CQJP 2013: April Block Progress

I added chain stitching to the wavy line. Added some vintage tatting from my stash. And doodled a bit of a motif and started filling in a vine stem with back stitching.

CQJP 2013: April Block

Here's the start of my block for April.  Ahhh this makes me much happier!  Nice and bright!  Sunny and cheerful!

I'm going to make the cabochon into a pearl surrounded brooch.  I folded a piece of lace and thought it makes a great napkin!  Then I started marking a seam.  Last block I didn't do seams first and I hated that I didn't!  So this time though it feels like I'm walking uphill in sand, I'm going to do the seams first!  Then get to all the rest.  I just feel like I draw a blank when it comes to seams, motifs I always have ideas flowing.  I'm not sure why it's so hard for me to envision seam treatments.  Maybe it's because I want them to be perfect and I'm not that good at being meticulous even though I enjoy the look of meticulous! HA!  Whereas motifs are very free-form and look great that way.  Oh well, I'm hoping it'll get easier as I do it more, that's usually how it is.

What do you do? Inspiration, Motivation, and Oz! LOL

What do you do when inspiration and motivation to create seem to have flown out the window?  Lately it seems the mood to create has left me.  My garden is blooming like crazy and I'm enjoying taking photos of the flowers again, but CQ and Tatting have been pushed aside with no desire to pick it up.  I'm happy to be taking lots of pretty flower photos and tons of them are on my Honey Bee's Photos blog!

I also took a trip to visit family and it was fun!  I had packed some tatting for the airplane but I never picked it up once!  LOL  I did get that round of chains finished weeks ago on the doily but I still haven't taken a photo of it!  LOL  It's like procrastination set in and got out of control! LOL

I did pick out some pink and yellow fabrics, inspired by my roses.  I think I better just buckle down and make a block at least...sometimes it's like giving your battery a jump-start to just DO IT.

How do you overcome the blahs?  Do you wait for it to come or do something to jump-start yourself again?  It seems that not even eye-candy on Pinterest is helping!

Sometimes I can figure out what's demotivating me, but I'm having a hard time putting my finger on it this time.  My last block was really hard to work on and it's been harder and harder since then to work on things.  I had the idea to crumb piece a block and make it really "crazy" inspired by "The Patchwork Girl Of Oz", since I've been reading through all the Oz books and love them, but I hated the results.  Hopefully the pink and yellow rose inspiration will do the trick.  Hmm, maybe it's color!  I know I get energized seeing the bright colors in my garden, and my bright colored blocks are the ones that are making me happy, so maybe that is what was demotivating me.  Also the color of the crumb pieced reject is what really put me off...it's anemic looking to me and just upsets me to look at it, I hate it, I need to throw it away and get it out of my workspace! HA!  The only way I would do it again would be if I picked a rainbow of jewel toned colors, and in fancy fabrics too, that's how I "see" Scraps in my mind.  She's bright and spunky and whimsical, and she's a bit crazy (of course being crazy patched) but very fun and has lots of energy.  Hmmm, maybe I will work on this idea after all for next month.  Scraps my not be able to drink tea with us, but she'd be a fun addition to the tea party!  In Oz that never stopped the ones who didn't eat from hanging out with the meat people who need to eat at any dinner or feast. ;-)  I could see myself doing a whole Oz series after reading so much about them.  I'm almost done with the set, I just finished "The Lost Princess Of Oz" (in which Scraps is one of the main characters again) and started "The Tin Woodman Of Oz" after that there are only 2 books left.  I think it's really neat reading Baum's letters in the intros of each book and in "The Tin Woodman Of Oz" he talks about how the Oz books are for all ages, the young and the young at heart.
It's funny because I didn't start reading the Oz books because of the movie or anything, in fact I never really cared for the old movie that much and I HATE the song that everyone loves, it's like nails on a chalk board to me kinda like the titanic song...HAHAHA ;-P  Anyway the way I got into reading them was searching free books for Kindle and I read Baum's "The Sea Faries" and loved it and then when searching for more books everyone raved about the Oz series so I figured I would probably love those too.  And I do.  Then it just so happened that the new Oz movie came out in the midst of reading them!  LOL  I really loved the new Oz movie too.  It may not be perfectly true to the books (they never are) but I loved it and all the nods to the books and I felt it was true to the spirit of Baum's Oz.  I think he would have loved the movie!  It's so neat how what once could only be seen in the imagination is now able to be put into movie form!  I could see how now the ideas in the Oz books could be made into movies and really work!  The porcelain girl was so cool looking in the movie! Wow! Ya, Baum would be impressed.  Live, yet porcelain!  So cool!  I digress...LOL

Okay I better get to work if I have a hope of getting a block done this month! ;-)  At least I'm feeling better to have talked about it!  Thanks for read/listening!

Sweet Shot: Sun-Filled Rose

 Here is my Photo Of  The Day plus some extras.  I just love the sight of the sun shining through petals and leaves!  These just look so cheerful I thought I'd share it with you all too.