Sometimes quilting reminds me of painting a room—there's a lot of preliminary work before you get to anything interesting and when you get done you don't always like the result. And anyone who knows me knows that I'm not a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of girl. I know several teachers who prefer to learn what they're teaching on the day before the class, and sometimes I think that's not such a bad idea. Everything they learned by making the project is fresh in their minds and they're able to warn—and help—the students accordingly. But that's not me. I'm the one who makes 3 samples just to make sure that I find all the pitfalls. I want to know about any problems I might encounter ahead of time. I must admit, however, that this technique doesn't always work, as I do draw the line at intentionally sewing as imprecisely as some of my students!
I often wonder why I'm so enamored of quilting when there are so many individual aspects of it that I don't love, or even like. From step one: I love fabric and combining it, which could be why I have so much extra fabric—but that was last month's blarticle. Also like figuring yardage—don't ask; I've just always loved math. Don't like washing fabric, don't like ironing it. Kind of neutral on cutting—don't love it, but don't hate it either. Like sewing anything and love sewing the preliminary pieces into a block or column. Love seeing the finished top. Don't love the quilting, hate the binding and usually skip a label altogether. Love seeing a finished product. So by my count I love or like 6 out of 12 aspects of quilting and 2 of those are just looking at something. (This proportion of positive to negative might also explain the 1-quilt phenomenon—individuals who make one quilt, then never touch a sewing machine again except to hem their kids' jeans. Of course, most of us are unable to relate to this experience since we know we'll never live long enough to make all the quilts that exist in our imaginations.)
So do I actually survive on so little positive reinforcement? Or is the payoff from the parts I do like so big that it makes up for the others? Apparently yes to both, because I keep quilting, and we're not talking just now and then. Maybe it's better to ask the questions than to answer them—if I really consider how many aspectss of quilting I don't like, I'm not sure I'd still want to do it! Or maybe it's just me—maybe everyone else loves the ironing, or at least the cutting. Either way, it's evident that in quilting there's a lot of preparation before you get to the good stuff.
But as important as preparation is, it's also easy to over organize. It wasn't until I was in my thirties that I realized how much time I was blowing by doing things too far ahead of time. Prime example: the very first quilt class I decided to teach, in the mid-1980's. I spent weeks making samples, writing a handout, thinking about how I would teach the class. Well, no one signed up, so the results of that effort were never used. The time I had spent in preparation was gone forever. Except maybe I did recover some of that time, because I learned a lot about how to prepare for teaching a class even though I never taught that particular class. All that time turned out to be part of the advance preparation for every other class I've taught, though I did learn not to start quite so far ahead of time!
Similarly, a friend was recently lamenting that she had spent a day unraveling a design problem, only to have a much simpler solution occur to her while she was lying in bed. She was annoyed at the time she had wasted, but maybe her "wasted" time was all part of a process—a necessary step along the often-rocky road to finding that simpler solution. I will admit the possibility that individuals exist who can easily omit the interim steps to pounce upon that best resolution first, but I'm convinced that most of us go through this same sorting process of trial and error, including many blind alleys and dead ends, before we find the best way of doing almost anything. But I no longer think of that procedure as wasted time—it's just another part of the preparation.
So as much as I envy the person who can make the project on Tuesday and teach the class on Wednesday, I don't think I want to become that person. I've finally realized that I actually like preparing ahead of time—doing so gives me time to find flaws in the process and makes me less nervous about telling others to follow my example. I guess it's the quilting equivalent of removing the wall plates and cutting in the edges before you paint the room.
© 2011 Jane Hardy Miller
Comments
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Posted by Adrienne on August 26th, 2011 at 3:05 a.m.I am a fly by the seat of my pants person. I hate washing fabric because it takes too much time. I have to make myself read pattern instructions ahead of starting because I want to start RIGHT NOW! I stay up all night sewing so I can finish a project with no worries and just cup after cup of hot tea and then proceed to drag all day after my toddler. But I get a lot of satisfaction from sewing something even if I hit all the pitfalls twice. And I really appreciate prepared people like you that help the crazy people like me. Good blog post.
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Posted by Margo on August 24th, 2011 at 10:01 a.m.I'm no good at math, so I think about John Flynn's no-fail formula for figuring yardage so you will always have enough. He says to mathematically figure how much fabric you will need, double it and add a yard!! LOL!! I wish!
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Posted by Denise Scalon on August 24th, 2011 at 8:48 a.m.If you can wait for snail mail I can do the labels for you...
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Posted by Jean Romack on August 24th, 2011 at 7:46 a.m.Good blarticle. Love the love hate thing. True on many points. My biggest hate, figuring yardage. Never was good with math.