Murphy Visits

 

We all remember Murphy. Murphy's Law states that if anything can go wrong, it will. 

Can you see it? The quilt is all sewn up, but can you see the big glaring No-No?

Since I added a row of blocks to the left edge of the quilt, the big double sized blue block is now right smack-dab in the exact center of the quilt. 

Dammit.

There is, of course, only one thing to do, and that's rip it out. I decided I could shift the blue block to the right, and decided to do that by rotating it and the white and pink blocks to the right of it 180 degrees and sew it back in the empty space those blocks occupied. Problem was, there was a light blue block that would have sat right on top of the big blue block, so that one had to get replaced as well.

Major ARGH!

HOWEVER! I have learned that when you goof up like this there is only one thing you can do. Take a deep breath and just get to work. Fix it, and do not get emotional about it. Don't get angry, don't swear, don't grumble, and above all, don't put it off.

OK so that's done.

I like the way the center blocks are all off center, and the dark centers and the light centers kind of blink. It's fun, and I might make another one.

But I want to continue reorganizing my stash first.

OH: Here's a plug. Last year I so enjoyed Magpie Murders on PBS. They have another season this year, called Moonflower Murders. They are both murder mysteries and what makes them unique is each one is a murder mystery set in another murder mystery with many of the cast members playing dual roles - one in each. It's a clumsy way of describing a very elegant, enjoyable series. Moonflower Murders just premiered on Sunday September 15th, so if you want to watch it will be easy enough to catch up. I highly recommend both seasons.

Binding Along, and Oops!

Nobody's perfect, and that includes me. Can you see the goof in the photo above? Let me make it bigger for you.

There are two stitches that came through the front of the binding as I was hand sewing it down.

I included this photo in my tutorial about binding because sometimes we have to not take everything so damn seriously.

"Only you can decide it this is worth ripping out and doing it over." I write in the tutorial.  "I had already stitches several inches to the left of this boo-boo when I noticed it. As I get older, my vision isn't quite what it used to be, so I cut myself some slack. This quilt was intended to be a couch quilt, so I left it alone."

It's important to know what's really important and what isn't. When I went looking for this particular mistake to take a picture of it, I couldn't find it. I know some quilters say that if you can't see the mistake from a horse galloping twenty feet away then you should leave it, but that's just a bit too cavalier for me. I'm a bit fussier than that, but I do have my limits. If this quilt had been intended as a show quilt, or if I had been making it on commission, I would have removed my stitching and fixed it.

However, a very wise woman once said to me, "You're making something by hand. Always leave the evidence of your hand in your work. You don't want people thinking this was made by a machine."

I like knowing that goof is in the quilt. Maybe someday my niece will notice it and think, "Oh look, Auntie was here."

Ultimately, that's the real goal. So this "oops" moment is a little prize. A little jewel of imperfection and the ultimate evidence that a real live breathing person made that quilt.

I Goofed!

After I finished sewing the top of the Glorious quilt, I was folding it up when I noticed this:

See that red four patch diamond on the right? It was supposed to be lined up with the green one on the left.

You can see that I lined it up wrong in this photo.

Here I removed the red four path and the lettered fabric next to it and correctly placed the cream and green print next to it.

The red four patch diamond gets sewn to that diamond at the top.

Here I've pinned the two together.

Now I can sew that last seam.

Here it's all fixed.

Working on Autopilot

I've made four flimsies in the last three weeks or so, which for me is nothing short of phenomenal.

Usually I wrestle with fabric selection, struggle with size and placement, and agonize over the amount of negative space. Every single item in my word or art quilts is thought about in tremendous, sometimes agonizing, detail.

So I found it amusing last week when this quilt,

which I made with absolutely no thought or care whatsoever, drew many more comments than this one,

where I agonized over the fabric selections in each of the twelve toned blocks, and struggled with the layout.

My son and I were chatting on line, and I sent him photos of each quilt. About the Petals quilt, he said, "That's Art" and "I want it."

I laughed, and said, "that's funny, because I barely paid any attention while I was making it." That sank in, and then I said, "Maybe there's something to that."

Actually, there is.

When I was drawing and painting, one of the things that was to be avoided at all costs was having the piece look "overworked." What does overworked mean?  In a portrait, for example, you wanted the finished piece to look the person was about to move, to step out of the frame and come alive.

 An overworked portrait can make the sitter look more like a concrete sculpture than a living, breathing person. (You can practically feel this kid's shirt, touch his skin and expect him to talk back to you.)

I remember seeing an oil painting of white roses in a vase which were so exquisitely painted they looked like porcelain. They were beautiful, but they didn't look REAL. The petals didn't look thin or light. The petals didn't look like they'd move if you touched them, there was something about them that was heavy and permanent, instead of light and fragile, like real rose petals.

It's a fine line.

I've seen tons of quilts that I think are overdone, overworked and overquilted. They don't float my boat, but that's just me. It's one of the reasons why scrap quilts are so appealing. They aren't predictable, and their inherent whimsical structure makes them almost universally successful.

Something that's overworked has no magic, no verve, no lightness, and for me, no life. It's a big reason why I believe in leaving "the evidence of my hand" in all my quilts. Things that are made by machine don't have that sense of life. They are "too perfect," and static.

So how did the Petals quilt go so right? It had a number of things in its favor - the limited color palette and the finite number of blocks I had to work with, to start. Because I had made a rule for myself that I would NOT make more blocks I could by definition not make the quilt "perfect" by adding more to emphasize the pink ring or to remove the "irregular" blocks that didn't have quite the right shape. The hand cut curves helped too. Cutting those curves by hand meant I couldn't get them all to look exactly the same way, and that helped keep the pattern slightly out of kilter. Any art teacher will tell you a diagonal line creates tension and the more visual tension that's created in a piece, the more interest it will tend to have. The hot/cold color contrast also contributed.  But the biggest thing?

from searchquotes.com

The biggest thing was I left it alone. It was looking good, so I left it there. I didn't overwork it. I didn't TRY to make it PERFECT.




So how to you learn this? I can't teach you. You have to learn on your own, and you learn by paying attention every step in the process. And knowing when to walk away.



*You can click on the photos, and then double click to enlarge for more detail.