Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Unexpected

I had one of those days yesterday. Not a bad day necessarily, but a day that probably happens to all of us.
I spent a good part of the day working on a project that, for most of the time, I was excited to show you all. I'm newly back to posting here, so regularity is very important as is planning. I find that knowing what, at least generally, I'm going to blog about helps to make it happen.
Anyway, long story short, once finished, I didn't really like what I had made. See, it happens to everyone, even folks who do this professionally and for a living. At that point I had a bit of a dilemma: what would I talk about?
Here too I have some basic parameters. I post about sewing, dyeing, quilting, and such. Periodically I write about inspirations that guide my work and, every once in a rare while, I chat about my life. Primarily though I blog about making stuff. That was my quandary: I didn't think I had any newly made stuff to talk about...until I started going through my images and discovered this:
A while back I was going through some old, unfinished bits and unearthed the centerpiece of what eventually became this little quilt. This wasn't really an unfinished object as I only had the dyed parts(yes, the center circle is dyed to look that way; it's only partially pieced).
I improvisationally added the border parts, machine quilted it in concentric rings from the center out, curved the edges, and bound it in a fun print from Lucie Summers first collection for Moda, Summersville.

 I even posted it to flickr, added it to my shop, sold it and then...forgot about it. And, lest you think this happened months ago, according to my computer, these images were added in the last 30 days, so overlooking them seems all the more silly.
Regardless, I'm happy to be posting about this quilt for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, it solved the issue of what I would write about and, even more essential, what images would illustrate that post. Secondly, and this is the cherry on top, I have the beginnings of at least two other quilts in this same vein and the ability to make more of these blocks. Seeing this one here on my blog inspires me to finish those up and explore this pattern in terms of dyeing and maybe even as repeat blocks in a larger quilt. It makes me look at it all with fresh eyes. And, I probably wouldn't have done that without yesterday's "failure". So, I guess, it does all work out, doesn't it?

7 comments:

MariQuilts said...

I love this piece....it's just given me another idea. I love how that works. Also I think it's great to post when things aren't turning out the way we would like....my last few weeks have been like that, all part of the process I guess.

Stefanie said...

This is probaly one of my favorite pieces of yours. I think it is ahead of it's time.

Paula said...

Beautiful. I love how the qulting adds an almost 3D effect to the piece.

Sarah @ sarahquilts.com said...

I'd love a post about the "failure" project! It happens to all of us and we could commiserate with you. :)

LucindaM said...

Seriously? this is amazing.

Molli Sparkles said...

Agreed with Sarah. Failure allows us to learn and grow (for others watching as well) and I'm sure your readers, including me, would love to see what you learned from that misstep!

Kim Barron said...

Perhaps by you explaining what you don't like about the piece we can learn a bit about how to analyze and pinpoint what makes something appealing (or not) to us. Or how to achieve what we have in mind.