Saturday, December 30, 2023

Are quilters more able to face failure?

Today I read a blog by author Jenn McKinlay whose topic was the importance of failure.   How will we know we've succeeded if we don't fail once in a while?

Seems to me that quilters run up against failure all the time - most of us are intimate with our seam rippers but keep at it anyway.  I have a closet full of orphan blocks to prove this - blocks too small, colors too clash-y, etc.  Yet I have not lost my enthusiasm for quilting over the last 50 years.   At show and tell and online, quilters often begin by apologizing ("it's not perfect, but...").  Every quilt has its ups and downs but generally offers a learning experience, too.

Yesterday I started working on a fabric covering for a brick salvaged from our local art center after this summer's flood.  Artists were invited to take a brick and create a piece to be raffled off.  The deadline is January 16, so I've got to get busy.   I'd been thinking about what to do and rejected several ideas as being too time-consuming (small hexies) or too difficult (appliqueing a streetscape).  I'm now weaving selvages with interesting sayings like "not suitable for children's sleepwear" onto muslin to cover the somewhat dirty brick.  I'll cut some spaces between the strips to allow the brick to show.  Watch this space...

1 comment:

Karen - Quilts...etc. said...

yes I think we are all familiar with failure for sure!!