Monthly Archives: May 2015

Have you ever…?

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I am a habitual collector of random images from the internet… usually cat memes and things that tickle my dark sense of humour but I also collect images that inspire and make me feel something. Especially if they ignite that flicker of an idea, slightly intangible at the time but one that moves more and more into a solid idea for a quilt.

I have an external hard drive that is fit to bursting with images, notes for quilts, drafts for book chapters, all my phone and laptop backups and pretty much every picture I’ve ever taken with a digital device. This poor hard drive holds some of that idea intangibility but even though I rarely look at whats actually stored on there I know what’s there. It’s the promise of a design, the pattern potential and the seed of creativity that makes what I do worth getting up in the morning.

BUT…

Occasionally an idea will stall. It will sit there and be a bit stubborn and doesn’t want to play.

I’ve had an idea for a quilt (more a wall hanging originally but it’s scale isn’t really important in this tale) that incorporates something that I’ve long believed in, practice and aim to improve within myself. It’s not religious although there is spirituality involved and the symbols I’d like to replicate in some way, are meaningful to the belief system. I’ve been looking at these images for months and nothing has jumped out at me to give me the clarification I need.

I have the colours and the fabrics in mind already, I have the designs and the pattern – what eludes me is what technique to use to create them.

Which might sound a little odd considering everything else is ready to go but I assure you that’s usually the stumbling block that most people find they come up against. This is me every now and then – usually when something is important or is laden with some kind of obligation (usually a gift).

So as I imagine my finished piece in all sorts of ways I ask you  –

Have you ever been stuck like this before? How did you get unstuck?

Pop your comments below. 🙂

Marni x

Charity Quilting

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It’s well known that when disaster strikes many of us who craft are amongst the first to put our hands up to help. Natural disasters, sick children, soldiers, injured and rescue animals are just some of the worthwhile causes that quilters shave helped.

Something about crafting an item and donating it to a recipient who needs it in a time of great turmoil seems to work well and bring people together.

Many of you know that I am a permanent long-arm quilter for BlanketLovez. I’ve been doing it for a few years now and enjoy every minute of it. I love seeing what quilts people are making, the huge variety of fabrics that I haven’t seen (secret stash fabrics) and I love experimenting with the pantographs and free-motion.

Charity quilting gives something to my quilting adventure that my own personal quilting can’t give me – there’s an overwhelming feeling of doing good with the skills I have but there’s more to it than that. It’s hard to define but if anyone ever asked me about what I do I would encourage them to give it a try and see for themselves.

In this series of blogs I’ll be interviewing other quilter’s who do the same – we all quilt for charity – whatever charity that may be.

I hope you’ll join me and the fabulous quilter’s who’ll join in along the way.

Marni x

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Current quilting for RMD House OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

Quilts

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Making quilts is something of an obsession with me – not only is it my job but it is the one thing that keeps me going emotionally and mentally when everything else gets a bit mad.

Quilting is my therapy.

But one unfortunate side effect of making so many quilts is the fact that there is no where to keep them all unless I sell them.

So to clear the decks a little, some of my current quilt listings are 40% off, click here to see them.

All quilts are ready to post and are perfect for these cooler, rainy days. Snuggle up on the lounge underneath a handmade quilt.

If you don’t find what you are looking for I also make quilts to order. See here for more info.

The smallest piece… v3.0

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So I’ve been trying to write this blog post for over a week now. It’s one of those posts that drives me nuts because I have the idea and I can see where it’s going but I just can’t get the words onto the screen in a way that doesn’t make me sound like a whiny, self-centred lunatic.

Life shouldn’t be easy. But sometimes things happen that make it seem like you are copping every bad thing that’s ever happened to everyone in the history of the world (slight exaggeration there but you get what I mean) and you start to wallow… deeply… because it’s easier than trying to fight it.

If life was easy it wouldn’t be life. It wouldn’t be interesting, it wouldn’t be challenging and sure as eggs it wouldn’t be fun.

Lately I’ve felt like the aforementioned ^^^ wallower in self-pity, procrastinating and quite simply over it and anything that was coming my way. I was tired after a month of being ill and then trying to catch up with everything that I’d signed up for (can’t say no….) and I was just not happy within myself.

I am the first to admit that I’m not the perkiest of people. If you know me or have met me you will know that I take things very seriously. I like control and I like things to be just so but even though I’m not perky (or any of the things that go with that) I am happy. I have my family, my cat, my health and my work. Things aren’t always peachy but I have it a damn sight better than lots of people out there and I am immensely grateful for that.

I am not depressed.

I go through stages of what I like to think of as distance. I remove myself from my life in an emotional sense because I either cannot deal with something or I am just tired of feeling things.

My quilting helps me with that distancing because there is nothing quite like setting up the machine and just working on a quilt, no distractions, no thoughts or feelings other than what I am putting into that quilt. All I do is stitch. I listen to the hum of the machine, and watch by the glow of the light as the stitches appear from under the needle, working their way across the fabric.

And this is why I do what I do.

The past few months have been difficult for me. I know there’s nothing wrong but I had serious trouble mustering much enthusiasm for anything I was doing except work related things. I think that’s why I ended up sick with bronchitis for a month… I was just exhausted.

But something strange happened the other day that turned months of misery around.

It was as I was rummaging around in my craft room (cleaning actually because it was a dump) and I found two things – a packet of beads that I’d forgotten I had and a small scrap of fabric.

The colour of the beads captured my eye and made me feel something I hadn’t felt in a while. Itchy fingers wanting to pick up my jewellery tools again but it was the fabric that really got me…

Now as I held this scrap of fabric in my hand it reached out and grabbed me, threw me back into myself and inspired me again. I basically got slapped upside the head by a scrap of fabric no bigger than my palm.

Now I’m not going to show you these beads or fabric because there’s no point. These two things were meant for my eyes only. I was meant to re-discover them at that time, just for me to receive the inspiration from. If I show you they lose that kick that they had because you won’t see the same thing I did and then that makes this story the ravings of a nutter.

But that’s not the point either.

When you feel your worst, look around you because it literally is the smallest piece that can change your life.

Marni x