Getting my creativity back and, the power of making a list.

Lately I have been feeling not at all creative.   I think it is because I have too many ideas floating around in my head, so I feel overwhelmed.  I have a mental list a million things I want to make and every time I go on the internet, I add on hundred more things to that list.  So lately, every time I walk into my sewing room, I feel overwhelmed with the decision about what thing on my mental list I should make.  So overwhelmed that I usually just walk right back out and decided not to sew or weave and just watch Netflix instead.  But the thing is, I really do want to be making things!  After reading this blog post from Blue Elephant Stitches, where she bascially talks about the same thing I just described, I decided I needed to do something to get myself out of this funk.  I decided I needed to make a list.

I love making lists.  Making lists was one of the only things that kept me sane in college when I had a ton of projects due at once, which was basically all the time.  Somehow seeing everything written out on paper in front of me helped me feel more in control.  So, I decided to make a list of all the projects I really wanted to make right now.  I didn't give myself a number, I just started writing.  I came up with seven things.  Seven, that's it! I felt like I had a hundred different ideas in my head of things I had to make, but when I really sat down to think about it, I only really wanted to make seven things.  I feel like seven things is a totally doable number of things.

Once I made my list, I wanted somewhere to keep it in my sewing room so that I could look at it when I started to feel overwhelmed.  After a little thought, I decided to make a magnetic board to hold the list and other inspirational things. I wanted to keep the project really simple, so I could finish it quickly and get to making the things on my list.  I decided to find a piece of metal and cover it with some pretty fabric. For the metal, I found a sheet of steel at home depot that was 12x24.  I think it cost about $10.

I covered the steel in some fabric I had in my stash.  I just hot glued the fabric to the back of the sheet.  It's not pretty but, it works.

I used 3M Command strips to hang it up on the door, so it is easy to remove if I need to.  I stoled some magnets from the fridge.  I'll have to buy some new ones that actually match the colors in my sewing room later.  In addition to my list, I decorated the board a little with some Polaroids I took in college.

 
You can see the seven items on my list.  I also hung up a little sketch I drew of the next loom that I want to make.  I think having a list of things that I really want to make, visible whenever I walk into my sewing room, is going to be a big help.  The list might change, and that's okay, but I am hoping I will be able to make and cross off everything on that list and then make a new list, of new things I want to sew.