Insomnia
Is insomnia a blessing, a curse or both? My vote is for both. I typically sleep less than the average person, around 6.5 to 7 hours a night. Fortunately, this works for me. However, when insomnia hits me, as it did this week, I slept 4.5 – 5 hours per night. A few days I functioned just fine. The others days were OK, but not brilliant.
A Blessing
How can insomnia be a blessing? Well, if you’ve ever thought I wish there were more hours in the day, insomnia gives me those extra hours. I even managed to use most of them productively. 🙂 When I am productive, I feel energized. The result is I had a very constructive week. In fact, I am incredulous that I managed to move forward on the three art activities I have committed to at the start of 2023. These are:
- Project Quilting;
- The 2023 Rainbow Scrap Challenge ; and
- My entry for Fierce Planets.
The biggest challenge for me, because it takes me way out of my plodding, take your time comfort zone, is Project Quilting. The gist is every other Sunday a prompt is given and participants must complete and post their quilt by the following Sunday. I believe there are 6 prompts over 12 weeks. So, it isn’t a full year commitment. Just enough to push me to find ways to work faster.
And a Curse
It is easy to grasp how insomnia is a curse. Lack of sleep impairs thinking. The result is I am far more likely to require a bit of frog stitching (rip it, rip it). Yes, I did some of that. Plus, I had to cave one day and take a nap. Sigh. So, missing a couple of hours of sleep at night, resulted in balancing the equation with those same hours during the day.
I am willing to accept the curse with the blessing of insomnia when the results speak for themselves – a very productive week!
I’m linking up to the following posts:
It sounds like you know how to navigate working with what your body is asking for. Looks like you had a great, creative start to 2023!
Dare I say, Yvonne, this isn’t my first time coping with insomnia. Had a “normal” night’s sleep last night. Fingers crossed it will trend. Although I am eager to get back into the studio on Monday. So, busy clearing the decks to make that happen. Thank you for sharing thoughts.
The blue buds are beautiful. Always so fun to see plans turn into actual fabric creations. Hope that your sleep schedule settles back to normal soon.
The first few blocks, and there will be many new to me blocks with How Does Your Garden Grow, are always a challenge. This quilt will be predominately paper pieced to ensure accuracy. There are advantages and also struggles working this way. I am pleased with the background fabric. It will set off the rainbow colors nicely and give me plenty of room for FMQ. We can enjoy watching my garden grow together.
That’s going to be a fun RSC quilt. I do love flowers in fabric and in the garden. I usually sleep for about 3 hours then wake up and read for 2 hours then sleep for 3 hours. Weird habit but I’m rarely tired and don’t take naps.
What’s not to love about flowers, right. They bring color to the world. Thanks for sharing your personalized sleep schedule with me. It is reassuring to hear that others find creative solutions to dealing with their unique circadian rhythm. As an avid read of both ebooks and audiobooks I applaud the use of your midway activity.
Your first flower bud looks great. The quilt is going to look lovely. I took, suffer from insomnia, and it’s no fun. Glad you have found a bright side to it.
Kat, sorry to hear you cope with insomnia, too. Thank you for the green thumb up on my dark blue bud.
I eagerly await your fabric interpretation of the Webb telescope image! I know your result will be wonderfully creative; you always find some aspect to make the viewer want to crawl into your image.
Cheryl, want a generous comment. I do find the Pillars of Creation very compelling and eerie. Should be interesting to watch it come together.
will be fun to watch your garden grow! hope your sleep returns to normal.
I did have a good night’s sleep on Friday night and OK sleep last night. I knew the cause of the later. Not my insomnia this time. Thanks for the morale boost and kind words.
Wow, what a fun RSC design!!!
Thank you, Nancy. I had fun creating my garden in EQ 8. The blocks come from Doreen Burbank’s book, Fantasy Flowers. The arrangement is all mine. 🙂
Your sleep patterns sound just like mine. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I hate it. I definitely love your PQ block!
Andra, thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts about my Project Quilting piece. I tend to stretch my interpretation of prompts. Still, it is ONE star. I designed the block/quilt on EQ 8. Saves oodles of time with graphing and I can “steal” the cat silhouette.
nicely done!
Thank you, Dolores.
Your new RSC project is very pretty, and so are the blue buds. Sorry for your restless nights, even if you got good use of insomnia for creating, I hope you will get some good sleep soon.
Thank you for sharing, and linking up!
I’m glad to link up when I can. Sleep-wise things are improving again. It is rare for me to have such a bad week. Thank you for you kind comment about How Does Your Garden Grow.
Thank you for stopping by my blog, you have some lovely ideas.
Hugz
I enjoying seeing what you and others are up to. Thank you for your thumbs up on my plans.
I hope you find more sleep soon! That being said – love that you were able to join in Project QUILTING! Love your piece!
Sleeping better already, Kim. Thank you. I love the idea of Project Quilting. It will definitely be a challenge to keep up.
I love your Project Quilting quilt! It’s very restful and contemplative looking. I tend to only see the curse side of not sleeping well; it’s great that you can make use of that time spent awake.
Always good to hear your perspective, Leanne. I hadn’t thought of First Star I See as contemplative, but you are so right. Must have been my insomnia subconscious that came up with a night sky scene.
Welcome to the fun of PQ one week challenges Gwyned! I hope you are able to get more rest in the off week!
Thanks for the welcome, Mel. One week challenges are true challenges for me. I’m not a sprinter, but a marathoner. My sleep pattern is back to normal me, fortunately.
Wonderful works, all of them. I hadn’t seen that photograph, but it’s a wonderful inspiration.
Thank you, Susan. I will be sharing a bit of how I create abstract representational artwork from photographs using In the Beginning as an example in my next post.
I’m impressed that you often manage more productivity during times of insomnia. Kudos on getting your PQ14.1 challenge entry done (along with making progress on the RSC and another project, too!)
What can I say? With years of if not outright insomnia, at least sleeping less than most and functioning, I can handle a bit of sleep depravation and put it to good use. Thanks for the thumbs up. PQ14.2 Here I come – I hope.