Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Managing abundance

I believe I had an insight today!

When I came home from Columbus, I saw that my sewing room was in quite a state of disarray. Not the "dog-had-urgent-intestinal-troubles-and-chose-my-sewing-room-to-relieve-them" kind of disarray. That was the week before last. This time it was good disarray! B had been playing with fabrics and trim while I was away. An "imagined" garment was draped on the cutting table, and her machine was set up for use. How wonderful. Can't wait til she wanders back again.

There were also a couple of my unfinished projects spread out and about. Like my new blog friend, Zenia Rene, I have Multiple Project Disorder! In other words, I like to have a few projects going at once. On top of that, I had more fabric to add to the mixture, from my culls in Cols.

And, there was the five-gallon bucket of Jonathan apples on the stoop, and the tomatoes still on the vine, with Jack Frost just around the corner. I decided I needed to "manage the abundance." Yesterday, I found this easy crockpot recipe for apple butter from a pair of Iowa City bloggers, and "reduced" 2/3 of the 5-gallon bucket. But that--and everything else in my life--left me little time for sewing.

So I decided it's about time to (yes!) give some fabric away! Each of these is one yard of prewashed standard quilting cotton. Identify the fabric you want, and describe in the comments how you might use it, and in a few days the most compelling answers win! 

This fleur-de-lis fabric is called "Feedsack Melody" by Gloria Leonard Hall for Andover. Note how it's one degree off from primary colors, with gold, tomato red and a purply royal.


This retro-funky ranch print just says "DAVID TEXTILES". And of, course, "Do Not Use For Children's Sleepwear" (what the heck are we supposed to use for children's sleepwear, anyway?)


Finally, this Christmassy print with gold embossing also has no name, just the designer Lonni Rossi for Andover.


Have fun with this. In the meantime, are you curious about my insight? Well, I realized that my dominant paradigm for a while has been that I "don't have enough time" to do the things I want to. You can see I slipped into that language of "lack" above. But maybe it's just that there are so many fun and worthwhile things to do in this life. Maybe, just maybe, I need to focus on "managing the abundance."

I have a hunch that this attitude, if cultivated, could make me feel less rushed, and more present in every thing I choose to do. It can't hurt to try!

7 comments:

  1. That first fabric screams bag lining to me--I'm in the same boat as you: more fabric than I know what to do with!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh my! A giveaway!! I LUV giveaways and any/everything free!! =)

    The 1st thing that came to my mind for "Feedsack" is mixing it w/coordinating colors/prints to make an Heirloom quilt similar to this one seen here: http://quiltingintherain.blogspot.com/2011/12/heirloom-quilt-tutorial-and-kits.html.

    For Christmassy (you can't tell there's gold embossing from the pic) the 1st thing that came to my mind was a beautiful Christmas tree skirt for my niece...which I have to make by December!

    p.s. Thanks for the mention friend! =)

    http://aquiltedpassion.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  3. I can totally empathize w/that feeling of not having enough time to do all that you want to do. I ALWAYS want to sew/quilt and I feel like work and everything else interfere w/that. I get anxious and irritable, but I constantly have to remind myself, there are people and other things in my life that need my time and attention too. I very often have to stop myself and pray. Good providence to you and your new attitude. =)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks, Zenia. But I have to chuckle: I thought you would go for the Ranch scene, being an Southwesterner. I did make a link to your blog as well as mentioning, but my Blogger template is set that the links are only a touch lighter gray than the text, and I haven't figured out how to make them more obvious! Maybe you can tute me.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ranch is cute but not something I'd pick...although I'm sure I could figure out something to do w/it. ;) Here's the tute: Design--->Customize--->Advanced (under Templates, Background, Layout, Adjust widths, Layout)--->Links. Here you can choose what color you want your link to be initially, after it's been visited and if you hover over it w/your mouse.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I tried that, and even remembered to press the button, "apply to blog" but it did not change. I have tried to make other changes in "advanced" mode and they have not worked either. I wonder whether I am locked into this all gray template that I somehow started out with. Zenia, contact me gretagarten@gmail.com w/ your address so I can send you goodies!

      Delete
    2. There has to be a way to change it! =( Maybe the template you've chosen will not allow changes...which would be odd. I've had to google and youtube to try to figure out how to do some things. I added adsense to try to earn money...but I don't even know if I did it correctly and haven't had time to really read up on it. I recently changed my page a bit too. Eventually I'd like to have a custom logo and webpage made, but it's not cheap...and I don't even know what I really want,so it will be some years down the road...if ever. Yay...winner winner chicken dinner!!! =)

      Delete