Pushing Through Barriers

As you probably know by now, I'm taking an online class with Katie Pasquini Masopust.  oh. my. goodness.  Does that woman love to issue a challenge!!  Eight lessons, sent out every two weeks.  Not only are we challenged quiltily, we're challenged by time management.  The past two weeks have been filled with thoughts of both, as I've struggled to complete Lesson #3.

What was my barrier?  It was to be an ABSTRACT creation, within certain color and composition parameters.  You may have noticed by my sidebar of quilts:  I don't do abstract.  Or Abstract.  And especially not ABSTRACT. 

This was my first move:

 I knew I wanted a pale background, but the foreground?  What to do?  "Organic Shapes," that's what.  I cut the green fabric so that little parrots are featured in the wobbles.  But there were to be primary shapes and secondary shapes.  I wanted something vertical, so I cut some strips.

 I thought the snowflake-cut flowers were going to be in the final quilt, but no, they just didn't work.  I had a great time piecing the "negative space" of the background.  But the foreground?  The primary composition?  Not so easy.  By Saturday, I was ready to just sew it together, to meet Monday's deadline.

 

Notice that the flowers ended up as fishies?  A friend said they look like Goldfish crackers.  hahaha!!  They do, don't they?  I'd actually put the second one "tail up" because I thought it looked a bit like an ancient Greek vase shape.  However, it still reads as fish.  Funny, right?

I've already received my critique, and once again it was really encouraging.  My favorite line had to be, "I usually don't like big outer borders, but the blue of the outer border really gives everything an underwater feel so it works in this instance."

wow.

The dark green middle border is a bit messed up.  I'd forgotten that I'd cut the strips as possible vertical inserts in one of my original design attempts, and they are all different widths.  I realized that as I was sewing them on at 11pm Sunday evening, so I just went with it.  Now I'm thinking that I should go back, trim them all to the same width, and then put the outer borders back on.  If I do that, I might actually finish the piece.  whew!

With Lesson #3 down, Lesson #4 is already in my inbox.  I'm moving down this road of creativity whether I want to or not.  I can't believe how good it feels to consistently be making fabric art.  woohoo!

In the meantime, I've pieced another baby quilt, for a baby that arrived a week early.  But I'm not caught up, not by a long shot, because last night, I found out that another veterinary wife is due in 6 weeks. 

Sew faster!  Sew faster!!

Goals are good.