Thursday, March 10, 2011

the big picture

Sometimes I need to push the pause button and take a step back and a deep breath! To regain perspective. To remember what counts. To not sweat the small stuff. Last weekend Bob and I went to visit our parents, who conveniently live within driving distance of our home. It's about
3-4 hours drive out of the city and into farmland. Not only were we privileged to spend time with our parents, but some of our brothers and sisters and offspring, too! One overnight, 2 full days of talking, laughing, playing cards, and catching up. It is so good for us to step out of our daily routines and be with the people who we come from. That's probably not grammatically correct, but I think you know what I mean! As we were making the trip home Sunday night (the last hour in blowing snow and snarled traffic-yuck!) I started to think of everything I didn't get done on the weekend. How stupid is that! I gave myself a little mental smack on the head, and stopped to think about the precious minutes we had spent with the VIP's in our lives. Yes, remember the big picture!

Here's a fun book that changes your perspective, literally!
It is a volume of aerial photos from around the world, within information about each of the places pictured. A different photo for each day. It is not a new book, this one is copyrighted 2001, and there may be other editions since then.

I love to look at the pictures overall and then up close.
The picture on the left shows the big picture, which looks kind of strange and puzzling. What am I looking at? The picture on the right is a closer view and explains things better, we are looking directly down on a camel caravan with long shadows laying out on the sand. How cool! There are a few people on foot with the caravan. And what do you suppose they are thinking about? Is this a regular daily occurrence for them? Where do they live? Do they have families? What do they eat for breakfast? Do they mind walking all day in the desert? Do they wear the same clothes each day or do they have an overnight bag packed? If they are wearing long robes, do they wear underwear? Do they ever get to visit their parents?

Back to my little world--let me show you what is on my design wall--
The top left section is all sewn together, the rest is coming along steadily. This uses a bunch of the 3" nine patch blocks I made in January from the book Nine Patch Gatherings from the Primitive Gatherings folks. When I started putting these blocks together, I was a little perturbed because the nine patches weren't all measuring up to the right size and the edges were uneven. I want to use this for an upcoming class to teach a new technique, so it needs to look good when displayed for a bunch of other quilters to see. Rather than start over with new blocks, I decided to go ahead with them and see what would happen. And when I look at the big picture, there is no doubt that they will work just fine, because the imperfections are nowhere to be seen! Another reminder to step back and pause.

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