The Pincushion and the Process.

I know in my previous post I alluded to this blog being a "learning" blog, but then realized I never completely explained the real reason as to why I began it in the first place.

Two New Years ago, my resolution was to Start My Own Blog. Wait, let's back up a little bit to the year prior to that. I had been given a few reviews at my job, and the written feedback always had a check in the "needs improvement" box in the category of Writing. Suggestions from my peers to fix this issue were: read more, review more, study more... but I thought, heck with that, I need to write more. So the seed of starting a blog was planted.

Then the more creative blogs I read for inspiration, the more inspired I became to create. And so I did. But I never could find the right direction... should I concentrate on sewing? Drawing? Painting? Photography? Design? See, that's the thing: direction. I can do (and attempt to do) a lot of things, but I can't do them all greatly. A master of none. I see so many talented people truly focused on what they are best at — and I have struggled, truly struggled, to find my calling. Many people would say, "Well of course, it's design!", but I'm not so sure. (Just because I do that for a living doesn't necessarily mean that it is the thing that I do best, right?) So, I fumble about, all the time fiddling with these ideas on how to create things that perhaps someone would want to purchase. Paintings? Photographs? Crafts? Because, see, that's my second and most recent New Years resolution, to have my own Etsy site, a place where these could-be inventions are sold, consistently. A girl's gotta dream.

So the thought was that this blog would help me figure all that out. Reveal my true calling, the what I should do for a living thing, what I'm truly best at, my real talent. And that's why I call it a learning blog. What's been interesting about it all thus far is what I am truly learning: the process. I don't know that I'm ever going to come out with something tangible... I'm not so sure that even an Etsy store is in my future. I'm now wondering if the thing that I'm going to continue to realize is that it is all about the process; one thing leads to another...

At first, you start looking at things differently. Suddenly, you have that camera in your hand you always wish you had carried all along and you take that photo you've always wished you had. Or you sew that apron that your Mom always said was easy, but had seemed oh-so-difficult. Then, you start realizing that even if your idea for planting that lamb's ear right next to those cannas wasn't exactly the start of a perfectly planned garden, but you see that it inspired your friend to try it out for herself. Your idea/project/art/craft (albeit imperfect) became someone else's beginning.

When mom made this pincushion, it wasn't supposed to have that button on the top. It was all supposed to come together, oh-so-perfectly. But it didn't. So instead, she found a way to make it work.

An extra red button from a gifted sweater, gifted back on the imperfect pincushion. What a great idea.