Creating for the sake of creating

Sometimes my mind needs downtime. The kind where it can recharge without the pressure of deadlines, other people's priorities, and, well, just life in general. The last few weeks have been pretty intense for me - full of stress, frustration about a situation I find myself in and can't yet get out of, and some pretty good highs. In times like this, I crave a creative outlet and while I have been sewing, somehow it hasn't quite hit the spot. So yesterday, I decided to regain control and pushed aside anything I "should" have been doing in favour of creating. No instructions to follow, absolutely no need for perfection, and no need to share if it all went wrong. It was blissful! 

I knew I wanted to experiment. To do something I wasn't that good at (to keep the pressure of getting it right at bay) and just to have fun. I choose free motion embroidery and a sewing theme because possible options sprang to mind more easily than others. I pulled some white twill from my stash, grabbed the interfacing, bondaweb and my scrap boxes, quickly printed out some sketches and got going. The pictures so the results - some more successful than others but hey, perfection and consistency were not the aims! 

I had a blast making these. The nature of the free guiding the fabric through the machine means you have to embrace imperfection and your mistakes. They become part of the piece. There is something freeing in that. My mind is full of new potential projects and this mess of ideas and inspiration has made a welcome return. I have a two items of clothing the need finishing. They are quick jobs but they can wait a little longer - I'm still not quite ready to go back to precision. 

How have you been spending your weekend?