Today the weather is rainy and windy and to me this is the best time to create-rainy weather. It is exciting because we need the moisture here in southern Idaho. I love these kind of days because it reminds me of growing up by the beach. The moisture in the air and the sound of the rain on the roof and even the wind was pretty common where I grew up.
In those days we walked to school no matter what the weather was. Of course I didn’t appreciate it when I was in high school. Those days we ratted our hair and used lots of hair spray and no matter what I did I arrived at school looking like a drowned rat.
Then there was the balmy ocean breezes that were at time strong enough to blow you off the overpasses when you walked over it.
You would never guess now that I was a very shy girl in those days and tended to be self conscious. I think this was when I started to live the perfectionist life. How I appeared to others had to perfect, or so I thought. The idea that things had to be perfect stayed with me for many, many years. When I got married it played out in a perfectly cleaned house, trying to be the perfect wife and mom and you guessed it a perfect sewer. It didn’t help when you were taught in class to do it exactly right or you ripped out till it was perfect.
Now fast forward to my art quilt journey. For years I created under the assumption that everything had to be perfect when sewing a quilt. Exact 1/4″ seems, points matching and following the pattern to a tee. Oh did I mention everything had to be hand quilted.
So when my wrists started hurting trying to hand quilt through painted fabric well something had to give, either stop quilting or switch to machine quilting. Once I let go of all of the these self imposed rules that is when I became an art quilter. To me the only thing that is perfect in quilting is the beauty of a finished quilt. Don’t get me wrong I still believe in the rules of quilting because they are the basics of quilting and you need them to work from. What I don’t agree with is when they get in the way of the creative process. For example when I started to machine quilting my quilts it opened up a whole new world of design and texture.
I still hand quilt small projects but I will often machine quilt the borders for more visible texture. All this is to say that a variety of techniques makes my art quilts “ART QUILTS”. One of the great benefits of getting rid of my perfectionist side is that I can relax and just let the art project happen. Also I become more appreciative of others peoples creations. For me being a perfectionist sometimes caused me to be critical of other peoples work. One of my great desires is to help other people be more creative especially in art quilting, and it wasn’t very productive to that goal when I was looking through the eye of the critique when helping them. Losing my critical side helps me be more open to learning opportunities through other quilters. Just about every quilt tells a story of some kind and if you look and listen it will inspire you.
Open yourself up to the beauty all around you and you will be surprised how that effects your own art quilts….Let me know if this helps you expand your horizons…
