When it comes to ideas, I am my father’s daughter. I get an idea and I want it NOW. I have to laugh because I can hear my mother saying that exact sentence. NOW is a tricky thing especially when it comes to hand made items. I don’t have 85 hours in a day. I have a day job where I work a lot of hours, which leaves little time for my NOW. I get frustrated because I can’t make things happen over night when I get these wonderful ideas.

I am learning that slowing down actually gets more done. There are a bunch of little metaphors about this – eating the elephant one bite at a time, putting one foot in front of the other, everything in its time but what they are all talking about is getting the bigger idea done via smaller steps.

I am teaching myself that if I do a little bit every day or every week or every month or every year, I will get there. Not only will I get there, but I will get there actually faster than I might have realized when I am looking at the big picture and the NOW. I need to make a sign in my sewing room about this. Maybe I need to make an elephant mini quilt to hang up. The ideas swirl, cause I need another project to add to the list.

I need to remind myself how much I completed in 2020 – it was a banner year for me, and it was all done in small, frequent, sewing sessions, not in one or two weekend marathons. I am looking at how I am setting my goals this year. I’m not making large, sweeping goals, I am breaking apart my projects and making monthly goals that are just parts of projects, knowing that at some point, the whole project will complete. I think it was Ben Franklin who said “look after the pennies, and the dollars will look after themselves” so I am looking after my pennies.

The biggest thing I want to carry forward from 2020 is this idea to slow down to get more done. I need to incorporate this into how I work. I think it will open up a lot of really neat things. In the mean time, I’m perusing elephant patterns…. maybe I could do it with wool applique, that would go faster…..