About Weekly Quilts - Part 4 - Why work weekly

I'm continuing my "About Weekly Quilts" articles, this time discussing how working weekly keeps your mind active so you have fewer slumps.
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The reason I started working weekly in the first place is to keep me in the studio working on something.  I had become a chronic "buyer".  I bought magazines for inspiration, but never made anything out of them.  I bought fabric that I loved so much I could not cut up.  I bought tools, but rarely used them. I needed a way to get myself motivated enough to stop buying and start using this stuff!
I also started it to keep my mind sharp.  My doodles from office meetings were piling up.  I had ideas, but lacked the desire to start another humongous project. I work full time, and travel quite a bit.  How could I possibly quilt and still work and have a home life? I needed something small, something executable in a short period of time, and I wanted to have fun.
Next thing I knew, every doodle became a small quilt.  A painting on a friends wall was interpreted into something similar and now represents a memory of her kindness to me.  

They were autobiographical.  

 

During a week of packing to move to Chicago.

They were done on vacations in times of reflection.

There is something about working weekly that gets your design mind flowing, and this is when great things happen.  All during 2009, I planned, designed, and executed "Road to Home", while simultaneously doing weekly quilts.  This quilt is tremendously successful for me ( so much so, I wonder if I can repeat it).
In 2010, I had a huge section of the summer where I was super busy.  My sister was getting married and I made her flowers out of fabric.  I traveled for work so much I felt I was never home.  I just had to suspend the weekly quilts until my life was back to normal.  This was the largest slump I was in, and because I was not working on my weekly deadline I could feel my creative juices sapping.  It took sheer force of will to get my ship righted.  I HAD to get back to weekly work.  Since that summer, I've published an article in a magazine, appeared on TV, demoed at Houston, given a lecture to 2 different groups, launched a shopping cart with merchandise, and have much more to come! And I still make weekly quilts. (And work full time)
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I really hope these blog posts help you see how working small and often can help you as a designer and artist.  Some of these are going to be incorporated into my lecture about weekly quilting. Thanks!