TTMF About Quilting

Quilting can become another version of Thinking Through My Fingers.  Today that was particularly true, especially since I've read some of Julie Hayward's Unreal Nature and Felix Grant's The Growlery  posts.

Today I seemed to be making mistake after mistake.  I had to remove several inches of stitches twice, and probably allowed a few to pass that should have been removed.  As I was ripped, I once more considered how quilting is an analogy for life.  My stitches were perfect on one side of the fabrics I was joining, following the line beautifully and were small, even sized, and very neat.  Then, I turned the fabric over, and Lo! they had strayed from the line by almost an eighth of an inch.  That wont do, a sixteenth or less could slip by, but these had to be removed.

I thought of how these stitches were similar to living, perfect perhaps on the outside, but straying away.  The strayed stitches will eventually cause the quilt to pucker and show their imperfection, just as the hidden straying of our lives will eventually cause pain to ourselves or someone else.  Yes, I know - that's probably a bit strange to be thinking, but honestly, those were my thoughts.  

Later, I read Ms Heyward's post about a "real writer."  I thought of what I am currently doing.  This quilt is a quilted representation of fabric weaving by Navajo artisans, each trying to represent the nature they saw around them.  So, I am at least three layers, more likely many more, from reality.  What is real here?  Are the Navajo representations of nature around them not real, or J. Michelle Watt's quilt, who tried to represent them, not real, and lastly, is my representation of a representation going to be even less real?  A quilt is not a weaving, and a weaving not the beauty of the Navajo lands.  The names given the weaving are not the gods or trees.  Any one of these, however, can evoke the other, even for someone who has never visited New Mexico or Arizona.

Artisans create for a purpose, and others of us look in amazement and see art.  Writers write, photographers capture, and quilters all apply our skills as skilfully as possible in order to do justice to the task and to what it means to us.  It isn't important that others believe the photographs need to be straightened, or trimmed.  That can be their interpretation, and however interpreted is alright, but the way the artisan did it is right also.

For me, my quilt is an analogy for many parts of life.  I've examined the various ways this is true over many blog posts.  It is one among many reasons I like to hand piece and quilt.  I seem to learn a life lesson every time I sit at the quilting table long enough to let it sink into my conscious. And, now it is time to get back to that quilting table.  There are always lessons to be learned.

Comments

[Felix]

Wonderful.

[Julie Heyward]

I read this post right after I had finished writing my own post for today which is about pianist Sviatoslav Richter.

On his Wikipedia page, Richter is quoted as saying, "Life unfolds for me like a theatre presenting a sequence of somewhat unreal sentiments; while the things of art are real to me and go straight to my heart."