No Downside!

As many of you know, I went to Art School and I can draw and paint. I used to do portraits in pencil, and they were very, very realistic. I won awards, sold my work and took commissions. But "realism" is a slippery concept. Just because you can see it, doesn't mean you should include it in your artwork, because you know what? Sometimes the real thing just looks funny. The solution? You have to make it LOOK "right" even if it really isn't. In other words, you lie. Because really, that's what Art is. Art is a lie that tells the truth.

Go figure.

So what does that have to do with my Not Paper Pieced quilt?

 

This is where my quilt was yesterday. I had arranged the NOs all around the quilt like a traditional border, where the bottom of the block faces the inside of the quilt. That meant the bottom row of NOs was upside down.

And they looked dumb.

Now, "Unknown" who commented yesterday afternoon won't believe it, but I figured it out earlier in the morning before she left her comment. WHY, I had asked myself, did I have to have the bottom row of NOs upside down, when NO OTHER PART OF THE QUILT faced any other way but UP? 

The answer, of course, was "It didn't." If the quilt is meant to be looked at it one way, then the border should be readable without asking my viewers to stand on their collective head.

I still have to make a couple more NOs, (I don't like the green one to the left of the grouchy lady and I still have an empty spot to fill) but this allows me to place the NEVER at the bottom right, as the final word, which is what I really wanted.

It's really close, but it isn't done yet. The words PAPER and PIECED aren't sewn together and there is too much space between them, but I've know that for some time. The words THIS and IS have a different background than the rest of the quilt, and it's too busy. I have to remake those words with the other background. And I removed some surprise elements on the right side of the quilt, and that side needs a little something (or maybe the cat next to the word PAPER has to shift...)

I'm going to do as I usually do. Take one thing at a time, and don't get freaked out. I enjoy the problem solving and I also enjoy reading comments from readers who tell me things like, "I look at fabrics differently now, because of you," or "I am learning to be more patient when I am trying to find an arrangement that works for me, you never settle, and I am learning," or, "I learn so much from you, it's like being in an Art class," or, "I always think I know what you're going to do next, and then you go and do something different that I never thought of..." and one of my favorites, (from Julie), "You keep pushing when most of us would have run screaming out of the room..."

There is one seriously limiting factor, however: I have just over one yard left of my background fabric, which is amazing, because I started with six yards. I am going to have to be very, very careful.