Do you know the phrase, “The perfect is the enemy of the good?” That is the right phrase for my quilt project.
As I have said before, I am a beginner, so this is going to be a beginner’s quilt. I am sure that experienced quilters’ results would be very different, but I am going to learn as I go.
I had a terrific meeting with my quilter, Dr. Joan Gaither, who generously gave me her ideas and advice as she heard my ideas. I was struck by how her images were all born from fabric: she talked to me of ribbons, sashes, scarves, and flags – every image was not only meaningful, beautiful, colorful, rich in associations, but each was also always made of cloth!
My “oh no” moment came afterwards, when I realized that when she had handled and played with the fabric “bricks” I had made as models, she wanted to put the short side laying “on its side” – I turned it in her hand and she looked confused. I thought about it later and realized I had been visualizing my “bricks” all wrong! I knew the dimensions of the brick, but I was “looking” at the wrong side of it! Thinking about being a bricklayer, I would set each brick down on its largest face. That meant that looking at a finished wall from the side, I would see the side of the brick, not the largest face (that’s the top). Oh, no! I got out my cardstock and changed the sizes of my brick models. OK, that’s better!
Joan told me how I would incorporate thin batting inside each brick, folding the sides of the fabric around the batting, pressing the fabric sides around it with an iron, and setting them aside in a pile. She folded and ironed imaginary edges in the air with her deft fingers, and I saw how it would go. Home I went to get my batting. Thank you, Joan!
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