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!

My Favorite Embroidery Books

Here is a list of my favorite embroidery books.

Inspirational Designs

1. Treasury of Floral Designs and Initials for Artists and Craftspeople-Great book for inspiration for Monograms and antique looking designs
   
2. Victorian Alphabets, Monograms and Names for Needleworkers from Godey's Lady's Book and Peterson's Magazine-Great selection of Victorian Alphabets
   
3. Embroidered Monograms & More-Has iron-on patterns
   
4. Embroidered Monograms & More, Book 2-Has iron-on patterns
   
5. White Work: Techniques and 188 Designs-Has wonderful patterns not just for whitework. Does not have photos of whitework but I love all the patterns.
   

Instructional

Here is a link to Nordic Needle that has the hard to find A-Z books at a reasonable price.

1. *The Embroiderer's Handbook: The Essential Step-by-Step Guide to Creative Stitches and Versatile Techniques * Perfect book for learning stitches, great basic companion to have, has some silk ribbon embroidery as well as other types of embroidery. Highly Recommended for learning
   
2. Floral Stitches: An Illustrated Guide-Has ideas for flowers, basic flower instructions, and stitch combo ideas for crazy quilting
   
3. An Encyclopedia of Ribbon Embroidery Flowers: 121 Designs-Has lots of ideas/instructions to create flowers with silk ribbon embroidery
   
4. A-Z of Embroidered Flowers-Mostly project style for types of flowers, also has some instructions
   
5. A-Z of Ribbon Embroidery-Wonderful basic book to learn and create Silk Ribbon Embroidery. Highly Recommended for learning
   
6. *A-Z of Embroidery Stitches * Perfect book for learning stitches, great basic companion to have, has some silk ribbon embroidery as well as other types of embroidery. Highly Recommended for learning
   
7. Embroidery for All Seasons-Awesome book for embroidering and creating flowers and gardens using thread. Has a flower glossary on how to create tons of flowers, and has projects, and project ideas. Highly Recommended if you love embroidering flowers and gardens.
8. Silk Ribbon Embroidery A Workshop Approach for Beginners-Great book for Tips and Technique. Good for learning SRE with a second book like A-Z of Ribbon Embroidery. Or if you already know the stitches but need technique help.
9. Bead Embroidery - Great book for learning bead embroidery has lots of techniques and ideas. Recommended if you want to try bead embroidery
   

* The starred books are basically the same, made by the same people and have some of the exact same photos and instructions but published at different times with different titles. Both books are equally great to own.