Getting your sewing mojo back!

I'm sure it happens to us all at some point, and if you are anything like me, it can happen every couple of months. For a variety of reasons, you can lose the ability to create. Sometimes it can be down to hormones and how they affect us. Other times it can be as a result of external factors such as illness or the stress of daily life. Whatever the reason, feeling unable to create can be really frustrating and upsetting, especially when it is an important part of your life. Creating has such a powerful and positive impact on our mental wellbeing that when we go through these periods of of inability, we can feel really down as a result. 

When I hit one of these roadblocks, I feel listless, aimless and tired. My head is saying “sew something, whilst you have time!" but I don't seem able to motivate myself to focus on a project and nothing seems to inspire me. I try to look through the projects I am currently in the middle of to choose something to work on, but I cannot pick a project and I don't feel like doing anything.
I recognise that I have these moments every few months or so and I feel like it's something I have no control of. It creeps up on me and before I know it, I am in the middle of this internal battle over doing something I inherently love to do but for some unknown reason, cannot make myself do. Have you ever experienced this or something similar? 

In the past, I have battled with myself and it hasn't worked. I have also tried just waiting it out, choosing to watch TV in my spare time or focus on other jobs. This has left me feeling unproductive and even more frustrated at times. Recently, when I experienced a spell of difficulty, my husband suggested I find a really simple project to work on and led me to an old Cath Kidston book called Stitch. The book focuses on cross stitch and needlepoint designs, which by their nature, are simple, repetitive and rewarding to do. The book came with the materials to make a little zip pouch with a cross stitch design on the front, using soluble canvas and I gave it a go and managed to complete it in a couple of evenings. It was the perfect project to do because it didn't require any thinking. All I had to do was follow the simple instructions and along with the lovely, bright colours in the kit, it lifted me out of a creative rut and got me ready to sew again. Using soluble canvas was a lot of fun. The stitches turned out surprisingly neat so now I'm thinking of lots of other things that might need a bit of cross stitch on them to give me an excuse to do some more!
So if you ever find yourself stuck in a place where you feel you have lost your creative mojo, I suggest trying a really simple project to lift you out of it. If you have any other ideas for how to break out of creative block then please leave them in the comments. Happy sewing!