anything worth doing is worth doing badly

[truepenny]

So, matociquala and I have turned in A Reckoning of Men. I'm working on "Thirdhop Scarp," which is unwinding at a gracious and leisurely pace of its own, and just at the moment, I can't face looking at any of my drafts to revise them. Which is okay. They can sit in the corner and think about their sins for a while longer.

And, although I took issue with one thing about the Milwaukee Art Museum's quilt exhibit, that isn't the only thing I took away from it--or even, I hope, the most important. Looking at those remarkable quilts (and for another example, I point you to William Brayley's astonishing military quilt in the Victoria and Albert Museum) reminded me of two things:

1. I do truly enjoy piecing and quilting, in a slightly masochistic who thought this was a good hobby for a woman with bad eyesight and lousy fine motor control? way.

2. The point of quilting is not the finished product, although that is a glorious side-benefit. The point of quilting is the process.

I have a project I've been trying to figure out how to start for years. When I was a kid, my mom gave me a comforter with Kliban cats in sneakers walking across it. I kept and used that comforter until it began, quite literally, to unravel. Then I salvaged the cats and have been trying ever since to figure out how to make them into a quilt.

On Monday, my mother-in-law helped me figure out the best solution (largely by process of elimination), and then went with me to pick out fabric (a crazy green print, black with tiny polka-dots, and a soft patterned gray). Tuesday, I cut the fabric while listening to the Brewers play some truly crappy baseball. I may have cut badly--although I did pretty well with the cats, who are the only irreplaceable part--but I got it done. Just now, I have sewn two pieces of crazy green print fabric together to start the piecing, and like breaking a bottle of champagne over the bow of a ship, I declare this project underway.

I expect to be working on this for the next couple years at least.

Comments

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Hurray!

[kayselkiemoon.livejournal.com]

your project sounds most excellent! I love those Kliban cats. When I was little I had sheets just like that, and a pillowcase, and I believe I still have them somewhere although they do not fit my current bed. ^_^ I also have a much-loved comforter with rainbows on it that has quite a few ragged holes, but I can't give it up.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Yay!

I love quilts, but hate quilting.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

In one of the books my sister has collected over the years on quilting there was a quote from a woman to the effect that when she was a child they knew never to bother her mother when she was piecing a quilt because sh was "busy" sewing--and it wasn't until she was grown and married and had children of her own and was also making quilts that she realized this was the only way her mother ever had time of her own. I loved the subversiveness of this while also being appalled at what this said about these women's perceived right to an existence that didn't involve devoting every minute to other people.

Have fun with your cat preservation project.

[heresluck]

You started it! Yay!

And oh, Kliban cats. I love them so. Frequently mistaken for a meatloaf!

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

Have I pimped the Quilt Index (http://www.quiltindex.org/) to you? It's a great online database of twenty-some museum quilt collections. I'm not a quilter, but I enjoy wandering through it and looking at the pretty things.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Oh how cool! Thank you!

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

Certainly! I used to work for one of the museums there, and was a small part of getting our collection onto this index. Now that I'm no longer there, I occasionally go back and look for quilts I loved and knew and it makes me happy.

[zelda888.livejournal.com]

Well, there's *my* morning gone, prowling around the IL State Museum collection, browsing by date, browsing by pattern... Worse yet, I'm starting to have Ideas. Log cabin wall hangings to give at Christmas, nine patch lap quilt for my couch... And it's All Your Fault!

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

Always happy to further a quilting obsession in my own little way.

[roisindubh211.livejournal.com]

There is something delightful about someone working on a quilt while listening to a baseball game.

The point is...

[(Anonymous)]

Re: 2. The point of quilting is not the finished product, although that is a glorious side-benefit. The point of quilting is the process.

Exactly. For almost any pursuit of the heart- the point is in the process. I played piano because I liked sitting there, moving my fingers over the keys. I liked it better when I liked what I heard too, but the principle remains. I didn't like spinning (yes, spinning wool, not bicycle exercise classes) because I felt hunched and miserable. It made me want to get up and do jumping jacks in ways that the piano, or now the computer, rarely does. We like results, a well played piece, a story that satisfies, but we wouldn't do it if we didn't like the process.
Kitty (who probably over stated the case)