There’s no doubt that creativity ebbs and flows; some days you’re feeling it and some days you’re not. Hopefully the days you are feeling it coincide with the days when you have time to devote to your passion. If you’ve planned well ahead you’ll have the setting and supplies to get at it.
Some of my favorite quilting days are those I spend with my quilting buddies. Over the last few years we’ve tried to get together once a month to spend some time catching up while we work on our latest projects. It’s not always easy to find the time but when we do, it always makes for a happy day.
It’s not necessarily because we are making huge creative strides; in fact, it’s usually quite the opposite. We each seem to bring a project that won’t require our creative attention; rather we’re getting work done that supports our creativity. For me this often means endless chain piecing. The longer the chain the better! Others work on hand binding, pressing, or putting together a block of the month, which usually needs to be finished for the following Saturday. There’s also a fair amount of show and tell that goes on, complete with lots of ooohs and aaahs.
As we sit and work, we’re always catching up on the latest in our lives. There’s our professional lives to chat about, quilt industry news (did you see the new “fill in the blank”? I have to get it!), new methods one or another of us may have picked up, etc., but mostly we talk about our families. What’s the latest with each of their kids? The joys of being a grandma. The funny thing a husband did. The lovely thing a husband did. Plans for vacations. Plans for house remodels. Plans for retirement.
We’ve been lucky that over the last several years we’ve been back to the quilting retreat where I met these lovely ladies. In fact, we’ve been back too many times for me to count.
They are my closest friends, and, in many ways, family.
And so Quilting Days = Happy Days.
