End of the Drought?

 It's the first official day of Autumn here. We've had sporadic days of cooler temperatures and a few days of rain over the last  couple of weeks. There have also been days of summer sunshine and heat. We may still get some pretty autumnal days that don't require jackets or rain gear but it feels like we've finally turned the corner. I also feel like I've turned a corner - for the time being at least. At the moment I feel like myself again, not affected by heat or toxins or hormone imbalance. I've come to cherish times like this. Perhaps because I finally feel so good I have felt like doing some patchwork again. The sewing drought might be at an end. I hesitate to go out too far on that limb but welcome the enthusiasm that is seeping back in. It has been very uncomfortable to be so disinterested in sewing for future quilt making. 

These are little 4" blocks made from 1.5" scrap patches. I don't know yet what I might do with them. They could become stars or part of any number of other larger blocks. For now I'm happy just to have made them. I have a pile of batik scrap patches waiting to be assembled into Shoo-fly and/or Barn Door blocks but I'm holding myself back from sewing them up so they will be available to use between seams later on. I have one major project I could start work on... prototype blocks for it anyway. I've offered to make a quilt for a young lady but her color choices are in direct opposition to my personal preferences and the bulk of my stash. That may not be the best way to come back from the drought.

For what it's worth, I've been engaged in what's being referred to as slow stitching of late. This is separate from the weekly prompts for the #52tags project but of a similar nature.

As I understand it, slow stitching began as a form of relaxation or meditation process. Just running stitches on fabric. Now it seems to encompass basic embroidery stitches as well. Hand sewing for pleasure and creativity but not necessarily to a pattern or for an end product. I don't especially enjoy doing the running stitch, I suspect because of my perfectionist tendencies. I'd rather do back stitch. I've been using 4" squares of leftover batting and odd scraps of fabric to practice and play with stitches and composition. It's also an exercise in overcoming those perfectionist tendencies. The fabrics are all raw edge, sometimes butted up against each other, sometimes overlapping. It feels to me like a remedial course in hand sewing. Some of us have to grow downwards I guess. 😉