On Letting Go

I am acquainted with a woman who is very talented in many crafty pursuits. When she heard that I had taken up quilting as an art form, she very kindly gifted to me a box full of fabrics and quilting notions.

The fabrics are mostly calico and floral/botanical prints, although some are solids and some have cute animals or polka dots on them. Many of them look to be vintage and have been out of print for a couple of decades.

I was very grateful to her kindness and generosity. It meant a lot to me that she wanted to share her love of crafting and quilting with me. I appreciated the material gift as well as her reaching out in friendship very much.

I wrote her a handwritten thank you card (rare these days, I know!) and I immediately put the notions to work. (Rotary cutters are expensive and acquiring two for free was great! The tension hoop has also come in very handy.) I sorted through the fabrics and organized them by color, adding them to my fabric stash.

I have all these great ideas for wonderful pieces of art and I am really excited to make them. The kind of art that I am currently interested in doesn't use botanical or calico prints much. At least, not these styles. But when I looked at these fabrics with the calico prints, I felt like I should be using them, even though they do not work with the projects I am developing. So I started creating things that fit these gifted fabrics rather than what I wanted to be doing. The calicoes fit more traditional quilt designs, and while they can be very beautiful, they are not my interest. I am glad I have them to practice working on some new techniques and skills, but there is only so much practicing I can do. And so, they have become the albatross around my neck.

Finally the other day, I admitted to myself that these fabrics aren't a good fit for me, even if they were gifted to me with love. So I packed them up and put them in a clear storage box in the closet. They are not completely out of sight, out of mind. But they are certainly not intruding on my creativity any longer.

I am still grateful to my acquaintance. She was very kind. But I also know what is important to me. Sometimes you have to let go of what is holding you back from your creativity in order to be successful.