What it feels like to create

Found this blog late last night, and it has really gotten under my skin--in a very good way. As I've been sewing and embroidering and being intentional about making our house lovelier, I think I've also been getting a little gentler. The crafty-girl blogs I've been reading (especially this one) are so positive and delighted with the world. And I think I used to be more like that. But I've gotten more critical and snarky and sarcastic--it all adds up to a kind of negativity and stinginess that have no place in my prodigiously happy, love-filled life.
So--as the flowers rest under an unseasonable layer of frosty cold, I will put my faith in the inevitable warm-up, and let my spirit set a good example for the plants: I will bloom a little bit. And then I'll bloom a little bit more.
I know this about myself, but something about my inner compulsive procrastinator keeps me from consistently acting on it: when I have an outlet for my creativity, I am happier and somehow clarified. Like butter! I finished a table runner late last night, a project I started on a whim after finally finding a non-Wal Mart fabric source in my town. Our rarely-used table (shameful fact: we almost always eat while watching "Jeopardy!") was set for a while with the loveliest, if fortuitous and accidental, color combination. Orange candles, yellow tulips and daffodils, and a fruit bowl with lemons, Granny Smith apples, and oranges.
Anyway, the only way I ever manage to create something pretty like that is by accident, and accidents like this one don't happen too often to me (I'm not as observant as truly talented artists are). So it stuck with me--orange, yellow and bright green have been on my mind for a month now. And the fabric store had two fabrics--one orange and yellow, one green, white and orange--that I just knew would go far in duplicating that table.
Reader, I bought them.
I promised Husband I would do no such thing after a fairly brutal trip to a store in Columbus, during which I squandered all my birthday capital. (It was worth it!) But this stuff was reasonably cheap and I got out of there with 3 1/2 yards and some thread for only $32. Not bad, compared with the (eek!) $125 I spent in Columbus (double-eek!).
The original plan was to make a runner for one of the many radiator covers we live with--they're in at least one corner of every room in our tiny house, shrinking the furniture-arrangement possibilities. But this turned out so beautiful that it will forever be a centerpiece at our dining table.


p.s. it's reversible! Amy Butler's lotus in cherry--solid. pretty!