My Creative Retreat at Home – How it went

My birthday was last week.  I didn’t travel or have a big party instead I spent the week being creative in what I called a ‘at home creative retreat’.  I had special projects planned for the week like little kits I had purchased but didn’t have time to make, progressing on a sampler quilt I had started for myself years ago and also creating a new Art doll.

I had spent the couple of weeks before my birthday week, gathering all the supplies for the projects I had planned. Part of that I turned into a challenge: let’s see how much of what I needed I could find in my supplies at home. I did pretty well with my sampler quilt and a little flamingo wall hanging. 

My art doll was a lot pickier about what she wanted. Nothing seemed to fit what I was looking for.  For some reason, my mind wanted fabric with pink and yellow. That can be a challenge when working on art projects.  You have a certain image in your mind of colors or designs and even though what you might find looks wonderful, it still doesn’t fit your image. 

I have a quilt that took far longer to complete than it should because I wanted a certain brown and just couldn’t find it.  I bought all kinds of other browns and they just didn’t satisfy my image of the quilt. If the project is important enough to you; hold out for what you want.  I did eventually find the shade of brown I wanted.

Holding out for the perfect fabric for my art doll worked.  I found just the fabric I wanted at a local quilt shop and it also added a bit more design and challenge than I had planned but in the end it turned out perfect.

I also learned to be flexible with my projects.  I had a schedule of what I wanted to do and when. That quickly went out the window the very first day.  A series of storms came through my city and I lost power.  It was so dark at 1pm in the afternoon; I had to navigate around my house with a flashlight. So I put that flashlight to good use and read a mystery.  It actually helped me relax and put me in a slower frame of mind so when the power came back, I took my time with everything and I think enjoyed the process of creating more.

Another thing I did during the week was turn off the news.  This week I lessened the amount of news I watched (I have to admit I am a news junkie.).  I would turn it on to see if the world was still rotating but then went back to some fun TV shows or listened to music.  I think less negativity helped increase my creativity.

 The first thing I completed was a necklace.  It was a kit I bought at a local craft store.  I like using kits to try out new crafts.  They usually have all the supplies you need, detailed (and sometimes pictured) instructions, and often times the tools needed as well.   The result was a nice silver sand dollar necklace.  It was so much fun I went back and got another kit to do (it helped that the kits were on sale at the store.).  After the necklace was completed, I went back and finished reading the mystery I had started (psst – the step-daughter did it.)

Silver Sand-dollar necklace

I liked having a quick project to finished, so I picked another.  It was a little 8” wall hanging of a ‘tropical scene’.  In this case I had to provide the fabric but the buttons which made up most of the design was included with the pattern and instructions. This is a design done by Flamingo Island Designs.  Unfortunately the last I heard this company has gone out of business.

Flamingo Island hanging

I took some time to work on a quilt I started a few years back. It is a sampler quilt made of bright tropical colored pieced blocks with the alternate blocks done in embroidery. These were quick and easy to do. I still have a few more to do but I am making progress.

Sand pail embroidery

Palm tree embroidery

My big challenge was my Art Doll.  Art dolls are typically not dolls children would play with but instead are just as the name indicated art.  I have done a couple with coloring with pencils on fabric and using punchneedle embroidery.  But this time I wanted to add some embellishments.  Using embellishments in any fabric craft is not a strong skill of mine.

Now I mentioned above I had in my mind fabric that was pink and yellow. What I found had the colors I wanted but also an abstract design that added a look of texture to the design.  This design came in handy with the embellishments. 

fabric close up

 I wanted to work with beads as one of the embellishments.  I thought it would be easier to add the beads after the doll was made than trying to stuff the doll with the beads in place.  So I completed the doll adding a little face that made me smile.  At first I couldn’t decide what to do with the beads.  Where do I put them?  That is where the abstract design came in.  I decided to follow the line of the design with the beads.

Front of the doll

     

    

I also bought some jewelry charms to add.  I love flamingos and since my other retreat projects were beach related, I found a little flamingo to add.  And then I found a charm that read “be YOU”.  I thought that would be a nice reminder to me whenever I looked at the doll.

Beads and flamingo charm

                              

Be YOU charm and beads

       

                             

                             

                                                             

I wasn’t sure what to do on the back.  I didn’t want to repeat the beads.  But I did have some yarn which was pink and yellow that my brother had sent me as a gift.  It is a yellow fuzzy almost chenille type yarn with a variegated yellow and pink boa type yarn wrapped around it.  Since I wanted to try something new, I decided to ‘couch’ the yarn again around some of the paisley designs of the fabric. 

‘Couching’ is an embroidery stitch where you lay a yarn or fiber on top of the fabric to be embroidered and attach that yarn with another a tiny stitch called a tie stitch.  This is used when a yarn or fiber is too thick to go through the fabric.  It allows for straight or curved lines.  

Back of doll with couched yarns

The week was great.  I finished or made progress on some long overdue projects.  And now have some wonderful reminders of my birthday. I highly recommend a creative retreat for everyone.  Even if all you can do is one day or part of a day, it is a great experience.

©2017  Cheryl Fillion