The Value of "Meh."

This is an updated version of a post I wrote back in 2013 about Julie wrestling with her quilt, See Rock City. It was my Mother's comment that spurred Julie to make major changes in the quilt, which she had thought was finished. The "Meh" story is hinted at in the book, and since the book is generating some terrific buzz, I thought it was worth retelling.


Back in November of 2013, when I was making letters for Too Much Chicken, my Mother and I had lunch together.

"That quilt of yours with the box... " she said, "the one where the words pop out of it... (The Black Box)  That's a piece of art, and deserves to hang in a museum."

Then she continued, "The one you're making now, with all the letters," she paused. "Meh."

 This is an in-progress shot of the Chicken quilt. Yes, it was kinda boring.

I laughed. "Ma, the one I'm making now with the chickens is just a silly quilt. It isn't anything close to the Box. I'm not done. I've got a lot to do still."

I really enjoyed telling the story of lunch with my Mom, both on this blog and to my colleagues at work. What was really interesting though, was the reactions. Most of them were of the "You are so lucky to have a relationship with your Mom where you can tell each other what you really think," variety.

 My Mom thought Julie's quilt, "See Rock City," was a knockout, and deserved "Best in Show."

It was true, but that wasn't what struck me.

What really struck me was the concept that many artists simply don't have anybody to give them a good critique. What's a good critique?  A good critique recognizes craftsmanship (or good drawing), design (or structure), execution (or technique.) The rules apply to these no matter what the medium. A good critique will tell you if what you've created is what you think you're looking at. Let me explain.

Sometimes you work so hard on something you can't see it. You can't see what's wrong, you're too close. You need to step back, or take a walk and look again with a fresh eye. A good crit comes from somebody else who brings a fresh eye.

Somebody who isn't tainted by being in love with the idea.

The most important thing is the crit is about the WORK, and not the PERSON. My Mom can paint, and draw. She's been making a living as a working artist for over 40 years. She knows what she's doing, and she can tell right away. She knows to consider only what she's looking AT, and not criticize or offer her opinion on what I am trying to DO, whether my concept is a good idea or not.

We know that juries or judges don't care how much work you put into it, or how hard you tried to come close to the idea you had in mind. If the artwork doesn't say it on its own, there's not much else that can help it. A good critique can help you know if the artwork (or quilt) says what you WANT it to say, or if it doesn't. A good crit tells you what is working, and what isn't. What isn't? Maybe something is taking attention away from the main idea. Maybe some elements are competing with each other. Remember, a good piece of art is one where all the elements convey the main idea TOGETHER.

We also know the difference between what we like (subjective) and what we're looking at (objective.)  I am not interested in making traditional quilts (subjective), but I can tell a really good one from a mediocre one (objective.)

This is what my Mother looked at and said, "Meh."

 
The subjective is what the "Meh" came from that day. My Mom simply loves color, and a mostly grey chicken quilt just doesn't float her boat. (Meh!)

But "Meh" can also mean, "It's not as good as it could be." or, "It's just so-so."  It could be a good idea and poor execution, or some variation of "good start, lost energy, direction..." whatever.
  

 My Mom thinks this could be an award-winning quilt and deserves to hang in a museum.

Regular readers know I'm always after the emotional response. I want you to look at my quilts and say "WOW."  The Black Box does that. If you followed along my journey of making that quilt, you know there were times when it just didn't have that punch, and I set it aside for a while to regroup.

"Meh" isn't necessarily a BAD thing. "Meh" can simply mean, "I've seen it a million times before, it's pretty, but it's boring." If you like making pretty and same-old-same-old, that's OK. It's not for me. Which is not to say making lovely quilts is a bad thing. There are a lot of truly beautiful quilts out there. Hell, I make pretty quilts too, in between the "Arty" ones. They are different, and they have different audiences.

When my Mom looks at one of my "pretty" quilts (Sunshine, Exquisite, Rainbow Baby) and says "It's nice," in a rather bored tone, I know what she means, and I'm not offended. (For the record, my Mom loves the Red Sticks quilt, and the Sunburst Rainbow.)


The "Meh" can also be a swift kick in the ass. It's a "Look, it's okay, but you can do better than that." It's a call to action. It's a "What happened, did you lose your nerve?" or a "Is that it? You're stopping there?"

Want proof? When my Mom saw the Barns quilt when Julie first put the blocks together, do you know what she said?

"Meh."




Yup. I had had my own reservations, so I called Julie and told her. Julie had been having second thoughts on her own, so she took the quilt apart, removing the dark blue border around each barn, and then went into her studio and made it better. The result is the second photo in this post.

We learn best not by the things we do RIGHT, but from the things we do WRONG and if we're paying attention... by the things that elicit the "Meh."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

By the way, a few days later I told Julie what my Mother said about the Chicken quilt in progress ("Meh"). I told her my job was to change my Mother's opinion from "Meh" to "Magnificent."

"You're not worried about doing that are you?" Julie asked.

"Too Much Chicken" finished.

"Hell no," I replied.

When I showed my Mother the finished quilt, "Too Much Chicken," she loved it. "I love the way you used the colors," she said. 

I laughed, "Ma, four months ago you hated the colors."

"Yeah I know."

Don't let a "Meh" stop you in your tracks. Use it to push from "Meh" to "Magnificent."

The Black Box is Going to AQS Syracuse!

Woo Hoo! My quilt, The Black Box, is going to the AQS show in Syracuse NY, which will be from July 29 to August 1, 2015.

Life is 'Tweet, almost complete

Life is 'Tweet arrived in New Hampshire yesterday. Because I'll be moving in a week I won't be able to work on finishing it any time soon, but I am excited to do so.  I have to figure out what I want to do with the binding. I don't really want it to be a color, and I don't want it to be white (been there, done that), so I am thinking of mostly white with little color accents every so often, all around the quilt.  I'll try it out and decide, but in the meantime I can think about it.  Sometimes I think it's a good idea to NOT be able to work on something. It forces you to give more thought to it, and also provides the opportunity to come up with more, different, and better ideas. The first idea is generally pretty standard, and we all know I don't do "normal."  If you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

It's getting to be crunch time for the big move. I've got all the big stuff packed. I've got the contents of all cabinets, bookcases, bureaus, desks and drawers packed. I've got a travel bag ready, and have plans for what to do in each of the last days leading up to the move itself.  I don't know if I'll be posting much, but I'm not going far and I will be back soon. I promise to give you all a full report of the process! The sewing room will be one of the FIRST things I set up in the new place. I can't wait. I've been away from the sewing machine for far too long.


The Black Box quilt will be traveling to the Des Moines AQS show. If you go to the show I'd love it if you could send me a picture of yourself with the quilt.

Julie and The Black Box

This is my best pal Julie with my Black Box quilt, which is currently on exhibit at the AQS show in Chattanooga.

If you are planning to attend the show, and if you see my quilt, take a picture of yourself with it and send it to me!  And if you can't send a photo, tell me what you think of the quilt!

thanks,
Lynne

oh, and in case you don't know... my quilt is completely "free-pieced" which means it was made without patterns or templates, and it is NOT paper-pieced. If that isn't enough, I do not completely plan my quilts out in advance. I start with a half baked idea and see where it takes me.

Blogger's Quilt Festival, Spring 2014

 This is my quilt, "The Black Box." It's 55" x 81" and it is completely original, designed by me, Lynne Tyler. It is completely "free pieced," which means it was made without patterns, templates and it is NOT paper-pieced.

I wanted the brightest areas of the quilt to emanate from the box, so the only pure white in the quilt is the opening in the box and, the white and silver rays and the fallouts of the letters O, E, and B. The words OUT OF THE BOX are presented in a rainbow of colors, to emphasize the concept of creative potential.

 The idea was the box was magical, so I wanted the box to make you think of a magician's hat, but still look like an open box.

 BEFORE ideas came out of the box, the world was bland and boring, so BEFORE is dull and gray.

 Magical explosions are always accompanied by confetti, so just beyond the cloud of "OUT OF THE BOX" there is confetti blasting around. The wavy line quilting coming from the center of the quilt also gives the effect of shock waves.

I had to find a way to make the black box show up against the brown background, and tell you it was a magical box at the same time, so the box is surrounded by rays of white and metallic gold.
.
 

 Explosions, even magical ones, produce chaos and shock waves. My way of communicating that was to make "made fabric" from the background striped batik fabric.

 

 The narrow parts of the letters are 5/8" finished and the lower case letters are 4-1/4" tall. They are NOT paper-pieced. I kept the background fabric of these letters running vertical to emphasize the staid, traditional world "before" out of the box thinking.

I work for a living, and hear this phrase "think out of the box" often, and I can't stand it. I made this quilt to thumb my nose at those who are always asking for "out of the box" ideas. Ideas don't come out of the blue, they come from somewhere, usually when things get juxtaposed against something unexpected.

You can see more quilts from the online festival here:
Quilt Blogger's Festival: http://amyscreativeside.com/2014/05/16/bloggers-quilt-festival-spring-2014/

The Black Box is in the Original Design category, which can be found here:
http://amyscreativeside.com/2014/05/16/bloggers-quilt-festival-original-design-quilts/

Don't forget to vote for your favorite.

Duds, Glorious Duds!

Every word quilt I make generates lots of duds or "misfit" letters.

These are from Nine x Nine.

The letters in the lower half of this photo are the "duds" from my quilt Daft Zebras.

The only letters worth keeping in this photo were the "out of the box" ones that formed an arc above the box in The Black Box quilt.

The BOX letters on the bottom of this photo are all duds.

Now, duds aren't BAD letters, they just don't "work" with the rest of what I've made. So I set them aside. I might use them in another project, and I might even raid them for bits of fabric.

But most of my dud letters have made their way to my friend Julie.

 Back at the end of 2010 she told me I should send her my dud letters "because students need to see that the first letters they make aren't BAD and can still be used to make a beautiful quilt."

 She made this quilt, Hidden Potential, for me. I love it.  I then sent her another box of my leftover bits including some houses, stars, butterflies and other stuff.

The result was this quilt, Magic Happens, a collaboration between Julie, Chris (our fabulous long arm quilter) and me. I love this one so much it lives on my bed.

Julie and I have talked about how she takes what I consider a dud and makes magic out of it. "When I get your castoff letters, they don't have any negative associations for me," she says. "So it's easy for me to use them in something new."

Good point!  Check out what Julie made with my castoff letters from the Black Box, Red Letter Alphabet and Mashed Potato Crayons.

The letters may be mine, but the rest, Create With Abandon, is all Julie's.

The lesson, Rebecca, is that it's all in how you look at it; that inspiration, and (hidden) potential, is everywhere.

Even in the castoff bin!

The Value of "Meh."

I really enjoyed telling the story of lunch with my Mom, both on this blog and to my colleagues at work. What was really interesting though, was the reactions. Most of them were of the "You are so lucky to have a relationship with your Mom where you can tell each other what you really think," variety.

My Mom thought Julie's quilt, "See Rock City," was a knockout, and deserved "Best in Show."

This is true, and thank you all for reminding me how special our relationship really is.

But that isn't what struck me. What really struck me was the concept that many artists simply don't have anybody to give them a good critique. What's a good critique?  A good critique recognizes craftsmanship (or good drawing), design (or structure), execution (or technique.) The rules apply to these no matter what the medium. A good critique will tell you if what you've created is what you think you're looking at. Let me explain. Sometimes you work so hard on something you can't see it. You can't see what's wrong, you're too close. You need to step back, or take a walk and look again with a fresh eye. A good crit comes from somebody else, who brings the fresh eye. Somebody who isn't tainted by being in love with the idea.

The most important thing is the crit is about the WORK, and not the PERSON. My Mom can paint, and draw. She's been making a living as a working artist for over 40 years. She knows what she's doing, and she can tell right away.

We also know the difference between what we like (subjective) and what we're looking at (objective.)  I am not interested in making traditional quilts (subjective), but I can tell a really good one from a mediocre one (objective.)

The subjective is what the "Meh" came from on Saturday. My Mom simply loves color, and a mostly grey chicken quilt just doesn't float her boat. (Meh!)

But "Meh" can also mean, "It's not as good as it could be." or, "It's just so-so."  It could be a good idea and poor execution, or some variation of "good start, lost energy, direction..." whatever.

My Mom thinks this could be an award-winning quilt and deserves to hang in a museum.

 Regular readers know I'm always after the emotional response. I want you to look at my quilts and say "WOW."  The Black Box does that. If you followed along my journey of making that quilt, you know there were times when it just didn't have that punch, and I set it aside for a while to regroup.

"Meh" isn't necessarily a BAD thing. "Meh" can simply mean, "I've seen it a million times before, it's pretty, but it's boring." If you like making pretty and same-old-same-old, that's OK. It's not for me. Which is not to say making lovely quilts is a bad thing. There are a lot of truly beautiful quilts out there. Hell, I make pretty quilts too, in between the "Arty" ones. They are different, and they have different audiences.

When my Mom looks at one of my "pretty" quilts (Sunshine, Exquisite, Rainbow Baby) and says "It's nice," in a rather bored tone, I know what she means, and I'm not offended. (For the record, my Mom loves the Red Sticks quilt, and the Sunburst Rainbow.)


The "Meh" can also be a swift kick in the ass. It's a "Look, it's okay, but you can do better than that." It's a call to action. It's a "What happened, did you lose your nerve?" or a "Is that it? You're stopping there?"

Want proof? When my Mom saw the Barns quilt when Julie first put the blocks together, do you know what she said?

"Meh."





Yup. I had had my own reservations, so I called Julie and told her. Julie had been having second thoughts on her own, so she took the quilt apart, removing the dark blue border around each barn, and then went into her studio and made it better. The result is the photo at the top of this post.

We learn best not by the things we do RIGHT, but from the things we do WRONG and if we're paying attention... by the things that elicit the "Meh."

I love my Mom.

Home Sweet Home

My quilts arrived back home yesterday.

After an extended stay in Memphis with Julie, the sampler quilt, Letters From Home, is back on the wall for which it was designed. I've missed it.

The Black Box, Nine x Nine and Magic Happens are all back where they belong. (Note the space bags on the floor at the right.)

I had to unpack the two giant boxes that came back from Memphis because today is trash day, and I wanted to get the boxes into the recycle bin.  I'll tell you about the goodies Julie and Larry included later. Last night was the Project Runway finale, and I had to watch that.

I also received the fabrics I ordered for the Chicken quilt. Chris gave me a few scraps of good stuff too. I've been washing and ironing all that. I'll show you later.

I changed my mind about the backing of the Sunburst Rainbow quilt. I've selected something else, and I've also chosen the binding. You'll see.  I'll be using that gray and white zig-zag for the back of the Sliced quilt, and I think that one will have a red binding. I know where both these quilts are going.

I have to finish the Rainbow Baby quilt, and the Spools quilt. Both need binding.

And I have to clean the house. Oh well.

And I bought myself the new Kindle Paperwhite, which I love. I sent my old Kindle to Kidbean, the oldest of my "fairy nephews." His Mom reports I may hear the sonic boom of joy when it arrives at their house later today.

:-)

The Black Box, finito.

The Black Box is finished, and hanging at Quilted Threads in Henniker NH, and it looks great. Here, finally, is a good picture of it. You should be able to enlarge this photo to see the details. This quilt is completely original, designed and sewn by me, Lynne Tyler. It is completely free pieced, made without patterns, templates or paper piecing.

Like all my quilts, this one is best seen in real life. Pictures don't do it justice. At QT it's hung on a wall so you can stand right in front of it and check it out. Chris did a terrific job quilting it. You can see more of her photos of the quilt here.

I'll be teaching classes on free pieced letters and free pieced houses at Quilted Threads this summer.

The Black Box

These really aren't great pictures. The room has really crappy light, and the camera didn't flash, but it's finished, and here it is hanging in my bedroom, which is the only wall in the house big enough for it. I'll get some other photos later.

If you want to see the quilt in person, you'll have to visit Quilted Threads in Henniker NH, where it will be on display from April 6 until April 19, or you will have to attend The Quintessential Quilt 2013 in St Louis MO, where I will be teaching a workshop on Saturday October 5 and speaking Sunday October 6, 2013.

Of course, Kathy will get a private showing when she visits me later this year. Kathy visited last summer while I was working on it.



Btw, for anybody who does not know, this quilt is completely original, designed by me, Lynne Tyler. It is totally free pieced, which means it was made without patterns or templates. It was most definitely NOT paper-pieced.

The quilt was quilted by the remarkable Chris Ballard, who does the most extraordinary free-motion quilting. If you can believe it, I just tell Chris to do whatever she wants. Actually, this time I told Chris she could do whatever she wanted as long as she could guarantee me that when I revealed the quilt at QQ2013 later this year, that 200 ladies would fall off their chairs in astonishment! Did we have a good laugh about that!

Magic Fingers

I'm always asked why I do my finish binding on the FRONT of the quilt instead of the back.

Simple answer: I think it looks better. Above, is a photo of a corner of my quilt, all sewn down, by hand, on the front of the quilt. Can you see any stitches? You cannot.

Here is the corner on the back

I don't like the pucker that happens in the corners where the bulk of the fabric pivots. I like my way better, where the fabric appears to be just lying on the top of the edge.

And then there's the ego thing.

When I was in my twenties, (you know, like 30-plus years ago) I was part of an artists-in-the-park day at a local museum. It was hot as hell and I took refuge in the shade. (Everybody else took refuge at the beach.) I was hand quilting a quilt. A little old lady came by and looked at my quilts. She was looking very closely, turning the edges over and over in her hands, looking at the binding both back and the front.

"Which side of the quilt do you sew the finish binding on?" she asked.

"Oh, I do it on the back, so it doesn't show."

"I can't see any stitches. I can't see them on either side."

I reached for a quilt, flipped it over, and pulled the binding apart from the backing slightly, revealing my stitches. "See?"

She examined the quilt again.  "Can you show me how you do it?"

I didn't have anything that needed binding, and my needle was threaded with stiff white quilting thread.  "Well here, let's do this." I folded an edge of my quilt over to the back, and using my quilting thread, demonstrated my blindstitching. (If you want to know how I do it, I have instructions here.)

The quilt was dark blue. I was using stiff white thread. When I was done sewing, neither one of us could see the stitches.  The woman looked at me and smiled. "You have magic fingers."

As she walked away, I looked at my quilts. Why was I hiding my invisible stitches on the back, where they didn't make any difference? If they were truly invisible, I should show them off, on the front.

I've done it that way ever since.

And I've never forgotten the gift she gave me, "You have magic fingers."

Binding the Box

Long ago I discovered an easy way to hand sew binding on a big quilt. You need a table with a straight side, a rolling office chair and a good light. After I pin the binding, I pull it slightly off the table, so it's easy for me to hold. Then I just roll the chair along as I sew. In this way I don't have to worry about moving the quilt or getting stabbed with pins.

The Black Box Quilt will be on display at Quilted Threads for two weeks starting this Saturday, April 6th, so I've got to get the binding sewn down by the end of the week. I worked it out that I need to sew 69" an evening. Got that and a bit more done last night.

The Scariest Thing

The scariest thing about finishing up a quilt is trimming the excess backing and binding away, and making the quilt "square." What I mean by "square" is four 90-degree corners and perfectly straight sides. Since the longest straightedge I have is half the length of my quilt, I have had to resort to more devious means of getting a perfectly straight edge.

I use a piece of string. I tape it down to the floor, or table, line up the quilt, set out my 16" and 12" right triangles and pull the string taut.Then I cut along the line.  Yes it's tricky, but there's nothing worse than a wobbly edge, or a crooked one.

I was pleased with this one. I had worked very hard to make sure it was square and the two opposing sides were the same length before I sent it to Chris to be quilted. And when it came back, it was very close to "true" so it didn't need any fiddling.

I've added the binding to the back of the quilt, now all ("all!") I have to do is hand sew it down to the front.

Oh, do you want another picture of the front?

and here's another one.

This little imperfection bugs me, but damn if that wasn't the hardest thing to get right. The quilt was extremely complicated to put it all together and get it right. So much tiny stuff to line up. In the end it was more important to get the quilt to lie perfectly flat.  I figured there would be so much going on in this quilt few people would notice unless I pointed it out.  Oh well. However, it does remind me that it's important to leave the evidence of you hand in a quilt, so nobody will think it was made by a machine.  It's not perfect, but it's perfect.

Sneaky Sneak Peek Four

 You really didn't think I was going to show you the whole quilt, did you?

Sneaky Sneak Peek, Three

I am very excited about this quilt.

Happy Easter!

Sneaky Sneak Peek Two

Glittery gold metallic thread, multicolor rainbow colored thread... I am in love with this quilt.

Sneaky Sneak Peek

My Black Box quilt is quilted and now it is on its way back to me. This is a very small part of the magic Chris has done. I am beyond thrilled.

Scale

My Mom came over the other day and took a photo of me with the Black Box quilt top.  It's a good way for you to see just how big this quilt really is.  I'm five feet tall (60 inches; 152.4 cm).

Getting From "A" to "B"

When viewers look at my quilts, I am often asked "How did you come up with that idea?,  "Where did that come from?"

I often struggle with an answer, not because I don't have one, but because I am amazed that people struggle with ideas.  To me, ideas are all over the place - my problem is choosing ONE to play with.

I'll talk about getting ideas later, but for now, I want to explain what got me started with the Black Box quilt.  In other words, I want to tell you how I got from "A" to "B."

At work I often work with the Accounting Team, and frequently voucher the invoices.  I look at a LOT of invoices.  Just after the first of the year, one of our vendors changed their logo and the new logo for Index Packaging had this image of an open box.  I thought it was interesting, but didn't think much about why it attracted my attention.

Between making my unique quilts with letters and houses I make fairly straightforward quilts. (Insofar as The Red Sticks and Laughing Out Loud are "straightforward") Mostly it's just a way to relax.  Right after I started working on the Red Sticks, I wrote a blog post about getting to work. It was "Pick Up The Pencil."  Shortly afterward I was reading Twyla Tharp's book, The Creative Habit. I'd had it for years, but this time when I picked it up the title of Chapter 5 really hit me.

 A box! I thought of the logo for Index Packaging... that open box! (We get invoices from Index Packaging about once a week, so that open box registered in my brain on a regular basis.) What was different about that image was the fact the box was OPEN and you could see INSIDE! When I think of a box, I think of a package that gets delivered by the post office or UPS. I think of a brown carton, sealed up, closed. THIS BOX was OPEN, indicating things could come OUT of it!  BINGO! Two separate things - the quote and the image of the open box, now fit perfectly together.  I drew this in my sketchbook:

As soon as the idea was on paper, I knew this would be my next quilt. I didn't have the whole concept clear in my head. I knew the box would be slightly wider at the bottom, to be reminiscent of a magician's hat. I knew the words "out of the box" would be in an arc above the box. I knew the box would be black, and I knew the box should be coming out of the dark somehow. I also wanted the flaps to look like a real box.

I did not have all the answers, but I wasn't worried, because I knew that ideas get generated through the process of working. A few days later I wrote a post about the new quilt, and I've shared the process of creating and making the quilt over the last few months.

Remember though, a great idea is only an idea until you make it real. Having an idea is nice, being able to execute your idea is good, but having the confidence to keep pushing through roadblocks is vital.

The first step, the idea, will "hit" you in an AHA moment when you least expect it, but only if you've been "collecting" things that inspire you.  More on that later.

Finishing Up The Black Box

I've prepared the backing and the binding for the Black Box quilt. Here is the backing I have selected:

I bought it this past summer when I was thinking of magic and a theater as a setting for the Black Box.  It's probably not what I might have selected now, but I love the fabric, and it will be great.

For the binding, I found this:

I don't want the binding to be an edge around the quilt. I want the binding to practically disappear.

I want to make a hanging sleeve before I send the quilt to be quilted. It's nice to have everything ready to finish it up when the quilt comes back from being quilted.

Then I did this:

I cleaned the studio. I can't tell you how good this makes me feel!