I’m so glad that more attention is being paid to taking a leisurely attitude towards quilting. Mark Lipinski has been advocating for slow quilting for a while now and quilting daily also recently featured an article on it. Slow quilting is really the concept of slowing down and enjoying what we do. It isn't about how many projects get down nor how quickly and it is also a step away form the commercialization of quilting. We don't always have to have the latest tool, product etc.
I’ve always been a “slow” stitcher as I do almost everything by hand and work full time so I don’t get to devote a lot of daily time to it. I began to feel a little intimidated by all the other quilting folks I ran into who had finished this project or that project and had then rushed on to yet another project. I also began to notice that many of the quilts in my quilt show also looked almost exactly like its neighbor and/or were fairly simple in design. Now don’t get me wrong I enjoy simple and straightforward as much as the next person but I began to notice that there seemed to be less variety and interest in the recent crop of quilt patterns. It seemed to me that people were less interested in being creative and more interested in just getting product out there. I understand why people and shops are pushing product, they too need to make a living after all and I do enjoy buying new materials but…I also don’t want to feel chained to a craft that I’m supposed to enjoy. Sometimes I want to be creative and play with my fabric without necessarily producing an end result. So when I saw one of Lipinski’s Rules I was stoked “Slow Stitching is about enjoying the process, rather than anticipating a deadline or project completion” However I need to do more than stitch slowly – I need to stitch mindfully - “Slow Stitching is making time to immerse yourself in your creative process” - I stitch but I’m not always thinking about why I am stitching. Sometimes it, like reading these days, can be a bit of a chore. This feeling is all on me as I worry that I’ve got all these projects piling up so I need to go back to the rule that says …don’t anticipate completion…So this morning I took this advice and just sat and thought about the block I was working on and why I was working on it rather than “this should have been done last year”. I found that I enjoyed my time with the fabric more and it made a great way to start the day before heading to work.
I’ve decided to incorporate this attitude on a daily basis – how about you, do you think you can craft mindfully in whatever it is that you do? I think if you do you’ll fall even in more love with your craft.
