We all recognize the yellow brick road that took Dorothy and her pals to Oz. How often to we stop to reflect on our own journey?

I am preparing to teach a class next month. The class content is machine quilting. In preparation for this class, I have been reflecting on my own journey.

This is one of the very first pieces that I ever machine free motion quilted by myself.  The stitches are not the same length, my circle isn’t always round, I was only starting on my journey.  There have been many quilts in the seventeen years between this quilt and today.

Here is a close up of a small piece that I did. It was fun to see how far I had come.

And how I now fill the areas that I quilt!

It was really good for my soul to look back and see how years of  practice and experience had improved my work and I felt somehow accomplished!

And what about your own journey? It might be fun to dig out some of those first pieces and have a look how far you have moved down that yellow brick road in your own journey!

Last week I was reading a blog about creating. I can’t find it now, or I would share it with you! The idea was that we get a great idea. We get excited about it and begin to act on it. Then, we stall, quit, stop, put the project on hold. Then we get a great idea. And so on and so on until life becomes one great big idea, but nothing is getting done.

I have experienced this phenomena!

Here is a once upon a time great idea!

This was a piece of fabric I had previously surface designed. The grid reminded me of trellis.

I had lots of fun adding sunflowers and color.

Then, it all stopped. I need to quilt this piece. The quilting completely changes the look of the piece. I am going to go back to working on this once great idea. I’m not really feeling like it is as great as I had originally envisioned, but I’m going to take it a little further.  Stay tuned for an update!

Do you have any great ideas hanging around?