Sometimes you just need to go back to the basics. April and May have been incredibly busy and incredibly stressful. I was able to finish projects that just needed grunt work, but the creative part of me was inaccessible. That’s when I remembered “strip therapy.” At this point, I can’t remember who talked about it, but I’m pretty sure it was one of my internet quilting friends. I thought to myself, I can’t organize my thoughts around anything, but I can sew strips together. Furthermore, I was recently inspired by Carolyn Friedlander and Mark Lipinski to try Modern Quilting and focus on “Slow Stitching.”
Strips sewn in pairs and arranged for inspection
So, I dug into my scrap drawer of strips I’d already cut and sorted them by color and then by size since I don’t always use the same width. Then I started sewing colors together that I liked. I paired strips and arranged and dragged some more strips out and sewed them together and voila, I had a quilt top big enough for a baby (which I told my friend I’d make last year).
So, I’ve made my first practical quilt in two years. And it helped me break that block to some extent as I have started phase three of Trajectory: Escape Velocity.
Baby quilt done in the Modern Quilting style
What do you do when you have a creative block? How do you get back to work when your mind is just spinning?
artcollisions 
A creative block calls for a change… setting the work aside and maybe cleaning and rearranging my work space, or taking time to do something different, travel, exercise, exploration, switching from one project to another, or from one subject to another, or learning something entirely new. 😉 Thanks for this. It is beautiful! You’re amazing!
Agreed, sometimes those things do the trick as well! Thanks for sharing. I’m so glad you like this one too as it will be gracing your house. Thanks for binding it for me!
Rayna Gillman is the one I think of who preaches/teaches strip therapy. She has a book called Free-Form Quiltmaking. I love the process and use it often when I’m not on a specific project. Gets the juices flowing!
Could have definitely been Rayna Gilman. I know more than one person has talked about it. It is a great process and honestly is pretty much the foundation of what I do anyway, but this was great in that there was no pressure to embellish or add anything on top. It really does get the juices flowing!