In the brief couple of weeks at the end of one project (guild show) before ramping back up with the opportunity quilt project, I have been working out my feelings between two different “art quilts”.
The last quilt I posted about the Dresden petals offset ended up being the “sad color quilt”.
It seems strange to be working in color pallets leaning towards grey and neutral, but also cathartic.
Last I posted was an offset Dresden petal with strange circles. I actually took the design a little bit farther before I got stuck.
I started making the grey petals to complete the design and settled into the light grey petals for the bottom of the flower. Then, since my other project I was working on just beforehand was a stained glass quilt, I thought about making a “stem” out of the premade bias tape I was using for that.
And can’t some other petals pretend to be leaves since they were pretending to be flower petals,
And then, can’t some other petals pretend to be grass, and be present at the bottom of the quilt. The flower has to have something to sprout from, doesn’t it?
I have glued down the stem as it is, I am not 100% certain I like how thin it is. But perhaps it could represent the thin feelings of the weight of the heavy flower being held up by a thin feeling of support, ready to crumble at any moment, but still holding strong anyway.
During the making of this quilt, I have been spending a lot of time working through some thoughts about how I am as a friend, about how much work I am spending towards others, how much I have been putting off grieving a loss of mine from earlier in the year.
How I have thrown myself into my responsibilities, even when that doesn’t mean “work” for me this year, well this is all in addition to working and driving, and having my normal crazy hours. How much I have done for the quilt guild I am part of, and how much I feel others might be smothered by what I am doing & overdoing, and how much it feels like I have been wanting to take a step or two back, but not being able to, and how lonely it feels to see others not feel so trapped in the feelings of getting too much done.
How I have been selfish, and selfless, how I have used other people, how I have helped other people, how I have sacrificed, how I don’t have a good support if something would go wrong. How unreasonable my expectations are of myself and of others. How much can I be expecting from others if needed. How to ask for help when things are going too awry. How I don’t feel deserving of help even if I do ask. How I haven’t been “really listening” to others.
How disappointed I was in a lot of areas, even thinking back to last year when we missed seeing the “great American eclipse” due to poor weather in our area, despite being directly in the center of the path of totality.
Anyway, in the background, I was working on this quilt, giving it “life” trying to create a pleasing design even when the thoughts I was having wasn’t exactly pleasing. I was listening to someone talk about working though issues at the same time.
Something about that was comforting. I obviously still hold some of the negative feelings I thought while making the quilt, but the act of putting the negative thoughts into the quilt as dark lines, dark themes, grey themes was nice. And then the idea of making a picture of my negative thoughts and putting them behind me, shrinking them down, and giving myself a safe space. It was nice. Pleasing. Kinda “whoo-whoo” but also needed, and reminding me how things were when I was a little kid.
I have sorta stopped working on the quilt now. I made a yellow sunshine that both compliments and contradicts the dark and the grey, and I keep trying to figure out what to do wit it. I have covered it up some with a grey piece, maybe to try to put out my grief from not seeing the eclipse last year (anniversary of it was during the time I was working on this quilt).
I was thinking about “sunflowers” as this is the Sunflower State that I live in now. Maybe I could make the yellow to either represent the sun and the eclipse or the sunflowers.
But not quite sure how to do it.
Someone in a comment accidentally through autocorrect called this the Offender Eye without seeing the yellow piece. Which might be an apt name for this quilt when it is done instead of grey Dresden quilt.
I have ideas of a darker pieced border with light grey diamonds around the center of this quilt.
Currently the thing is glued down with washable glue only. I would like to get some of this stitched down. Probably not the droopy yellow sunflower part.
I did glue down the borders on each of my circles with the bias tape and boy, does it make my “circles” look much more smooth.
All the feelings for the last few months have been feeling very BIG, very overwhelming. I know my natural “anxiety state” helps drives some of these big feelings, and anticipation and grief, and a ball of cuddly old feelings. Suddenly felt like the feelings were also overwhelming. And how it would be easier to shut some of this down for the time being, with intent to explore further in the future.
But, suddenly, with the wisdom of the guy I was listening to, the shift focused onto a much brighter quilt suddenly. And then, working on the grey quilt wasn’t quite as important as it was the previous week.
Scientific Quilter 