Do What You Want to Do!

I went to a lecture at my Quilt Guild last night.  The Guest Speaker was Cathy Wiggins.  She is a well-known teacher in the quilting world.  The Guild had been looking forward to this lecture for a long time.

To tell the truth, I was not overly excited.  Cathy was giving two lectures.  One was during the day and titled "How to Structure a Successful Workshop or Lecture".  I really was not interested in this one, as I have already been teaching for a long time.  So I passed on spending the time and cost to attend.

The evening lecture was titled "Finding Your Inspiration -- Unlocking Your Creativity".  As this lecture was being given during our regular monthly business meeting, and I am the refreshement coordinator for the Guild, I headed out to spend the evening with my fellow quilters.

At the beginning of the lecture, Cathy gave us a quiz.  She asked 10 questions that we had to rank our answers from 1-5.  The higher your score, the less she figured she could teach you.  I scored pretty high.

Please know, I am not bragging here.  I guess, as a teacher / artist, it was bound to be that way.  But, I am always determined to take away one thing from every speaker.  So I got out my notebook and set that goal.

Cathy had a lot of ideas about unleashing creativity.  She spoke about recognizing inspiration and keeping track of what inspires you.  Check!!!  I have books full of stuff I have photographed or cut out of magazines.

She also spoke about having a "Clean, Well organized workspace".  I would say my space is well organized for me.  But I do have some clutter going on.  As I am plagued with frequent bouts of OSP (Oh, Shiney!! Pretty) I do have a lot of things going at once.  To the casual observer, it might seem unorganized, but I know where everything is.

This is my what my beading worktable looks like as I write this. 

Cathy suggested that we not keep magazines, but cut out the things that "speak to us" and save just those.  That will get rid of clutter and open up space. 

Heaven knows, I have plenty of magazines and books.

This is the majority of my fabric stash.  It also houses some beading and display items.

And here is the bulk of my beading magazine collection.  I have recently started to go to digital issues on these.   I have to admit, I like the digital because it stores easier, and I can take more with me at one time.

And this is the bulk of my quilting and sewing books and magazines.

Now, I am sure that a lot of my fellow attendees went home last night and dreamed about going through things and cleaning out!  I have to admit, I did think about it too!  Afterall, who would not like to have more space.

But, here is the ONE BIG THING that I took from the lecutre.  Cathy asked us if we work on projects just because "everyone is doing it" or do we do "what we want to do".

I have to say, I am going to do WHAT I WANT TO DO!  I am not going to clean/sort any of this right now.  Right now, I WANT TO BEAD & SEW!

Cleaning can wait for another day!!

Blessings,

Beth