Breaking through...

Loretta of PomegranatesandPaper (that's "pomegranates and paper," not "pomegranate sand paper"!) announced her "List Friday" theme this week:

Blockbusters - as in how do you bust through your blocks? What are the ways you get your creativity revved up, whether to blog, paint, write, knit, sew, drink, cook, plan, be inspired - whatever it is you call it and whatever it is you do - give me your list of tips and tricks.

So, here's my "blockbuster" list:

1. Let myself lounge, lollygag, and linger ... over a book, a magazine, insipid tv, or just nothing. I'll go outside in the garden and throw tennis balls for Gemma, over and over and over. I've learned that sometimes I need that mindless recharging time. Somewhere down deep where I can't really feel it, something is recharging and I need that time.

2. I look at books that I know always get my creative juices flowing and make me happy. I have this great wicker chair in the corner of the bedroom, next to the window, complete with a quilt-covered ottoman. I get a hot (or cold, depending on the season) beverage and a stack of books from my collection, I just peruse. Sometimes it's back issues of Quilts Japan. Sometimes it's the fabric dyeing books. Sometimes it's old magazines...But I can flip pages and let my mind settle on whatever appeals and just be happy. And more often than not, I come away thinking "Ooh, I've just got to ... knit that sweater! Try that technique! Work on sketching a design of this new idea!"

3. I have this series of notebooks that I call my inspiration books. They're big blank books, sort of large, spiral sketchbooks with blank pages. And I fill them up with pictures cut out of magazines, catalogs, postcards, you name it, that I just like. I use no organization .... in fact, I specifically do NOT try to make a page look nice. I just work page by page, slapping pictures in where they fit. So, sitting with the magazines that have piled up on the coffee table to tear out appealing things before I sling them out is a great block-buster. It's a great non-thinking, tv-watching activity. (And Caroline and I do this together...she has her own notebook and we tear stuff out and then have fun comparing what we're each drawn to collect.) So, the process of going through old magazines to find stuff for my books is a great creative downtime, recharging activity.

4. And then, of course, there's the pasting stuff INTO the notebooks. I'll spend an hour or two watching tv and cutting stuff out at one time, and another time I'll just trim and paste, trim and paste. And it's equally mindless and enjoyable.

5. So you get where this is going, right? Looking THROUGH the notebooks is a great discovery. Sometimes I'm struck by common themes or colors on a series of pages, and I rediscover new things all the time. Maybe I put a picture -- say, of a scarf from a catalog because the combination of colors really appealed to me -- and next time through, I'll notice what a wonderful pattern the scarf print was.

6. I go hang out with other creative people. I'll go over to my sister's house and look at HER magazines. I'll get together with my art quilty friends Pat and Rita and Janet and we'll laugh and talk projects and I come away inspired.

7. I get to work on an old unfinished project, or I'll just dive in sewing strips together from my scrap bin, to make bits that will eventually end up in a donation quilt for the local children's shelter. Just the process of handling fabric and working with color and pattern and not worrying about artistic decisions or trying to achieve flawless design frees me up to relax and have fun. And the ideas start flowing.

8. I lose myself in fiction. Sometimes it's Brit Chick Lit, a favorite genre of mine, maybe a cozy mystery, perhaps a taut legal thriller, even something dense and literary. Perhaps it's a left brain/right brain thing...but when I feel the urge to sit around and read stacks of books, it usually results in some big project percolating to the surface of my mind later on.

9. I crawl the internet. Reading craft blogs is so fun -- not just quilty ones, but I'll hop around the vast assortment of new craft blogs by trendy young women making funky stuff. And that leads to hopping links and blog rings and exploring websites, and I get ideas, ideas, ideas!

As I think about these various things, I realize that sometimes I want words, and sometimes I want pictures. I'm not sure why, but there it is.

10. I clean up my office/studio....which is almost always in a state of clutter. So, really tidying my desk and sewing table and sorting through the accumulated papers and books and fabric bits and other supplies feels like I'm getting ready for the next creative onslaught. Visual breathing room, I think.