is me at my sewing machine. But I can’t. Wikipedia doesn’t have images of me in its database. At least, I don’t think it does. Anyway, it’s not me. I don’t have a sweater that color. And I’ve spent so little time at the sewing machine lately that there is likely no photographic evidence of such an event..

What’s wrong with this picture? If you’ve been following my blog, you know that I love quilting.Yet, in spite of my desire to quilt, something isn’t working. I’ve noticed lately that whenever I do have a few minutes of “discretionary” time, I am always torn between quilting and some deadline or task that is clamoring for my attention. When I do have a few minutes to relax, I pick up things that only take a few minutes. This happens even though I have a relatively dedicated sewing and cutting area.

I had also noticed a few potentially bad signs. For example, the last time I sat down to sew, I only completed a couple impatient seams. They didn’t line up quite right. That made me impatient. It had been a few weeks since I had sewn anything, so I couldn’t put my hands on the seam ripper. My somewhat minimalist approach to keeping a sewing area did little to stem the slow tide of teaching and research clutter that often became entwined with my quilting. I began to wonder how–in one year–I had gone from daily work on Mr. Logan’s quilt (see here) to the upcoming semester break with no real prospect for time at the sewing machine or cutting board.

(Photo credit: emily.bluestar)

Maybe it has something to do with the constant visual reminder. For starters, it gives me the mistaken idea that I can quilt anytime. The problem with that situation is that all my other projects are also in my visual radar, but they have more priority. Quilting will lose every time. But more than that, it was a constant reminder that it was losing every time. After all, if I really wanted to quilt, I’d just do it, right? This kind of thinking becomes a little dangerous for me. I began to think the best solution was to pack up the quilting one more time. I could still look at books, play with fabric and patterns, and make plans for when I can make the time to quilt.

Then came the 30 day moratorium for January 2013. When I decided to try that out for the new year, I had already decided to pack up the quilting stuff. But that didn’t stop me from becoming overwhelmed by the other stuff that was still left for me to catch up on and bring closure to before I can pursue the things that interest me the most. For the time being, responsibilities and obligations have become the headliners.While I knew the moratorium was the right thing to do, and that mapping my way out of the avalanche of projects was imperative and worthwhile, I still had a nagging feeling about the quilting. I mean, I do know I can’t do everything, but I forgot one important thing!

Quilt notes (Photo credit: duien)

Life is not black and white!  Most people who know me marvel at my ability to be flexible and to brainstorm lots of options about any given problem. So, why did I limit my choices to having everything out in the open or packing it all up? I finally remembered something from thirty years in my past. I used a responsibility-free weekend to set up my own personal quilting retreat. The boys were visiting their father for the weekend, and I took the weekend off from work. I can’t tell you what project I worked on that weekend. But I cleared the dining room table, and brought out the sewing machine and ironing board, the cutting mats and fabric, and I spent a weekend doing nothing but quilting. It wasn’t just the weekend itself that was great, it was the anticipation leading up to it and preparing for the time when it came.

I can’t tell you why I didn’t continue the tradition. Oh yeah, life probably got in the way again. And at the time, I wasn’t strong enough to identify what I wanted and schedule it in. But now is the time to resurrect that custom. After all, quilting in my life has never been a constant. It has always found its way into my life in specialized containers of time. So I am now planning Quilting Day 2013. It’s the perfect time for a quilting retreat. I have four weeks with no classes. I have worked out a schedule to map out the tasks that need to be done. But most importantly, once I set the retreat dates, there is minimal chance of interference with the plan. The moratorium is in effect. Instead of a couple hours a day that I had hoped for during the semester break, I will take a two-day mini-vacation and spend it playing with color, fabric, and pattern. And in the process, I’ll have a less cluttered work-environment overall.

What started out as a potentially negative decision has brought new options. If I hadn’t been willing to pack up my quilting, I would have continued to encounter the frustration of never getting to the machine. I wouldn’t have rediscovered the alternative of setting up compartments of time that are totally dedicated to quilting as a workable solution to the problem. While some may think this seems like a negative change, I am reminded that a weekend once or twice a year is considerably more time than I get throughout an entire year. I can capitalize on the moratorium, begin to manage the backlog, move my projects forward, and anticipate a creative getaway to energize myself. When the sewing stuff comes out, it will be a visual and tactile picnic. And maybe the start of a new tradition.