{"id":6153,"date":"2016-09-21T20:09:33","date_gmt":"2016-09-22T04:09:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.believemagic.com\/journal\/?p=6153"},"modified":"2017-05-03T21:38:51","modified_gmt":"2017-05-04T05:38:51","slug":"hello","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.believemagic.com\/journal\/?p=6153","title":{"rendered":"Hello"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_4435-2016-09-21-20-09.jpg\"\/
\nTruth: For the last 6 weeks I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been an unmotivated, emotional mess. Yes, I managed to make a new website and finish a few quilt projects, but not as many as I wanted to or should have. Life seemed hard. Being creative doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need perfect conditions, but it does need motivation and dedication. Both of which I seemed to have lost. <\/p>\n

It took a near melt down at my quilt shop job to jar me back to semi-sanity and realize that my hormones are out of whack. I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just burned out after finishing pieces for my art show or over scheduled, I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t me.<\/p>\n

The moment I realized all this and stopped pretending I was okay, everything got \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 not better \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 acceptable. It was okay to admit I felt like crap all the time. It was okay to ask to work less. It was okay to ask my husband to be a buffer at events with lots of people. It was okay to not go to meetings. It was okay to delay projects. It was okay to not sew. <\/p>\n

Instead, I made lists, rested, and stopped beating myself up about not doing it all. I did call my doctor – I await test results<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4441-2016-09-21-20-09.jpg\"\/
\nAdmitting I was not okay, freed up my limited mind space and motivation and I spent time in my studio actually stitching. <\/p>\n

I changed the needle in the machine I use to create journal pages and signatures and zigzag stitched together quilted scraps. The variety of scraps makes for a fun background and even the back of the piece is interesting. <\/p>\n

I threaded my straight stitch only machine with black thread and began doodle stitching portraits on the new backgrounds I created. I used bias tape to bind the pieces and dumped out my bag of pigment ink markers and started the coloring process.
\n\"IMG_4432-2016-09-21-20-09.jpg\"\/
\nHello (6.5\u00e2\u20ac\u009d x 7\u00e2\u20ac\u009d)<\/p>\n

The little scallops on the collar of her shirt are a bit too tall and I had to make her a dirty blond since the yellow came out more green and neon than I was expecting, but I am happy to see a little completed piece come to life. So happy that I spent the extra time to add a hanger before I called it quits for the night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Truth: For the last 6 weeks I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been an unmotivated, emotional mess. Yes, I managed to make a new website and finish a few quilt projects, but not as many as I wanted to or should have. Life seemed hard. Being creative doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need perfect conditions, but it does need motivation and dedication. Both of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[33],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.believemagic.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6153"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.believemagic.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.believemagic.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.believemagic.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.believemagic.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.believemagic.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6153\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.believemagic.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.believemagic.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.believemagic.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}