I had made a difficult decision to pause a concept that wasn't coming together after months of iteration, and I was feeling pretty low about it. I wanted my next quilt to be medicine for the burnout I was feeling, so I set some rules for myself: don't think too hard; just make something.

I sat down with my computer and had a distorted diamond pattern within a few minutes. I started to move on, because my first designs of the day are always strange and terrible, but I realized I was already forgetting my first rule. It took a while for me to get over that discomfort, but it ended up being just what I needed.