Discouragement

Yesterday I made myself sit down and finish the straight-line quilting on the new quilt (that I talked about yesterday.) Sure enough, I was right. I don’t like it. Its not very interesting. I won’t be entering it in the contest. I was so discouraged. I started that bad thinking–“what are you doing? what made you think you were an artist? what’s the use?”

 

I left it on the design wall and headed out to the gym, not knowing whether I’d ever quilt again (haha, drama queen.) I had to stop at the post office and pick up a couple of quilts that had been returned from a small gallery showing. I opened the box and looked at them. Ahhh, a glimmer of hope. I LIKED these quilts!

Of course I felt better after my workout. Still, I might never make another worthy quilt…

When I got home, I decided to put the two little quilts on the design wall to enjoy them for a bit. And then I had the idea to put some more quilts up there. I cleared all the works-in-progress off the wall, and put up my own little quilt show. Wow, look at all those quilts I’ve made THAT I LIKE. And that quilt you don’t like–it isn’t such a bad little quilt. It just needs a little help (like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree.)

I’ll be back in the studio today, just sewing a couple of pieces of fabric together…

The Value of Journals

I am a journaler. I’ve got the journal collection to prove it. Mostly they are journals of my spiritual life, with some daily rubbish musings thrown in for good measure. When I started quilting, I started doodling designs. And when I started the housetop quilt series, where I combined God’s word with my quilts, my journals overlapped. I take my daily spiritual journal to church to take sermon notes, and more often than not, there is a quilt idea in there–a verse or a new theme I can explore, or a beginning doodle design. Sometimes I have the start of an idea already in there, and it gets filled out while I listen to the sermon. Sometimes I go to a quilt seminar, and I have another journal or notebook with me, and a new idea gets started in there. That’s the trouble. I have a lot of journals. More than one going at one time. And they all have ideas in them. Oh well. As long as I can find them when inspiration hits, I guess that’s what counts.

So here’s an idea progression. I actually had to find three journals to see the evolution of this idea that I wanted to share with you.

Remember the little 7X10 quilt I did in January? I liked that quilt. So I played around with different ways to include a cross and a circle in the same quilt.

Then, when I was at the Ricky Tims’ Quilt Seminar, I was doodling. I had done this once before, and I really liked it. The idea was to stitch different sized squares and make a feather that would just fit within the confines of that square. I was having so much fun drawing these little feathers that it was very hard for me to make the decision to put the cross-hatch designs into the drawing. Once I did, I loved it.

Then I was at a conference called Intersection of Faith and Art. Again, a lot of lectures, so I had ANOTHER journal with me. And I drew the design with the circle behind it. I liked it!

And then I noticed that there was a contest online. I could do this design on this hand-dyed fabric. Lovely. I’ve been working very steadily on this quilt (its 26X32.) I’m about 3/4 done, and now I don’t like it. The contest deadline looms. If there wasn’t a deadline, I would take a break and think about what needed to be done to make it better. So now I have to decide whether to abandon the contest, or to finish it as is, and enter.

Either way, I do need to finish the quilting that I have started. Yesterday I took a break from it. I did not make one stitch on it. But today I will get back to it. Who knows? Maybe when its finished I will like it again.

Etsy!!!

I did it! I made it a goal to add my two new quilts to Etsy. The first one took forever, and was rather painful. The second one was a snap.

These two quilts were so fun to do, and really got me back on track, working consistently in the studio. Unlike what I do many times (finish a top and then put it away to “think” about it) I decided I needed to quilt these, finish the edges, AND put the words on them. In other words, COMPLETE them! What a blast. And then as I was completing them, I thought, why not challenge myself to list them on Etsy, as this seems to have been built up into a near paranoia in my mind.

Done, and done! Wow, that feels good.

The Eyes of the Lord:

Close-ups:

 

And, in The Signature of Jesus series (because a cross appeared in my ‘improvisational’ work):

Close-ups:

You can see them in my Etsy shop by clicking here.

Back at it!

Saturday I felt good enough (caught a cold at the end of my trip) to try to get back in the swing of spending a day in the studio. I was having trouble starting work again in my brand new space–you know, the inevitable messiness of a new project.

So I started out small, with an orphan block and a few solids I had left on the table before I left on my trip (remember, I made a little travel quilt to take with me.) And pretty soon I came up with this little composition that I really liked.

There were still some bright solid scraps left on the table, and I was feeling pretty good about my accomplishment, so I thought I’d go ahead and make one more little quilt top. I went into my bin of solids to add a few colors, and pretty soon I noticed that I was choosing much quieter, more subdued colors. So I decided to just go with that. I wanted to make some smaller pieces. I made four, and then found a bit of a pale print to frame them, and I thought I was done.

But the longer I looked at it, I realized it needed a little something more. So the next day I just took the scraps of the same colors and started adding them onto the sides.

I really liked this composition too! So much so that I decided I needed to go ahead and quilt it today.

(close-up of the quilting)

SO! MUCH! FUN!

And best of all? Look–my sewing table is still clear, waiting for the next project!

 

Maybe with the additional space I’ll actually be able to start a new habit of putting things away when I’m done with them. Well, I can dream, can’t I?

P.S. Here is a shot of the design wall in place. That dark piece is one of Ricky Tims’ hand-dyes. I have it up there auditioning for a big project I have in mind.