I cannot talk here about the horribly sad events in Japan, but I know that they mean that we all have reached a turning point.
This site here is about my quilting work, and so I write about a turning point I have experienced while working on this quilt top:
I finished this quilt top today. It might not be that obvious, but it started as an experiment with lots of pure improvisation, with squares about the size of my hand, ... using no exact measurements or templates. Some squares consist of lots of little pieces, which are arranged irregularly also. To make ends meet here in the corners of the squares was sometimes too much of a difficult task, so I finally added some well measured pieces as well, squares and strips all the same size, just to reach firm land again!!
I produced one vertical strip after the other, and as you can possibly see: the turning point was after I finished the vertical strip in the middle. That strip exhausted me so much that I knew I had to change the concept. The two vertical strips following to the left hand side then are arranged in a much more regular way.
Maybe some of you think I should have ploughed straight through, my first strips didn't look that wrong and with great effort I could have done two more. But no. I often think that this rule here is a good one for me : if I wish to be successful, I don't exhaust myself . If I am exhausted I know I'm on a road which leads to a spiral, pointing downward ultimately. I learned to stop and to let it rest (very hard for me to do sometimes). I'll come back later and change something, very often I have a fresh, different idea then.
"Produce as many ideas as possible. Try to produce unlikely ideas." says Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. I can do that best when feeling powerful, not exhausted!
Now I'm happy with my quilt top here, even if it looks a bit .... unusual, but I am glad I didn't give it up altogether.
Next things to do: I'll put the top here onto the batting (thin wool) and the reverse side (light cotton), thread that together roughly and then quilt the three layers. I also have a lovely yellow strip for the border.
I will love that piece, as I love all my quilts. I think I made 13 quilts by now (Literary Quilts not included). Each quilt reflects something personal, and whenever I give any quilts away, my best wishes go with them. I like to give quilts away as much as I like to keep some for myself!
