Playing Without Rules

January 27, 2026

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about play—about taking the pressure off knowing where you’re going and letting curiosity lead instead.

Fabric is especially good for this. You can cut it apart. You can sew it back together. You can change your mind. But that freedom only really exists if you’re not trying to follow a prescribed plan with a long list of rules. Play asks for a little looseness.

Most designs start with a quiet back-and-forth in my head. Does this feel finished? Does it belong with the others—or does it get to bend the rules a little? Does the color make sense in the current palette? Usually those arguments resolve themselves pretty quickly—but every once in a while, a design refuses to back down.

Josephine was one of those.

I assumed her outline would be black. That’s what made sense to me. She disagreed. She needed to be outlined in deep olive green. Once that decision clicked, everything else followed—the way the green plays against the beige of her petals, the way a third shade emerges where the colors overlap. I couldn’t stop thinking about her, which is usually my signal that a design deserves a print run.

That didn’t mean she could stand alone, though. I wanted to see how she’d behave with the rest of the collection.

I started playing with the fabric the way I’d approach a collage—cutting out individual flower shapes and moving them around. Somewhere in that process, the flowers started looking a little like butterflies. At the same time, our Lollipop print began reading like tall stems or blooms reaching upward. That was the nugget. Something to follow without fully defining it.

The piece has been hanging on my design wall for a long time now. As I walked past, I’d add a few more falling flower-butterflies. No rush. No plan. No rules—just responding until it started to feel done.

Eventually I had to confront the practical question: how was I actually going to attach everything?

That question turned out to be its own little playtime. I decided to hand-stitch most of the pieces down (the extra lollipops went on easily with the sewing machine), and hand stitching doesn’t leave much room for multitasking—in the best way. I’ve listened to audiobooks, watched movies, daydreamed, and enjoyed a kind of rare, quiet focus. It’s been a real gift of slowness—and a reminder that play doesn’t have to be fast to be productive.

This will most likely become a quilt—but not before we pack up for QuiltCon. If you stop by our booth (107!), you’ll get to see how this stretch of play has evolved so far.

And I’d love to hear from you: how do you take the pressure off and play without rules in your own creative work?