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A wise man once said, “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone”. Specifically, these words were immortalized by Spanish painter, sculptor, and ceramicist Pablo Picasso who was one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Pablo knew what was important: your art, not the dishes. Sure, it’s important to be productive and useful and maybe even a little bit tidy, but there are only so many hours in the day. If you prioritized keeping your house clean, it would probably look very nice and make your mom happy, but you’d never have time for creating art whether that be paintings, beautiful knitted scarves or handmade quilts.
I never wake up and think, “what am I going to clean today?” I wake up thinking about my art, what comics do I need to draw today, maybe today is a writing day, or maybe it’s a more practical “coloring stuff in” day, but no matter what, creating comes first. Maybe I’m not even going to draw today. Maybe today I’m going to work on a quilt. I save the dishes and the laundry for when I’m tired and my creativity is at a lull. If you are a night person, maybe you do the chores first, while you are still sleepy, the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet and your mind is ramping up. Either way, you should always utilize the time of day when you feel the most enthusiasm and energy to focus on your art.
Many times, creative people will get distracted by cleaning, household tasks or other minutia claiming they “need” to get these things done before they can settle down and focus on creating. This is really just a delay tactic because creating is hard and takes real effort. It’s easy to fold socks. It’s hard to look at that blank canvas or page, or that neatly folded stack of fat quarters wondering what form they are going to take. No matter how hard it is or how stuck you feel at the time, just get started. Start anywhere. Once you just get started, the creativity will flow. Remember, if you were going to die tomorrow, better to leave the dishes undone than to leave this earth with your art still inside you.

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You love quilting, but you don’t have the luxury of being able to quilt all day long. You need to work a productive day job in order to finance your hobby, as well as pay all those other pesky bills. What is a dedicated quilter to do?
I used to scratch my itch for quilting while at work by going to a local quilt shop at lunch. This was just enough of a break from the mundane – as well as a good dopamine reward for the ol’ brain – to get me through a rough day. But then, that quilt shop closed. There were no other quilt shops that were close enough to squeeze into the lunch break. Things were getting tough, drastic measures had to be taken.
The holiday gift giving season was fast approaching and I had a deer panel that I was planning on making into a wall hanging. It was relatively simple; I just had to cut the panel out then sew on some nice contrasting fabric for a border, and finally a simple sleeve on the back for hanging. I technically could do that and get it done on time. Alas, that project seemed so lame. I knew I could do better.
I could spice the panel quilt up a bit by adding a border of half square triangles in contrasting fabrics instead of plain single fabric sashing. Since I was already doing all of that, why not sneak in two pairs of cute pinwheels in the corners and a second border with a nice leaf fabric print in order to make the wall hanging into a bigger quilt? Before I knew it, I had a full-blown lap quilt in the making, but I was running out of time to finish it. Fortunately, it was winter and a credible time for a sudden seasonal illness! I ended up calling in sick for the best full day of uninterrupted quilting in years.
I returned to work the next day in much better spirits with my creativity itch scratched and ready to face the challenges of the day. On my lunch break, I brought that finished quilt to the post office and sent it on its way. The recipient loved the deer lap quilt and later remarked that it was so beloved in her house that family members would actually fight over who got to snuggle under it. The next time you are feeling overwhelmed and under-appreciated at work, take a quilting mental health day!

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