Rings On Her Fingers

After I drove my son to work yesterday morning, I sat and listened to an interview with Marcy Tilton and her sister Katherine Tilton called Ten Secrets To Being An Everyday Creative. What intrigued me most was that none of the information shared was new. It was information that I use regularly and have taught to my students in the past... when I was teaching.  Again, I wondered why this reminder that I love to teach. It was interesting in one of those weird, I wish I knew the answer, kind of ways and not interesting at all in one of those, it hurts, I loved to do that, why the reminder, kind of ways. 

When I looked at the Sweet Spot website on Tuesday, it was immediately obvious that Claire - the creatress as she calls herself - has a fabulous group of creatives who are willing to invest their success in her success. These are not just friends. They are a group of like minded, creative and business oriented people -  which was one of the points in the talk - about being part of a creative community. Hmm... yes... and not so easily accomplished in-person as it sounds. On-line - as good as it can be - does not have the same energy as face-to-face. They are two completely different things.

Howard phoned shortly after I finished listening to the interview. We had a good talk about the mixed messages and road blocks I've been running into lately that I don't know how to interpret and last night, I had that talk again with a friend - just to make sure I was thinking in the right direction. It's good to have a sounding board. I needed to set some guidelines and make some decisions because one thing I know for sure is that you can't walk in any direction if your leg is hobbled to one spot on the ground. You'll keep going in circles and tripping over yourself. SO...

... I've written an outline for the type of employment I'm looking for and will limit myself to applying only for those kinds of positions AND... while I'm waiting to see if that does or does not happen... I'll  focus on growing myself creatively and be open to the potential for opportunities there as well. This may not sound like anything new but to me it's incredibly more focused. I have felt like I've been going crazy thinking should I do this or that and is this a sign and if so, does it mean this or that, and which way is up.

When Howard and I were talking, he said that he felt I needed to earn sufficient income to pay for my supplies and any workshops I wanted to take so they weren't coming out of household expenses. I think that's reasonable and will be my starting point. I want to contribute much further than that.

I did join the Sweet Spot Salon. We'll see how that goes. Facebook and Twitter have absolutely no appeal for me and I've never been much good at discussion groups once the format moved beyond Yahoo. I understood that system but how this community functions is not as obvious to me as it might be to someone who is more familiar with on-line groups and forums than I am. For example, it appears that if you blog, it's a new blog within the community. If so, that doesn't appeal. I already have this blog and a blog and a website and possibly a sales page are about as technically advanced as I want to be EVEN THOUGH connecting with creative people is a huge draw. At heart, I'm a small group and a face-to-face kind of person and I'd much rather spend more of my time creating than talking about it - which is what I did the rest of yesterday - create.

Ruth V's hands were side by side on the original quilt, both on the beige part of the background. They were of similar value and both contain purple. Ruth is very tiny, loves oversized purses with lots of pockets, is a spring in coloring, and wears rings on her fingers - all of them - all the time - more than one ring on some fingers.

I made sure to sew the embellishments on before getting too far into the project because once the hands are sewn in and the lining is in place, it's a lot more difficult. These "rings" are buttons, beads, or a combination of the two.

I found it difficult to get into the flow of this project yesterday. There was lots of stuttering. That could be the dip in energy I mentioned or the fact that I've been fighting a cold. I started out using 7" purple zippers and then changed my mind to 9" blue ones and then changed my mind again to cutting down 18" black ones all so I could get the cleanest application. My stash of zippers is dwindling radically. That will be something to stock up on again at the next 50% off sale.

As you can see in the layout above, I'm hoping to incorporate another set of handles - bamboo this time - as well as quite a few of the left over scraps from previous bags. I've been digging through the box of bits and pieces and there are a lot of possibilities including a dotted purple from Ruth S's bag, a fern printed purple and a mottled green/purple from Cindy's bag, and the denim stitched brown from Susan's bag. All good.

I have appreciated the comments about the bags. Thank you. It's nice to know that others are enjoying them too. In our conversation yesterday, Howard mentioned that he is enjoying me working on this project, that I have been very happy, and he hopes that I have more projects like this to work on when I'm finished. I think it's the creative energy, the learning and trying new things, and the working step-by-step. Something to think about - as in how to have more of that in the rest of my sewing.

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - 2/3 of the way on the hand bag project