Friday, April 29, 2011

Deeper water

Nothing beckons more on a hot hot day than a pool of shimmering water. Much as I would like to jump right on in, I hesitate. More likely to sink than swim. Same with quilting. Six sandwiches but no quilting. Not yet. I'm in the pool but head out of the water and feet on the bottom.

After seven workshop weeks with Nancy Crow, I feel better about design & composition, color choices and piecing skills. Fine and good if I were only making quilt tops, but developmentally lopsided. What if I made a masterpiece today? Unlikely though that may be. I'd be totally stymied by underdeveloped techniques, a plethora of choices and a lack of confidence.  

I'm working on this lopsidedness. First: the sandwiches. Then choices: thread, quilting lines, and fmq. Where to start? Which sandwich first? Daunting challenges!

Focus and choose. I'm starting with the very first quilt top I ever made – the one that catapulted me into this quilting adventure three years ago. It's the largest one dimensionally of the six sandwiches. No heavy quilting at least. It'd be a lap quilt. But thread? Quilting lines? Walking foot or free motion? 

Just choose. Let go of perfectionism. Wabi-sabi. I'm making my way toward deeper waters.

4 comments:

  1. Another thing to practice, practice, and practice! What do you have to lose? Just do it. I have found the thread choice to be very specific to what your machine likes- and not necessarily your choice. I don't feel like struggling with the tension right now.

    Go, Go!

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  2. Annette Guerrero4/30/11, 7:19 PM

    Grasshopper - the hardest part of a thousand stitch journey is the first stitch.... Practice for a few minutes on a junk piece until you get a rhythm going. and... stop procrastinating!!! A

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  3. I am the greatest procrastinator in the planet, but I agree with Annette, once you do a few stitches the work starts to flow.
    At the moment my house excuse suits me fine and I even believe it is not procrastination... : - )
    go for it girl!!
    xx

    Ana

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  4. We often put obstacles in our own way. It doesn't have to be perfect--the journey of quilting is trying out different threads, different types of quilting, and learning each time.

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