Procrastination or Preparation?

So, here's a work in progress ... for a very long time. Scroll down if you're impatient for a peek.

The muddy pink fabrics are mostly someone else's discarded stash, an unwise acquisition in my very early quilting days.
Some lovely woman taught me the 3D flying geese technique when I admired it at a quilt show at least seven years ago - it took me ages to find the paper napkins with the method notes
...and I've been collecting "sky" fabrics forever.

At last the ideas came together and I began making pink geese (aka flamingos) and putting them together into flying flocks

They rested, with some yellow that I later edited out, in a box for several more years, until Suddenly! came the inspiration to finish. There were more pink birds than blue sky bits. There was the great Sorting of the Stash, and a little shopping, cut enough blue bits, sewed them together. I have about 40 placemat-sized bits, how to make a quilt out of that?

Put a big sheet on a pal's floor, lay the bits down & rearrange. And rearrange, and again. Start to see a decent design. Pin the bits to the sheet, roll it up...and stuff it in a bag for a few months. Hang the sheet up over a big window cos there's not enough floor at home. Find that too difficult, roll it all again and back in the bag for three months.

Fall over it in the studio. Fit of impatience. Will it fit on the bed? Well enough. Roll it out, rearrange again, start cutting & sewing in plain sky pieces as needed between the flocks. Need the bed for sleeping in tonight, better get this finished today! And it was.

And then I thought - ooh, Christmas holidays, IF I were well-organised I might be able to quilt it before I go back to work. Made the backing in a day. Went to my excellent local quilt store All Things Patchwork, where the lovely Cheryl didn't just sell me superb batting, she let me use her big tables & even helped me pin baste - all in a day.

Took it home, looked at it for five long days and couldn't do a stitch. Fold it, stuff it bulkily in a bag and leave for three more months ... when I suddenly get an idea for quilting, draw designs, make stencils, layout, make a technique sample - over 2 days - and then put it back in the bag.

Monday June 3rd I started quilting and it went like a dream. In two hours at least an eighth is stitched and I'm very happy with it. I've left it in the machine, bunched so the cat can't sleep on it. Who knows when I'll work on it again.

The thing is, all those long guilty procrastinating intervals might be some kind of preparation for the high-achieving bursts of activity when the project moves ahead effortlessly. Maybe everything just takes the time it needs to take.