Inspiration?

Inspiration, where does it come from and more importantly, where the hell does it go?  Boy it's great when the ideas come rushing in like a flood; but, when you reach the desert it can make you wonder if you've ever had a creative moment in your life.  My grandmother taught me to crochet when I was maybe 6 or 7; my mom taught me to knit and sew at the same time.  Both of them have always been an inspiration to me and sometimes all I have to do is think of the times spent with them, watching, practicing and attempting to make my work look like anything close to theirs.  And then there are those times when nothing makes the needles fly and I simply have to leave what I am doing and come back to it at a later time when the creative spark is fully ignited.

Something that has been helping lately is recalling and revisiting in photos the amazing trip that my husband, Bob and I were able to take this past August.  Bob's brother Sean and his wife Jane invited us to their home on Pender Island in British Columbia, Canada.  Above is the view from the back patio and actually from every window along the back of their home.  They designed the home to take advantage of this amazing view.

All around the house beautiful flowers, plants and trees greeted us every day as we would make our way around the island.  Most every day we took the boat out to view Pender from the Gulf or to make our way to one of the other islands nearby.  Probably the best day we had was boating over to the Farmers Market on Saltspring.  The food, flowers, crafts and musicians were amazing.  I don't think it is something I will ever forget.  And on our way back to Pender we stopped at the spot where we had dropped a trap earlier in the day to pick up our fresh crab for dinner.  It doesn't get much better than that.

A tree native to the area, the Arbutus was all over the island.  The bark is a cinnamon color but when wet turns almost lime green.  Amazing.  Wish I could grow one here in Kansas.

Just looking at these pictures reminds me what a wonderful world we live in and how fortunate I have been to visit and enjoy this picturesque part of the Pacific Northwest.  And whenever I end up in the desert of lost inspiration, all I have to do is pull up these photos and know that if I wait a minute or two the road to creativity will present itself and I will be on my way once again.

I hope that you have something that feeds your creative soul and makes it bloom!