Marvelous Anne

Inspiration is a tricky thing. I'm definitely inspired by shapes around me. It's often something that flashes into my head without warning. When inspiration does strike, hopefully I'm in a place where I can write it down, or draw it safely. It's more annoying when I'm driving a car, or drifting off to sleep.

I'm not quite sure what tipped me off for this particular quilt. I do know that I planned it before I started on my Hey Cherri sampler quilt, and it was set aside for that bit of madness. I realized after I designed it that it reminded me of a ride at the fair, so I named it after one of my mother's fair co-workers. I've been working on it in bits and pieces over the summer, and finally sat down a finished it. It's roughly twin sized.

One of the first things they told us in design school was not to criticize our own work in front of others. Our teacher told us that we had to stand behind our work, because no one else would. They also said that pointing out errors was the best way to get others to notice them, so, in essence, keep your mouth shut about any mistakes you may have made.

It's a hard mindset to get out of. I hesitate to point out things I find wrong with this quilt because of it. Quilting has a lot in common with graphic design, but it differs in that there is an element of sharing success, and commiserating over failure. Quilting is a community, rather than just a business. No one is grading me here, and there is no client to be pleased other than myself, so it would be alright to mention some pretty significant mistakes in the construction of this quilt.

Maybe I'll just let it go and remind myself to keep working on my precision and craftsmanship. All in all, I like the thing.

While I was waiting for the quilt to wash and dry, I worked on the scrap thing that is sitting on my "design wall". I think I'll sew together what I can, and wait for more scrap bits from my Project Modern quilt to round it out. It may take me making a few more quilts before I finally have enough scraps to make something resembling a twin size quilt, but that's cool. I'm in no hurry with this one.