Discipline and Miss P

I like to ponder words and their meanings. I guess all those hours of philosophy classes and exercises discussing words paid off. Paula at The Quilter wrote about her quilting discipline yesterday after reading a post at Living Life at Lee Haven. The posts got me thinking about discipline and where it fits in my creative life.

Websters.com has a whole page of definitions for discipline. A few of the meanings are negative:

• punishment inflicted by way of correction and training.
• an instrument of punishment, esp. a whip or scourge, used in the practice of self-mortification or as an instrument of chastisement in certain religious communities.
• to punish or penalize in order to train and control; correct; chastise.

I don't think punishment is what many of us have in mind when quilting.

My favorite definition is this one: an activity, exercise, or a regimen that develops or improves a skill; training.

I quilt or sew or crochet or stitch because my creative inner self (I call her Miss P) expects me to have the discipline to be creative every day; to push my skills a little further than the day before. Miss P can get rather indignant if I don't make the time to create something every day. Not every project has to be big and grand. Sometimes Miss P is satisfied with a well-cooked meal. Sometimes Miss P is satisfied with a small sewing project. Sometimes she gets pushy and demands a large project with a short time line to completion. Miss P doesn't mind UFO's, WIPs or WHIMMs. She doesn't mind a pile of fabric, a tumble of yarn skeins or a neatly wound box of embroidery floss. One morning she will tell me it's time to cut the fabric or crochet with the yarn or stitch with the gorgeous floss. All I can do is have the discipline to listen to her.

I satisfied Miss P with this finished crochet afghan yesterday.

I also satisfied her by taking my pantry from this . . .

To this . . .

Now Miss P is telling me it's time to end this post and get back to creating the matching booties for the afghan so I can send it off to the little lady it belongs to.

Have a great week!

Sweet P