This morning I opened up my email to a free monthly newsletter I receive from Creativity Portal...and found my way to this article written by Naomi Rose in 2006 titled Listening Your Book Into Being.
As I read, I found myself substituting the title "Listening my Needlework into Being"...
And substituting the words "writing" and "write" with the words "stitching" and "stitch".
What does it mean to learn to listen to yourself? Especially when it comes to stitching...
Here I took the liberty of paraphrasing and making the substitutions....
To learn to listen to yourself when a project first comes and knocks at the inside of your heart’s desire requires a “willing suspension of disbelief,” as Samuel Taylor Coleridge put it in the 19th century — only in this case, it’s suspension of disbelief in yourself, and in what is coming forth and how it’s telling itself to you. We have come to believe that stitching comes in fully formed, organized with subheads, logically developing from one point to the next. But stitching from the deeper Self has more unique, custom-tailored, mysterious ways of telling itself to you. So for this — to hear the wisdom, beauty, and translucence that is wanting to make its way up and out into your awareness, that you can begin to move with it and create something beautiful from it — you need to be able and willing to listen.
I love this thought. For a long time I have known that my projects do not progress in a linear fashion. But they come to me...little bits at a time...over time. All the time.
My ideas start as small seeds, and some of them grow and gain weight and others do not.
The first thing I do, is write down that little starter-seed of a thought...and sometimes it sits in the notebook for years.
For some, I create a collection box for the materials that will go into my project...threads, fabric, quotes, images, beads...anything really...all collected as fertilizer for my little seed...until it gains momentum and bursts into a full-blown sprout.
And sometimes it lays at that state for some time...until the next piece comes along. Often I will pause working on a piece because there is something missing. And I know I have to wait, and listen, until that something comes to me. And sometimes, it takes me a great deal of time to find it. But I have great patience for this waiting.
Today, I have opened a collection box that has been waiting for about two years now. It's for my husband. And it comes from my heart.
I'll be using Allie's freezer-paper curved-piecing method to kick start this project into blooming.
And so, I guess if you have ever wondered why a project dropped off the radar of this blog for a while...it's because I'm waiting for something to present itself.
I am in no way linear. And feel no pressure to complete one project before I start another.
To me, I am always working on all of them...
I'm feeling Spring coming on...and you may see lots of things blossoming. But there may be some jumping from one project to another. Please bear with me...It's part of who I am.
