Showing posts with label art quilts; long arm quilting; fiberart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art quilts; long arm quilting; fiberart. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

9 Simple Solutions for Procrastinators

My second quilt on my new HQ aka Harriet
named after my great grandmother who was a BIG quilter...

Now if i could just heed her words...email is my big morning procrastinator... I could have procrastinated doing some of my own quilts instead of this customers quilt...its a lovely old antique broken star....with issues as so many very old tops have...i think its at least 1930s old if not older...a friend is coming over who will tell me how old...all hand pieced with tiny stitches...should have taken a pic of it...but the edges were bias in places...they spent the last 80 years stretching in some trunk or box or on the shelf...its quilted all over with wonky feathers and stippling on the star....it is a beauty of an antique quilt...



On to Christine...shes so right about so much of this...blogging another way to procrastinate....lol

9 Simple Solutions for Procrastinators
by Christine Kane


Irony: As I started to write this article, I thought, "I'll just go play one Sudoku game first." I caught myself in the act and marched to my laptop.

People who say that procrastination is about laziness are probably the same people who think that anorexia is about not eating enough.

Procrastination isn't about laziness. It's about fear. It's about perfectionism. It's about overwhelm. We all experience it, and there are some tricks to help you get moving again.

Here are 9 ways to break the procrastination habit:

1 - When you get an idea, do some little thing to begin.

When I read Stephen King's book On Writing, I noticed something. I noticed that when Stephen King gets an idea, he writes it. Immediately and imperfectly.

Most people get an idea. Then they sit there. They wonder if it's a good idea. Then, they wonder if it's a good idea some more.

Got an idea? Begin it now!

2 - All hail small chunks of time!

Lots of us complain about having no time. My guess is that we all have lots of time. It just doesn't happen to be all at once.

Are you waiting for many hours of spare time to begin your idea, your project, or your taxes? Stop waiting! Learn to use the spare half hour that comes up here and there. (I gave myself 45 minutes to write this article just to take my own advice.)

3 - Agree to do it badly.

Set a goal to do it badly. Set a goal to show up. Let go of doing it ALL, or doing it WELL.

Some of my coaching clients' biggest victories have a lot more to do with getting over perfectionism and fear, than they do about getting it all done perfectly.

4 - Commit aloud.

Call a friend and say something like this: "I'm going to spend the next half hour working on my Law School Essay." Then go do it.

Call the friend after the half hour and make her congratulate you. Repeat daily.

5 - Define quantities.

Nebulous goals make for nebulous results. "I'm gonna get my office organized" is a lot like saying, "We oughtta do something about Global Warming."

Most procrastinators have a hard time defining quantities. We think everything needs to be done NOW.

When are you going to do it? For how long? Which part of your office? The file cabinet? Or your desk?

Define the goal and acknowledge its completion.

6 - Install this System Upgrade into your Mental Hard Drive: Less is More.

Have fewer goals. Have no more than three priorities for a week.

Why?

Because you're not lazy. You're just trying to do too much.

Find out what it feels like to accomplish one thing instead of not quite getting to everything. Wow - what a difference this makes!

7 - Do it first.

My first coach made me write songs first thing in the morning. He told me to schedule the 2-hour chunk as my first activity upon waking.

Why?

"Because you're telling the universe that this is your priority. And then the universe lines up everything to align with your priority."

Action grounds your priorities. It makes them real. It also makes your day easier because you're not wasting energy thinking about this thing you're supposed to be doing.

8 - Avoid nose-bleed activities.

Email, voicemail, web stats - any activity that bleeds itself into your whole day becomes a non-activity. It becomes a nose-bleed.

When you do it all the time, you never complete it. You just let it slowly drain the very life force from you. Define times for these activities. Then, turn off your email, your cell phone, your web stats, until that time comes.

9 - Don't ask how you "feel" about doing the activity.

Have you ever committed to getting fit? And then when the alarm goes off, you lie in bed thinking, "Do I really feel like going to the gym?" (Like you even have to ask!)

Change this pattern. Make your decision the night before. Commit to getting up and going right to the gym, the computer, the blank canvas. Don't have coffee and sigh and think, "I'll probably feel more like it at lunch time." You won't!

If it's a priority, don't waste time asking yourself how you feel about doing it. Feelings are an easy out.

——————————————

There. I did it. I wrote this article. And now, I don't even want to play Sudoku! How about that?


WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE?

Please do! Just be sure to include this complete blurb with it:

Performer, songwriter, and creativity consultant Christine Kane publishes her 'LiveCreative' weekly ezine with more than 11,000 subscribers. If you want to be the artist of your life and create authentic and lasting success, you can sign up for a FRE*E subscription to LiveCreative at www.christinekane.com.

WANT TO SEE HUNDREDS MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS ONE?
See Christine's blog - Be Creative. Be Conscious. Be Courageous - at ChristineKane.com/blog.

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

More about that art quilt


this is what it looks like now...added a moon/sun...and i like it....some other things that i have tried to add follow....I drew them separately so i could lay them on top of the trees to see if i liked them before i drew them on the trees....none of them have suited me so far....


My Portfolio oil pastels...$10.49 at Staples in the architect supplies....i drew a small cardinal to sit on the branch....this is it before i hit it with water
Dont you love it now that it is wet...its small maybe 4x5"
...the other Margaret said it was TOO big so i made two more smaller ones...here are all three of them together...the biggest one is 4x5" one
So then i made ALOT of strips of rubbings of all kinds of things...I think they look like buildings so they may end up in a city scape one day....or not:>


I made strips of rubbings of various things around the house...the left is a trash can expanded metal...the two on the right...one is the brown holey paper below and the other is a rubbing sheet for Oil pastels...Here they are wet

The brown paper I rubbed
L-R
I rubbed the tv remote control buttons twice, next my cellphone and the house phone buttons, the top a plastic container, and my laptop table...fav is the top of the plastic box...but dont these look like buildings?

Here they are released with water! ....these all look like the leaning tower of Pisa....

These were for fun...a mountain landscape which i LOVE
6x8"
If rubbing every textural object in the house was not enough...leaves...well how could i NOT....
My tuscan landscape...
made with a rubbing sheet and pin oak leaves...no water oak leaves for the trees...FUN!! really like the fields....this is small..maybe 5" square
The water oak leaves
Hmm you cant pile the leaves up and rub them...makes a MESS!!!

well wonder what i will think of to do next with these??? and how to finish the big one...think it needs a border of some kind or other...and then how to quilt it? Decisions, Decisions, Decisions!

Monday, October 05, 2009

Landscaping it


Heading to the desert to watch the sunset...or is it a sunrise...but whatever Linda did a GREAT job!
CHillin in the mountains...Pat also did a great job

Teaching principals of composition and use of color...at landscape class on Saturday at Quiltshop on the Corner...two of the three students were determined to finish it that day...and came close...just need some quilting....GREAT job ladies...
Paying the bill...Linda checks out supervising Kathy!
What i love about this class is that everyone turns out a great finished product...they love it their teacher loves it ...win win right?!
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Friday, October 02, 2009

Petra

Petra is an ancient ruin in Jordan considered one of the seven wonders of the modern world...a fascinating place where a large part of the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark took place....The building is called the Treasury and the slot canyon protected inhabitants from the wanderers on the trade route that Petra sits on...

this one has been hanging around for a few years and i finally knocked it out this week..quilted it and bound it...i dyed the fabrics that its made from...based on a picture taken by niece Catherine on one of her many trips to the middle east...shes a traveling girl...

Smallish quilt maybe 18x20...it is for sale contact me if you are interested...

so i finally quilted this one the long arm at Quilt Shop on the Corner...who could be sad taking a nap under it?? quilting detail...lime green thread....circles and stars ...all unmarked
so this is how i have been taking pictures..laying the quilt on the living room floor.hanging over the balcony upstairs....this is what these pics looked like BEFORE I cropped them...