Hi friends,
Today I am chatting about the question: what does it take to see?
Thoughts on what it takes to see
I am on my way to Miami to cruise with Stitchin Heaven. I am teaching on one of their cruises and will be gone for over 10 days! The past few weeks have been super busy as I prepped for my segment at the Creative Spark Live Color Mixer event last Friday and prepping for the cruise. So many details to coordinate!
On Saturday, I popped out to JoAnns to grab some cross stitch thread for another new project I am working on. I am taking one of my butterfly stickers and turning it into a small cross stitch. I’ll need some handwork to do on the cruise for when I am not teaching or island hopping!
Since they are right near each other, I also popped in Barnes and Noble. Other than a quilt shop, my favorite kind is shop is a book store!
Wandering the store, I ended up in the art books section. I saw 2 books that really hit me. One was titled: Still. The Art of Noticing by Mary Jo Hoffman. And the other was a book on Georgia O’Keefe, To See Takes Time by MoMA.
These titles really stuck with me. Stillness. Noticing. Taking time to see.
Color and Quilts
To provide context of why these struck me, on Friday, I was chatting in my session at The Color Mixer about color and how we all see color differently. And about how we all see quilts differently. By that I mean, that some of us first see the overall quilt and the movement; others pick right up on details. The bunny in the fabric, the florals or the wonky fish fabric.
I mentioned to the group that I am more of an overall look person and less of a detail person.
It made me think more about that and wonder why. Is it just how I am wired? Or is it a combination of factors?
Then, I thought about the month of January, a month that I spent making 1 quilt, finishing 2 other quilts to ship to the fabric company for my next batik line, a month spent prepping for the color class, spent prepping for the cruise, spent prepping colorations for a future fabric line, spent time trying to start designing quilts for the next fabric line, a month where I spent time planning and designing other upcoming quilt projects, designing cross stitch patterns, writing and editing quilt patterns….
Hmmm. I haven’t been still. I haven’t had time to see. Maybe it is not that I don’t see but I am so busy I can’t see.
The Big Picture or the Details
I do think I am truly a more big picture person in some ways. Though I like to pride myself on the details- details like finding the errors in the pattern I just wrote before the editor finds it!
I think I can be good at details, sometimes. But I am guessing, when I am busy, overworked and trying to get too much done in a short time (isn’t that the American way?), the details slip past me.
Makes me wonder about being more strategic, more intentional (my word for the year) with my time, allowing more time per project so I can be more aware of the details.
What about you?
Do you take time to see? Or is it something you need to think about too?
For now, I am teaching and cruising. Maybe I will get a little down time. I wonder how I will handle that?
happy quilting!
Kate
p.s. the next Live even at Creative Spark is called Piecing Palooza and some of my friends are teaching at it! Should be an amazing event. click on the image to go check out the details and save with my affiliate code: pp25kate.
