Create Before You Consume

Last week I changed a habit. It's totally changed my life.

What is the first thing you do in the morning, after your victuals? Don't lie. How many of you said check your phone or get online? My hand is up, that's for sure. Yet how many times have we been told that is the worst thing we could do for ourselves? That it kills the soul a little and reduces our effectiveness. Like a smoker who won't quit or a certain person, ahem, who can't stop eating cookies even though she needs to lose weight. We are bound to our social media.

I've been watching the 30 Days of Genius series here and there from Creative Live. One interview really struck me, especially one part of it. Marie Forleo is a life coach and as life coaches can be is pretty cheery and full of clever commentary. She and the host, Chase Jarvis, got to talking about the consumption of social media. She started comparing it to the consumption of a certain disgusting alcohol (to be clear, I like booze, but Goldschlager is nasty stuff). Then she said the words that stopped me straight in my tracks.

"You need to create before you consume."

Number 1, I've never really thought of my time on social media or the internet as consumption. That framing makes so much sense to me though. It might be because I am trying to lose weight so consumption as an act is front of mind. It might just be the thing I needed to hear to make me see that it needs to be managed better.

Number 2, while I often do my best creative work in the morning it generally takes me about 15 minutes to get to it after waking up. I make tea, catch up with the things that came on my phone - email, instagram, twitter, facebook, even texts - overnight. Only then, with a cuppa and the finally feeling that it is time to buckle down and be creative do I get to work. That time is all wasted time for me.

Now, I've been getting up at the same time but skipping tea. And this is the most important part:

I do not look at my phone. Nor do I even unplug it from the charger on the nightstand. 

That's right, I keep it there, plugged in and alarm off. Then I shuffle straight into my sewing room and the first thing I turn on is the sewing machine. For the first 15 minutes of my day now I am sewing. No music on, no radio, no podcast. Just me and my machine and a stack of fabric. 

This is, effectively, a morning meditation for me. I am not going to start actually meditating, I don't feel I need to because the act of sewing first thing like this has me quiet and centered as it is. Then I can tackle a short workout, work on an article or bigger project, and attend to the kids and their morning needs until they are out the door. And bonus! Quilt blocks get made. In just one week of 15-30 minutes first thing in the morning I finished the last 6 of these scrappy improv cabin variations. 

I can't say that watching this interview will change your life as well, but I would definitely encourage you to take the Create Before You Consume message to heart. See what it does for you.

Note: The tea and social media are still there when I get to them a few hours later. 

The Joy of Swimming (Weekend Reads)

"How do you just stare at the bottom of the pool for hours on end?"

It was the most common question I got in twelve years of competitive swimming. And only asked by people who could never really understand whatever answer I gave. But the truth is that it was hard to give an answer. Swimming, for me, wasn't about staring at the bottom of the pool. Heck, you really only noticed the bottom of the pool when it marked that you were close to the wall. Swimming was about so much more.

The majority of the time you compete as an individual but you train as a team. Everyone in the pool is pushing each other and not so secretly competing even on practice days. My swimming friends were my closest friends because I saw them the most, I suffered with them, I laughed with them, I travelled with them, we saw each other in next to nothing for hours on end. They were my people.

Swimming is also sport for the internally driven. No matter the cheering or the direction from the coach, no one is going to propel you down the pool but yourself. No one is going to kick harder or reach further but yourself. And yes, when you are starting at the bottom of the pool for hours on end the only person you have to talk to is yourself. It comes down to discipline and drive.

In Lisa Congdon's new book, The Joy of Swimming, she makes a connection between art and swimming that makes total sense to me.

"There has always been a fixed and steady connection for me between art making and swimming. Both of these passions require similar things of me: enormous discipline and a unique form of endurance... Like art making, swimming is at the same time rigorous exercise and also a form of play."

It explains so much to me, of me.

The Joy of Swimming is a delightfully creative survey of the sport of swimming. It is full of historical facts, fascinating tidbits about the sport, equipment, and pools. But mostly it is the story of swimmers. Lisa's drawing and letterwork, combined with the brief profiles all try to answer the question of why anyone stares at the bottom of a pool (or never sees the bottom of open water) for hours on end. The profiles range from kids in the beginning of their careers in the pool to seniors who've been in the pool hundreds of times more than the average person.  It includes famous swimmers of the past and present and water babies of today.

My daughter read this book. The Monster is nine and spends a good chunk of her free time in the pool as a competitive synchro swimmer. If she has a break from swimming for more than a few days she gets antsy and asks if we can go swimming. She needs the water to feel sane. I totally get that. The book gave her a way to be connected to the pool even at bedtime.

I don't know that this book will get anyone new in the water. It might - the profiles, while brief, are inspiring. It is making me want to get back in the water, that's for sure! The book will definitely enchant anyone who has ever spent time in the pool for more than what we always called public swimming, the fun stuff. I have a list of family and friends to buy the book for.

As a quilter and writer now it feels like I stare at the bottom of the pool for hours on end again. It might be the blank page of my notebook, at sentences on a screen, or piles of fabric in various forms. The work can be repetitive and lonely at times. Chain piecing like going back and forth and back and forth down a pool. The drudgery doesn't stop me - even when I'm trimming hundreds of half square triangles - because I am internally driven. I know the hard work will pay off. 

Everyone comes to the sport for different reasons, and we stay for different ones too. After twelve years of it I quit suddenly when it just wasn't fun anymore. I've never looked back and now watch the kids I see swimming while I'm at the pool with my own children with nostalgia. Lisa and I spoke about swimming during our time together in January. I was in awe of her commitment to the sport as an adult. She started her true commitment at the same age where I was ending mine. But I know that swimming provided a foundation for my entire life. I would not be the person I am today without swimming, not at all. And now I see that that includes my creative journey as well.

Lisa Congdon will be on a book tour for the book. If you are anywhere near Portland, Seattle, NYC, San Francisco, Minneapolis, or Brooklyn I recommend seeking out the event. And if you or anyone you know is a swimmer, then definitely grab this. If you aren't a swimmer or don't even like the water, The Joy of Swimming is worth the read. It does indeed provide some answers as to why we can spend all the time staring at the bottom of pools. Not to mention, Lisa's creativity shines.

Disclosure: I was provided a copy of the book by the publisher, Chronicle Press. That was the second time I read it because Lisa loaned me an advance copy to read back in January and I stayed up too late to read with the lights of LA for company.

Self Portrait - Making Faces With Melissa Averinos

Using air quotes in print infuriates me. (So does asterisks around an action to indicate action, but that is another story.) That being said, I almost put them around the words Self Portrait in the title. My eyes aren't really that colour nor are they that pretty. The fabric selection implies I wear eyeliner or mascara and I rarely wear either. My eyebrows are not grey. I do have pretty lips though.

Being real isn't the point here. It looks like a pretty good face, doesn't it?

I made this face in class with Melissa Averinos at QuiltCon in February. Having been totally taken with her face quilt at last year's QuiltCon this class was my top choice when registration opened. I was not disappointed.

Melissa spent a lot of time in the class teaching us the structure of the face. She started with having us draw a face, then breaking down components and proportion. Totally eye opening! I've never had any drawing training like this. It meant that even if we got figurative with features, it would still be very recognizable as a face. Now, I want to make all the faces!

It isn't for me to share Melissa's exact technique - she does teach this class for a living - but I can say that it was incredible easy to execute. Not to mention, fun!

So far I've only done the quilting on this - simple matchstick quilting. I'm not sure if I will bind it the traditional way or get creative with framing. Time will tell. 

My kids say that this mini quilt is creepy. I'll take that as a compliment, a testament to the skills Melissa taught me about making eyes. And they need to get over that because I think it would be fantastic to do portraits of the whole family. 

From A Judge's Perspective - QuiltCon 2016

QuiltCon is over, the winners announced, and I can finally talk about what it was like to judge the quilts. Phew. Keeping that secret was harder than waiting until the second trimester to announce a pregnancy.

Judging the quilts was an intense and overwhelming experience. Three days that were 10-11 hours long of doing nothing but looking at quilts. Not just looking at them, but touching them, examining stitches, evaluating colour and composition, and yes, comparing them. I've never been so absorbed in quilts before. Thank goodness I wasn't alone. As a team, I worked with Lisa Congdon and Scott Murkin.

The team aspect was fantastic. Lisa, Scott, and I got a long very well. Lisa is an artist and illustrator (and great teacher). Not a quilt expert, but with an amazing eye for colour and composition. Scott is a quilter in his own right and a certified quilt judge. He knows a lot about quilts. I've been quilting for 18 years now and I thought I knew a fair amount. I learned so much from both of them. I feel like, after our time together, we've bonded in a special way. We have private jokes and a shared experience. It was our time in the quilt trenches.

Except that it wasn't the trenches. The Modern Quilt Guild had show offices in this cool building in LA. A creative space full of concrete floors and minimalist design. The kind of space many of us dream about as a modern studio. There was nothing in our judging room other than paper wrapped tables, foam playmats to stand on, and a great window to hear the helicopters and sirens of the city. Not to mention the natural light. But we did spend long, long hours in there. Thankfully, as the judges we were engaged all the time and hardly noticed the passage of time. Towards the end of the day we would look up and boom! It was dark. 

So, what exactly did we do all day?

Simply put, we looked at each and every quilt submitted for judging at QuiltCon. It wasn't a free for all with a stack of quilts though, there was a very defined process that kept us on track and made it as fair as possible for the entrants. Here is the run down on the process, from my perspective. Keep in mind that we were judging quilts already juried in to the show and we did not have any role in the jury process.

- Each category was stacked on the tables, one category at a time. And we could only see the category we were working on, no others.

- The quilts for the entire category were fanned so we got a first look at each of them. This gave us an idea of the category as a whole and the quilts in comparison to the others.

- Each individual quilt was held up for viewing. We stood about 12 feet away. This way we got an idea of what it is like hung. You can see a lot in terms of design, composition, and colour when the quilt is hung and you view from a distance. (Not unlike how you would see it in a show.)

- As the quilt was held up the name of the quilt, and only the name, was said. We did not get descriptions or artists. This judging is blind so we had no idea who made what quilt. We could ask for descriptions, but we maybe asked about a dozen times over the 3 days - only if we were trying to determine whether the quilt was an original design or if the intent of the artist wasn't necessarily clear from the quilt alone.

- Then each quilt was laid down on the table for us to inspect it up close. We would look at everything - quilting stitches, construction techniques, edge finishing, pressing, whether the quilt edges were straight, fabric selection. Trust me, no one has ever looked at the quilts this closely!

- As we examined the quilts we were guided by category specifications that the MQG put together. These outlined the general and specific things to look at in the quilt - from overall design items to quality of the binding.

- Each quilt got at least 3 comments from the judges. We worked together to provide constructive criticism and compliments for each quilt. Scribes wrote down, by hand, our comments. Sometimes we would provide a little + next to one of the category specifications. This meant the work was done particularly well on that specification.

- As we went we would decide if a quilt should be held for an award or released. At the end of seeing all the quilts for a category the held ones would be placed back on the tables for us to see all together. Then began the process of determining winners. 

- Winners were determined by consensus among the judges. We would narrow down the field further, discuss a lot, and eventually get to the top ones in the category. Sometimes this took a lot of discussion and time, but it was always worth it to get to agreement.

(It should be noted that the winners for the Glitz challenge and EZ Triangle Challenge were chosen by Michael Miller and EZ Quilting, we only provided the top choices for them to pick from.)

- Best in Show was picked from the winners of each category.

Phew. Are you tired just reading that? It was both exhausting and exhilarating to do this. Overwhelming and inspiring. 

Judging is just that - judgement. It is subjective and critical. As I said, no one, even the maker, has likely looked at their quilts as close as we did. Call us the quilt police if you want - we did get nitpicky on things like quilting starts and stops and shadowing in seams - but that was our job! These quilts were there to be judged, so that's what we did. Our comments should be viewed as constructive because it was never our intent to make anyone feel bad about their quilt. We can all benefit from a critical eye and having aspects of our quiltmaking to improve upon.

The reason I went into detail about the room and the process is to remind everyone that those days were special. And the team was special. We worked really well together and I so enjoyed my time with Scott and Lisa. You could have put three different people together and likely had different outcomes. Judging, without a doubt, is still subjective. No matter what though, I am proud of the work we did and stand 100% behind the outcomes of our time together.

On a more personal note, I was quite surprised at my own reactions to this experience. I went in thinking I would be obsessive about the technical aspects more than anything, seeking perfection. Early on I realized that what I valued most - personally - was creativity and seeing the hand of the maker. These are, first and foremost, functional quilts, there aren't ever going to be perfect quilts. Once you realize that you start looking for the maker in the piece. You want to see that a person made it and the decisions they made had intent. Yes, you still want a technically proficient quilt that will wear well and not fall apart, but putting yourself in the quilt matters so much. 

It then became important to me to see the show itself hanging at QuiltCon. Because we judged blind and because I made a point of staying off of social media around QuiltCon deadlines I did not know who made the vast majority of the quilts. So I walked the show to see who made what quilts. One of the most exciting things was realizing how many quilters I did not know immediately or at all. (Of course, I can't know everyone.) What it really shows is the depth of the modern quilt world and the fantastic people out there making quilts.