Preliminary

This is a very preliminary look at one of my homemade calendar pages for next year; the real thing is 8.5" square (so the date side of the book extends to the full 8.5" -- just not showing the whole right-hand side spread here). The collage is still just beginning. I will layer in rubber stamped images, more ephemera, some punched images, perhaps. Sometimes the collages have a theme relating to the month, or a particular date on my calendar, sometimes they include quotes I like, and sometimes they are just a play of color and shape. Gail was kind enough to stop by yesterday and encourage my habit of "project jumping"; what I love about having the calendar work going is that even with only 5 or 10 minutes to spare, I can go to it and do something. The instant fix.

I haven't really thought very much about the intersection between quiltmaking and collage, but seeing the amazing work Kim is doing has me wondering if my Broken Dishes quilt (thanks, Kahne!) should be the base for something more. I'm thinking about perhaps machine appliqueing some things on top, with all the layers in place, so that the applique lines also serve as the quilting lines. I may be getting ahead of myself, but I'm thinking. Isn't it glorious when you have ideas that really interest you percolating around in your head so that you can go to them in the odd moments during your day and instantly feel alive and motivated? Now that I write that, I think that perhaps some of my slump times have to do with stretches when I haven't been doing enough creatively to have those thoughts to turn to, and so my mind wanders instead to the less-than-stellar stuff (the petty frustrations, the dirty or unfolded laundry, the "is this what I'm meant to be doing with my life" stuff). Having things that you do that make you happy and give you powerful, positive grist for that mental mill cannot be bad. A number of people recently have been pondering some of the "dark side" of too much craft time, too much online time, the potential for these pursuits to separate us from others in our immediate, physical lives. I guess there's always a line, but I do think that a richness and satisfaction for our own lives at this level ultimately spills over to make us people that other, real people want to spend time with -- right? We want to be with people who are happy and interesting and involved and who need to carve out the time from all their other goings-on to make the time to see us; it's not necessarily as much fun to be with people who have nothing else to do with their time, little to talk about (beside themselves), and no creative side to share....