LIFE ..........can be so overwhelming at times.

Well, events in ones life can seem to be too much, but quilting and creating has taught me so much about coping when it gets a bit crazy out there.

hehe,  couple of crazy cats.

Its all good folks, I am doing great,  just in case those of you with sensitive souls get worried.....

I am soooooo blessed to have such a supportive spouse and time to create, because I do think that without the creativity I would be swamped. Everyone needs a hobby, that thing that gets them out of bed and looking forward to the day ahead.

I spent the time cutting up fabric when I was feeling stressed after dealing with a stubborn elderly parent. It helped me calm down and not lash out in my frustration and their fear.

This corner of the table was my haven, piles of fabric reduced to tiny hexagons that one day will make another purse. I am looking forward to that!

More hexagons that will come together in another project.

And that is what my creative pursuit has taught me, at first it may seem overwhelming." I cannot do that", I have said , and I have heard others say.
If you look at the finished quilt it can seem too much, but if we sit a while and break it down into small pieces, it doesn't seem too bad after all.

We add the little tasks together and before we know it, a larger piece appears. We are progressing forward.

I have recently had to step up at work to cover for a collegue, sadly for them life has been too overwhelming. I too was nervous, would I cope with the extra in my life? I mean I had just got everything so well balanced, I didn't want to upset my apple cart.

But I did as I would do in my creative world, I stopped , took a deep breath and broke it down into small pieces. Slowly I picked up the pace and things progressed forward.

Things got done at work, projects will be finished at home.

This project waits quietly, it too will be a slow and steady creative escape.

A pleasant interlude when I want to sit and stitch with little thought.

And that is what quilting has taught me about life.

Pardon my absence I've been sick.....

Nothing serious but enough to sap my energy and make me lie on the couch and in bed, coughing and spluttering.

Boy and when mum goes down, the whole house sorta misfires a bit, well it does in that it doesnt go according to my schedule. 

Methinks I need to stop micro managing and take my own advise and let it be.

Lessons life teaches you when you have time to think......you need to know how sick I was when I was aching from lying in bed too much so I got up and watched MORNING TV.....yes completely brain dead....numb to all feeling from the neck up.......but I am better now.

I felt I needed a new and slow project to get me through that period, and I am NOT saying english paper piecing is for slow people but is was a beautiful and gentle way to just sit and sew.

So this is what I got done before the coughing started.

It is the base of a purse designed by Brigitte Giblin, 1/2 in hexagons, and I am learning heaps about what to do and not to do. I am glad this is the base of the purse so my mistakes will not be on public display.

Then I stopped all activity for a while but prepared hexagons for this project.

This is going to be a tote bag made from a charm pack and they are 2 inch hexagons. Completely different skills learned again, but the few wobbles will not be so visible over the whole project.

I you tubed quite a few tutorials when I was sitting quietly, and I have put together my own method using hints from many sources.

Everyone has their own way of doing some things and we must go with what makes sense to us. I personally am not folding my pieces together but butting them together keeping them flat and catching the stitches behind. 
I have found this keeps my stitches more invisible from the front.

I should take a photo and show you shouldnt I, stay there a second I will be back.

Thanks for waiting!

I am adding the dark hexagon, so I line up the points and stitch them together, then I hold them a bit like this and sew whip stitches with the hexies butted up together.

As I am not changing my style, I do not find this difficult, and I just take small neat stitches, catching the yellow then across to the dark, and so on down to the next intersection, a few stitches in the joining point and across the next line etc etc.

This works for me, and I dont think its foolproof or better but just another style of sewing.

The photos are being taken at my craft  kitchen table, where all good projects end up at some stage.

Luckily it seats 8, and we are a family of 4 most nights, and when guests join us I move the pile current project to the very end of the table and we eat.

This was another slow project that inhabits the table

Quilting the borders, sorry about the blurry closeup.

This is the stencil

Now you may notice some nibbles on this stencil, not me but my puppy boys.

They being small and quick often run into rooms and seek trouble, I was very lucky that my husband came home and as he passed the lounge room wondered what the dogs were playing with.

Its all good I can still use the stencil, ( lucky cos they are not cheap) and lucky the dogs are small because I could well imagine our previous fur child who was a Bull Mastiff would have swallowed half of it in the first ten seconds.

I must pull out some old photos to show you all some day, he was a brilliant boy. Boris was his name and we loved him a lot.
Now I must go before I get all soppy and nostalgic about my pets.

Thanks for the chat, stay away from coughs.