While I am reluctant to dive headlong into any of the four quilts I am working on, I can get myself to dabble. One is a baby quilt whose fabric is taken from three generations of wedding dresses. The lush velvet and satin are dreamy to look at. Less so, to work on. But baby quilts are by definition small, and I can handle one block at a time. Another is also a baby quilt, but instead of being a familiar pattern, it is an effort to recreate a stock picture with snowy mountains and flying geese. Without measurements to guide me, and no previous experience with this design, progress is incremental. A third is my own project, a One Block Wonder of seven panels depicting the Woman in Gold by Klimt. It has become large, and with all the bias edges, unwieldy. The fourth is still in the queue. A box of men's shirts are waiting to be transformed. 

I enjoy these challenges, even if they challenge me. Hence, the effort to keep penciling them in on my to-do list. Plus, there are the obligations that eat up my waking hours. Yet, history has told me that an hour here, even twenty minutes there will get me to the point of sandwiching them, and after that all ambiguity is gone. 

Creativity is not on tap, at least in my brain, and priming the pump sometimes leaves me sputtering. Rewards help, like a delicious snack, or a rerun of White Collar while I baste. 

There is a note on my phone of all the quilts I have finished in the last decade, and it gives me borrowed momentum for what lies in front of me. 

Maybe I could start a list of spiritual efforts that have reached fulfillment. It could get me through the current one.