Friday December 21, 2012 is the end of the Mayan calendar. According to some experts this is supposed to mean the end of the world. As a quilter I have a different opinion. The Mayan people were very industrious and clever. They managed to achieve great things considering they didn’t have the modern advances that we all know and love (ok, sometimes not so much love for technology…) They were a brilliant people. I like to think that I have moments of brilliance as well which should give me some insight about how they may have operated. Much like the Mayans I have many things going on at any given time. Granted I don’t have to forage for food as they did, carry water from the local watering hole or carve my way through the jungle to get to the temple but I still have to feed my family, water my garden and commute across the hallway to my studio. Sometimes that hallway can feel like trekking through a jungle but that’s another story…
As quilters we are all too familiar with the concept of a UFO (unfinished object). I think the Mayans were simply too busy with all their projects, got bored with the calendar project and simply set it aside to be finished later. I mean really, can you think of anything more boring than repeating, day after day after day, the same mathematical patterns? Then the mother ship arrived to take them back to their home planet. The calendar was left behind, unfinished, to be studied by our scholars. If any of those scholars were quilters then they would have understood the UFO mindset and simply determined that the calendar was yet to be completed and did not signal the end of the world.
So, what can we quilters learn from this? Don’t be a Mayan and leave behind UFOs when called to the home planet! Need a little help in this area? My friend Beth Helfter, the original Quilting Hottie, has a great program coming up in February that will whittle down your UFO pile. It’s called “Drop And Give Me 20”. You promise to devote 20 minutes to your UFOs every day during the month of February (the shortest month of the year). Beth has managed to collect all kinds of cool swag from various quilting designers and shops for prizes. Twenty short minutes each day can add up to some completed projects by the end of the month. We all manage to waste 20 minutes each day. It’s time to try and turn those small wasted blocks of time into something productive. You just might win some cool prizes for your efforts too. Even if you don’t win a prize, you will have a smaller UFO pile and completed projects to keep, gift or donate. You can’t lose!
So, don’t be a Mayan – head over to Beth’s right now for further info. You can find all the latest here at her blog, Quilting Hottie Haven.
And just to cover my bases – if the world does end tomorrow I would like to thank all of you for being a part of my Purple Moose family. I LOVE bringing you all the cool tools, threads and patterns. I hope to continue to do so when we reach the home planet!