#reverb10 - Day 4

Prompt: Wonder. How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year?

A sense of wonder...this prompt has left me perplexed all day.  I tried looking up the definition of "wonder" and "sense of wonder" for some inspiration and came away with the idea that I needed to have been reading science fiction in order to experience wonder.  I don't think that's what the author of the prompt had in mind.  

Other parts of the definition seem to focus on nature, if not science.  To me, wonder occurs when you take the time to really see and appreciate the world around you and to allow yourself to be amazed by it, struck with a sense of awe. To know that there is a higher power that has created it all is humbling.  I find that being a quilter keeps me constantly aware of the beauty and wonder around me.  A quilt block design idea appears from gazing at the tile floor in a building.  An October walk along a path flanked by trees in their fall clothes...red, yellow, orange, green and brown inspires me to design fabric in my head that might possibly capture that riot of color. The commute home takes me west and I experience the wonderful colors of a setting sun and sometimes, clouds that are pierced by rays of sunlight (God's light, I think it is called).  This leads me to think of how how I would capture the feeling of a sunset in a quilt.  

The knitter in me plans to dye fiber that will mimic the colors around me.  How would I capture the impressionist mix of colors as I watch a creek flow by in the sunlight with its million shades of color and reflection?  I almost want to take a paintbrush and add the colors one by one to the yarn.  What would that look like when it is knit into something else?  Would the colors stay true or would they blend to create a new color?

I do spend a lot of time naming my fictional fabric and yarn line or creating the perfect design of my virtual quilts. The places I see inspire me to create fun names that ideally convey the story but contain a secret meaning or double-entendre   Piece on Earth, my blog name, perfectly describes the sense of delight I experience when I find the name that pops into my head and makes me say, "yes!"  I love the idea of truly achieving peace on earth and hope that I do my part to contribute to it in my little corner of the universe. My adventures in quilting and knitting involve lots of pieces of fabric and fiber so combining the two hononyms just made me smile.  I am still completely in love with the name of my blog.  

I know that quilting and knitting certainly help me in my efforts to be peaceful, kind and loving and I can't help but think if more of the world took up these crafts, maybe we would all be a bit closer to peace on earth.     

Don't lose your sense of wonder or your ability to be amazed by the world around you.  Peace on earth to all.

#reverb10 - Day 3

Prompt: Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).

This year my daughter headed off to her first year of college. She really wanted to take a trip to the beach before she left.  For me, the beach is where I go to relax, recharge and dream.  However, for the very first time, this trip would include not just my daughter but my husband (her step dad) as well.  It wasn't the first time that the three of us had gone to the beach but it was the first time that my daughter wasn't taking a friend along AND the first time that the three of us would share one hotel room instead of a condo.  I was excited but a bit nervous.   

My husband met my daughter when she was 10 and became her step dad when she was 15.  Their relationship is still evolving and I wasn't sure I could enjoy this trip while acting as the conduit (or maybe the translator) between the two of them.  

One evening, the three of us walked about six blocks to a Mexican restaurant for dinner.  We were seated towards the back of the a very full restaurant. Latin music played happily, punctuated by the sounds of chatter and laughter.   We munched on crisp tortillas and enjoyed the wonderful smell of grilled fajitas,   Dinner talk included conversation about graduation, the summer and the quickly approaching start of college.  I slowly came to realize that we were having a pretty awesome time with great conversation that didn't seem forced.   And best of all, I wasn't the one doing most of the talking.  

This lovely dinner came to an end and we made our way to the front of the restaurant with happy smiles and suddenly found ourselves crowded shoulder to shoulder with a lot of people trying to leave.  Peeking through the heads, we discovered the the rain that had been threatening all day had arrived with all the force predicted.  It was dark and it was pouring, the kind of rain that soaks you to the skin in a few minutes.  So we joined the crowd of people waiting for the rain to slow.  One by one, cars came by to pick some folks up and others opened umbrellas or put on brightly colored rain coats and started walking.   We, of course, did not think the threat of rain was serious enough to actually bring umbrellas.  

After a few minutes, we realized there was no sign of it slowing and we decided to just make a run for it.....six blocks!  We started running and were immediately soaked to the skin.  The heat of the day and our sunburns were immediately cooled.  After a bit of running, it became rather comical because we were truly drenched and whether we got back to the hotel in ten minutes or twenty minutes wasn't going to make a difference in our current soaked condition.  The rain, however, was pretty hard and so we began running from one striped shop awning to another and stopping....just to have a small reprieve from the pounding rain.  Eventually I took off my sandals and ran through the puddles in my bare feet, something I hadn't done in years.  All the while, we were keeping up this funny burst of running, stopping and laughing, and then running again.  

Finally back at the hotel, we took turns in the bathroom peeling off our drenched clothes and wrapping ourselves in warm, fluffy towels.  The rain continued and we eventually went out to the balcony to watch the ocean and the rain put on a beautiful show.  

Even now, four months later, I can still recall the feeling of running bare foot in the rain with my wet pants flapping around my legs and giggling uncontrollably.  

Reverb 10 - Day 2

Prompt: Writing. What do you do each day that doesn't contribute to your writing -- and can you eliminate it? 

Today's question is pretty easy for me to answer.  In fact, it could easily be the answer to most of my frustration in life.  PROCRASTINATION.  Honestly, sometimes even I can surprise myself by my most amazing ability to procrastinate.  

This blog was designed to journal and record my quilting and knitting projects.  Sadly, that old devil, procrastination, hit me hard as I struggled to get into a good habit of doing blog entries.  So add procrastination in writing to a pretty amazing ability to procrastinate in sitting down to both quilt and knit. What does this get me?  A pretty slim blog chronicling very little crafting.  Not too interesting to read, huh?

I have often commented that if I quilted even half as often as I thought about quilting, I would be very prolific.  Same story with knitting.  I obsessively purchase new yarn and choose patterns for projects that I either never start or never finish.  I started the blog to give me motivation to quilt and knit so I would have something to say.  Then I wrote many many blog posts in my mind that never made it to the keyboard (?),  screen (?), blogosphere (?).  

My procrastination does not limit itself to just crafting (fiber and writing), it pretty much rules my life.  Do I really work better under pressure?  That's certainly what I tell myself as I rush to finish things by deadlines, often just under the wire.  I think what I find most frustrating about this behavior is that I recognize my procrastination as a fault and sometimes a REAL problem, but so far, I haven't figured out how to eliminate it. 

That takes me back to the second part of today's question.  I love writing.  I don't write as often as I want or as often as I think about writing.  I know that procrastination is the issue but can I eliminate it or lessen it?  

My challenge to myself going forward is to honestly work on this.  Even just a little progress would likely result in less stress, more writing, more knitting, more quilting, more satisfaction and as I stated in my goal yesterday....contentment.

Reverb 10 - Day 1

It's December 1st and the first day of  Reverb 10, in which you get a daily writing prompt for the month of December to, "reflect on this year and manifest what's next".

Today's prompt: One Word. Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you're choosing that word. Now, imagine it's one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

I read the daily prompt early this morning and began thinking about the word I would chose.  I wanted it to be a great word, one that said everything about my year.  The first word that popped into my head was "change".  Really?  That's the best you can do?  But all day long, every time I had a few minutes to think about ONE WORD, I always came back to "change."

So why struggle so much with it then?   Change is change.  Everything changes...all the time.  There is nothing I dislike more than people being resistant to every little change that is suggested.  As an agency director for most of my career, I have a lot of experience seeing the look you get when you mess with someone's way of doing things.  In anticipation of a need to downsize a few years ago, I read the book, Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson.  I found it very useful in understanding how people react to changes in their lives.  I don't want to give it more credit than it deserves but that book really forced me to think about how I personally handle change. 

I'm a planner.  I like to know what's next. I would be described as someone who not only crosses bridges before I come to them but I continue on to the next town and then turn around and come back again.  I just call it planning for all contingencies.  I have learned that I need to be  prepared with my Plan A,  but also a Plan B, a Plan B-1 all the way to a Plan Z.  Being ready to roll with the changes makes for a much easier time.  My reluctance to choose "change" as my ONE WORD is that change is inevitable so why couldn't it describe every single year of my life?

In my own defense, this year was a bit out of the ordinary

• My only child graduated from high school and left our small town to attend college in the City of Philadelphia and we became empty-nesters (almost).
• My husband was laid off for the first time in almost 30 years,
• My mother finally faced that she had medical issues that needed to be handled and our roles reversed (she lives with us - hence the clarification on the empty nest)

These key events resulted in a change in my existing relationship roles and a big change in how I coped with those role changes.  I anticipated things would be different but the end results still took me by surprise.   I think we've all come out alright...different, but alright.  So no more apologies for the choice of such a trite word.  I think it is deserved.  

 As for next year at this time, the word choice was easy.  I choose "contentment."  If I'm willing to appreciate and accept change in my life and see it as opportunity, I think it should be fairly easy to work towards contentment.  There are some big things I'd like to work on and some very little things that irritate me but I'm not at all worried about someone moving my cheese.  I 'm going to use the opportunity to embrace the change that is required to move toward contentment. 

 

Jump Starting This Blog

So starting tomorrow, December 1st, I've agreed to respond to writing prompts from here:  http://www.reverb10.com/.  See my cool button over there on the side?

From the website:  Reverb 10 is an annual event and online initiative to reflect on your year and manifest what’s next. The end of the year is an opportunity to reflect on what's happened, and to send out reverberations for the year ahead. With Reverb 10, we'll do both.

Thinking each and every day for the past year that I really should post something has resulted in exactly ONE post this year.  Obviously this is not working.  While I do have some serious doubt that I can really stick to this, especially given the time of the year....I'm doing it anyway!  When common sense gets in the way of agreeing to do something that I may regret agreeing to do, I'll just hang it up.

If you're out there...is anyone out there?  Come on back and see how I'm doing.  What have I got to lose?  I may break my all time record of posting only once a year!

No Excuses, Just Progress

I'm not going to bother answering where I've been and how an entire year (plus!) could have gone by since my last post. As soon as someone develops software that takes the blogs you write in your head and directly uploads them to cyberspace, I'll be the first in line!

I'm just moving on from here. I think I'll use this space to talk about projects both ongoing and those languishing in various project bags, baskets and plastic tubs. If I honestly listed all the knitting and quilting projects recently finished, underway, in the "time out" corner and in my head, it would be a bit scary even for me. So I'll talk about them a little at a time as I'm inspired to work on them. I'm not a monogamous knitter or quilter so there will always be AT LEAST 8-10 projects being worked on at any one time. Finishing? Yes, therein lies the problem.

Last weekend I took some time and chose backing fabric for three wall hanging quilts. They are now sitting on my new Sew Ezi table ready for an afternoon of machine quilting. One of the project dates back to 2002 and the others have a little less age.

This weekend, I'm putting together two quick lap quilts for friends' mothers, both of whom have dementia. A few years ago, I made one for my grandmother. I noticed that she was always stroking fabric and gathering it into pleats and so I used a variety of fabrics and put together something that she could touch that was a bit more interesting. It was a huge hit and she even managed to wear out the velvet parts with her constant touch.

This time I dug around in many tubs of fabric and in the attic for some discarded clothes. I came up with about 12 different kinds of fabric include a shiny scale-like fabric from my daughter's mermaid costume many years ago.

Lesson Learned: Flannel design walls work really well for cotton. Shiny fabric and leather? Not so much!

Stayed tuned!