Pushing Myself, Creatively Speaking

How do you push yourself to continue being creative? I love sewing, it's a really big part of who I am. But sometimes I feel like I am just churning things out and not being terribly creative. Or it begins to feel same ol' same ol' to me. So I started thinking about this yesterday. And in the last year or so, there are a couple of things I started doing to keep things fresh and new for myself.

Now, I have never been a big joiner when it comes to quilting. No quilt guilds, and only a few classes back in the early days. I love working on projects, but I hate packing everything up to go work on projects. I am a bit of a solitary maker. And then I love to show it off when it's done. I stayed away from many techniques that seemed too hard. And then I realized that that is what was holding me back and making me stale. I had to get over it and do something.

One of the first things I did was to make this set of tiny blocks to work on my precision piecing. These all finished at 2 inches square. I found that while they weren't tooeasy, they weren't too hard. Slow it down and do it right.

The next thing I did was to take the Penny Sampler quilt class on line from Rachel. I love her classes for their content, but I was also able to work on this at a pace that worked for me. The other thing about it was that there were some techniques in this class that I needed to learn and master. Like paper piecing. I came away knowing how to paper piece. It's still not my favorite technique, but when it's called for, I can do it. Also, this was a 12 month class. I have NEVER taken that long and slow to make a quilt and I found I really liked that slower pace, with time for other projects as well.

The next thing I did was to make this quilt for my niece. I used only fabric from my stash, except the background fabric. I have never done that, and only blues, which is also the first time I have made a quilt using only two colors. It wasn't that it was hard, just different and helped me to stretch myself a bit creatively.

I am currently working on an English paper piecing and applique piece, also hosted by Rachel of Stitched in Color and Jodi at Tales of Cloth. I never had any interest in EPP when it was all the rage a few years back, but now I cannot seem to get enough of the slow hand stitched pace of the hexies.

And now I have joined in on the 100 blocks in 100 days 2018 on Instagram. I bought the book for inspiration, the year it came out and then it sat on the shelf. This 100 day project is really pushing me creatively. I am doing every 10 blocks in one color, like a rainbow of sorts. I added pink, teal, dark pink and split the violet into red violet and blue violet to have enough for ten sets. It is all coming from my stash and scraps and choosing the colors is tough, but oh, so satisfying. I do a happy dance for each one I pull.

So that's what I am doing to keep moving forward as a sewist, quilter and maker. Tell me, what to you do to keep it fresh for yourself?
Talk to you soon.