Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Confidence and Creativity

So, tell me if this ever happens to you: you're working on a project, but you come up to a point where you have a challenge. It might be that you don't have enough fabric, or nothing from your stash seems just right. It might be a part of the process that is harder (or dare I say, scarier) than the rest.

I get hung up on borders. I can think of at least 2 quilt tops that are just waiting for borders in order to be complete. One project was a big bright Yellow Brick Road that I did with batiks. It took me a long time to decide what would work best. I started putting the border together with scraps from the blocks. Then I misplaced them. And the quilt remains unfinished.

Or I have tops that are finished but I don't have the backs ready. I was going to take one of my favorite tops to a friend who is a longarm quilter, but I never got the whole thing together and there the top sits, waiting to become my masterpiece. Except at this rate, I'll never make that masterpiece in this lifetime.

Then I get afraid of doing the right thing with the quilting. I have been closely watching all you prolific quilters out in blogland. You just dive in and see how it turns out. That just puts me into a panic.

But I am getting better. I took a machine quilting class and I have, of course, been following Leah Day's blog and I have actually worked on a stack of samples. I have been pleasantly surprised that I can produce a usable product. I have learned so much in the last 6 months.

So, last week, I took a long skinny table runner that I originally pieced as a practice quilting project. And in no time at all, I find myself done and binding it. I even kind of cheated. Sometimes I just like to bring my backing fabric around to the front to bind things if they're not something that will get heavy use. But this made the project easier, because I couldn't find a satisfactory binding in my stash. And it would be sitting in a drawer waiting for the perfect binding.

So, I have made a plan. I started a Christmas quilt not very long ago. I got busy with the holidays, so I didn't get the top all put together. But this week, I got the final border on. Yeah! I have got some fabrics to piece together for the back. I'm going to work on that tonight.

I am determined to get that quilt done by the end of the month. I'm putting my personal challenge out in the open for you all to see. I am dying to do the FMQ techniques I've been working on.

So, here goes. I'm diving right in. Watch what happens.

3 comments:

  1. Well done! A goal is a much nicer feeling than a challenge - you will do it!
    Hugs - Lurline♥

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  2. Indeed - we all hit those points - I call it pondering (among other things). I doubt myself continuously, but the more you do and the more you get "outside" the "box" defined by the gurus and marketing folks, the easier it is to TRY and EXPERIMENT.

    Good luck with your challenges and goals for yourself - just don't stress TOO much in the process. This is, after all, supposed to be FUN.

    :-)

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  3. Hello,
    Well sounds like you have a plan. I spend so much time on just picking the right fabric that I lose time to sew but I have to have the right image, sometimes its obsessive, but it has to look right to me.Even with the binding, I am the same way but I did like your idea of bringing it to the front. I will have to try that sometime.
    Thanks, Maggey

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