Growing up, I did not feel like I was creative AT ALL. I sucked at painting, drawing,
sewing, woodworking, writing, and the list could go on… I always admired others creativity and was somewhat jealous that I didn’t have the same gifting. I believed that you predominantly use either the left or right side of the brain, wherein the left side of the brain is logical, methodical and analytical, whereas the right side of the brain is creative and artistic. Since I was good at math and science, I thought, well, I guess creativity is out of the picture for me. Thank God this belief was WRONG!!!
A couple of years after I went through leukemia, I went to Elmira, Ontario for a day trip. While there, I was in one of the stores where on display was beautiful Mennonite Quilts. I fell in love with them and wanted to buy one (a queen-sized quilt). The problem was, I didn’t have the money to purchase one (they were around $2,000-$3,000). I decided right there I would learn how to qu
ilt.
So, I went to the book store, bought the book “Quilting for Dummies” by Cheryl Fall, read the whole book and bought some fabric and kits. The first few quilts were table runners I made from kits and they were relatively simple. I was quite proud of them, and in fact and gave them away as gifts to family.
At some point, I decided I wanted to make my Mom and my Dad each a Memory Quilt. I thought long and hard about what I would do for each of them. My Mom loves to read her Bible in the mornings and she and had been going through a difficult time over the past several years. So I decided to purchase an Embroidery/Sewing Machine.
I embroidered several verses from Ecclesiastes 3:1-11 on the border area. Within the quilt, I also placed pictures of family members that I had printed onto “Printable fabric”.
My Dad loves music and plays the saxophone, clarinet and flute. So, his quilt included music notes with the faces of his family members used as the notes, as well I used several blocks that had meaning to them that I felt represented my Dad.
This was the first time I had made a quilt with no pattern. I knew the quilts were going to be lap quilts, so I had a basic size in mind and used colours that would compliment their home. There were points where I had run out of a fabric I was using and could not get more of said fabric, so I used creative ways to incorporate a new fabric into the quilts. This was the first time I felt, well, creative.
I hope my experience will encourage you! If you feel you are not creative, don’t believe it. All of us have creativity within us. It’s a matter of reflecting on what you love and thinking about how you can express it creatively. Look around you, creativity is everywhere from nature to man-made buildings. Read books on things you think are interesting. Take a class, there are plenty online. Just do something and explore your creative side. The process may seem difficult at first, but one day, you will look back, see how far you have come and be quite proud of what you have created.