Learning to See: Inspiration for Your Next Stitching Project May Be Hiding in Plain Sight

September is National Sewing Month, which seems like the perfect excuse to celebrate all things sewing and quilting!

This month, I’m exploring a few different aspects of the creative process, from finding inspiration and discovering favorite tools and notions to learning new skills and, ultimately, finding ways to make our creative time even more enjoyable.

And I thought the best place to start would be inspiration. Because here’s the thing about inspiration: I don’t think we have to go looking very far to find it. Sometimes, we just need to learn how to see it.

Learning to See

Have you ever been walking through a garden, shopping in a store, looking at a piece of artwork, or simply driving through town when something catches your eye? Maybe it’s:

• a combination of colors.
• an interesting pattern or shape.
• the way several seemingly unrelated things look together.

You notice it for a moment and think; I really like that! And then you keep going.

What if, instead, you stopped for a moment and asked yourself: What exactly caught my attention? That’s the beginning of learning to see.

Instead of simply noticing that you like something, take a moment to figure out why you like it. Maybe it’s the combination of deep green, dusty pink and cream in a garden, or the repetition of the windows on an old building.

It could be the contrast between the smooth surface of a piece of pottery and the rough texture of the table underneath it.

Once you start looking at the world this way, you may be surprised at how much inspiration is hiding in plain sight.

Inspiration Is Everywhere

We naturally tend to look at other quilts for quilting inspiration, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. We quilters are an incredibly creative bunch and seeing what someone else has made can spark all kinds of ideas. That’s one of the reasons I love going to quilt shows. I bet you do too.

But inspiration doesn’t have to come from another quilt. Try looking at:

• Nature: Leaves, flowers, trees, rocks, shells, birds and sunsets.
• Architecture: Windows, doors, brickwork, railings, tile patterns and interesting rooflines.
• Fashion: Clothing, scarves, jewelry, handbags and unexpected color combinations.
• Home décor: Wallpaper, rugs, dishes, furniture, curtains and artwork.
• Everyday objects: Packaging, notebooks, stationery, baskets, signs and even the displays in your local grocery store.
• Art: Paintings, photography, ceramics, sculpture and textiles.
• History: Vintage photographs, clothing, advertisements, household objects and, of course, old quilts.

The next time something catches your eye, ask yourself: Could I translate what I’m seeing into fabric, color, shape, pattern or texture?

You don’t have to know the answer. Just asking the question helps train your brain to start making those connections.

Try an Inspiration Walk

Here’s a little exercise you might want to try.

Take a five-minute inspiration walk. It doesn’t have to be a hike or even a walk around the neighborhood. Walk through your house, visit a local park, stroll through a store or simply sit outside with a cup of coffee.

Your only job is to look. See if you can find:

• One color combination that catches your eye
• One interesting shape
• One pattern
• One texture
• One unexpected combination

You might discover that you see things you’ve walked past dozens of times before without really noticing them. That’s the fun part.

Inspiration isn’t always about finding something new. Sometimes it’s about learning to look at familiar things in a new way.

Don’t Just See It. Capture It.

Of course, noticing something is only half the battle. If you’re anything like me, you can have a brilliant idea one minute and completely forget it a few hours later. That’s where your phone can become one of your best creative tools.

Take a picture. It doesn’t have to be a great photograph. You’re not creating an art portfolio. You’re simply capturing a visual reminder of something that caught your attention.

If you have the time, take a few pictures. Take one of the whole scene. Then move closer and photograph the detail that caught your eye.

And don’t forget to make a note about why you took the picture.

Something as simple as:

“Love this combination of lavender, rust and olive green” or “Interesting repetition of circles and squares” can help you remember what you saw and why it interested you.

Because six months from now, you may remember the photograph but have no idea what you found so fascinating about it!

Create an Inspiration Library (I call it my Clip File)

Once you start taking photographs, you’re going to need a place to put them. Otherwise, your inspiration library can quickly become the 4,327 photographs sitting somewhere in your phone’s camera roll. Ask me how I know  ;  ).

The system you use doesn’t really matter. What matters is that it works for you and makes it easy to find an idea when you’re ready to use it. You might create:

• An album on your phone called “Inspiration”
• Pinterest boards
• A digital notebook
• A physical inspiration journal
• A scrapbook
• A folder of printed photographs
• A collection of fabric swatches with notes attached

You can also organize your collection by subject:

Color • Shapes • Nature • Architecture • Texture • Quilt Ideas • Appliqué • Borders • Quilting Designs • Fabric Combinations

And I have one more category I think is worth adding: “Not Sure Yet”

Because you don’t always have to know why something inspires you. Save it anyway. Sometimes we understand the connection months or even years later.

What Do You Do With All Those Ideas?

This is where things get really interesting. Collecting inspiration is fun, but eventually we need to do something with it.

The good news is that there are lots of ways to translate an idea into a sewing or quilting project.

Start with the colors.

Pull fabrics that recreate the feeling of your inspiration photograph. Don’t worry about finding an exact match. In fact, I think it’s more interesting when you don’t. Maybe:

• You love the contrast between warm and cool colors.
• One color dominates while another appears only in small accents.
• It’s an unusual combination you wouldn’t normally put together.

Take the idea and play with it. That’s exactly what I did with the photograph I took on Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic National Forest.  You can read more about it in the article I wrote about Nature-Inspired Fabric Pulls.

Start with the shapes

A photograph of leaves might inspire an appliqué project. That collection of windows might become a pieced quilt. A group of circles might lead you toward curved piecing or a completely different block design.

Look beyond the object itself and notice the shapes hiding inside it.

Start with the pattern

Look for repetition. Stripes. Checks. Dots. Geometric shapes. Organic shapes. Symmetry. Asymmetry.

Once you start looking for patterns, they’re everywhere.

Start with the feeling

Sometimes it’s not a particular color, shape or pattern that attracts us. It’s a feeling. A photograph might feel peaceful, playful, nostalgic, energetic, whimsical, cozy or dramatic.

You don’t have to reproduce what you see. Instead, you can create something that makes you feel the same way.

And I think that’s one of the most interesting ways to think about inspiration.

Don’t Copy. Translate.

There’s an important difference between copying something that inspires us and translating that inspiration into our own creative work.

If you see a quilt you love, you don’t necessarily need to recreate that quilt.

Ask yourself: What was it about this quilt that caught my attention? Maybe it was the:

• Color palette
• Scale
• Use of negative space
• Arrangement of the blocks
• Quilting
• Feeling the quilt created
• Something else entirely

Take that idea and make it your own.

The same is true when your inspiration comes from outside the quilting world. You aren’t trying to turn a photograph of a garden into an exact fabric reproduction.

You’re taking the idea that caught your attention and interpreting it through your own creative vocabulary. That’s where inspiration becomes creativity.

And It’s Okay If Nothing Happens

There’s one more thing I think we need to remember. Not every:

• Photograph has to become a quilt.
• Color combination needs to become fabric.
• Idea needs to become a project.

Sometimes we save something simply because we love it. And that’s enough. In fact, keeping a collection of things we love can teach us something about our own creative preferences.

Look through your inspiration library every once in a while and see if you notice any patterns. Maybe you discover:

• “Apparently, I really love circles.” or:
• “I keep photographing blue and yellow combinations.” or:
• “I’m always drawn to simple geometric designs.”

Those patterns can tell us something about our own creative voice. We begin learning to see not only the world around us differently, but ourselves as well.

What did I see when I looked through my own inspiration library (or clip file)? So many pictures of leaf shapes and different colors and shapes of flowers. I can’t help myself – I see a new leaf shape or an interesting flower – my phone comes out and I’ve got the picture. Here’s one from yesterday.

Your 7-Day Inspiration Challenge

So, in honor of National Sewing Month, I’d like to challenge you to spend the next seven days learning to see. Here’s your challenge – a different picture every day:

Day 1: A color combination that catches your eye.

Day 2: An interesting shape and take a picture.

Day 3: Find a pattern jumps out at you.

Day 4: Capture an interesting texture.

Day 5: Something that makes you feel happy – could be anything at all.

Day 6: Find something unexpected that inspires you.

Day 7: Look back through your photographs and choose one idea you’d like to explore further. That’s it, no

• project required.
• fabric to buy.
• pattern to find.

Just seven days of paying a little more attention to the world around you. Because you never know when the inspiration for your next quilt might be sitting right in front of you. You just have to learn to see it.

I took the challenge myself

And here’s what I came up with (so hard to pick just one for each day’s challenge!)

Day 7

Choose one I’d like to explore: Truthfully, I’m not sure, but if I had to pick one of the 6 pictures I took this week, I’d choose the pot of succulents. As I looked through my clip files, flowers and leaves seemed to show up quite often. And I’m working on a project right now that features both flowers and leaves – go figure!

I hope you have some fun with this challenge!

Happy Stitching!

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