Some Thoughts In Lieu of Progress

I really fell off the daily progress wagon this past week, only getting in a couple of days at the hand quilting and none at completing the piecing on the baby quilt. I'm reminding myself that an occasional break, for whatever reason, is not inherently bad as long as it doesn't become a habit. But it does mean I don't have much of my own work to share. I did run across a few things from other places I thought might amuse you or give you pause, like the color chart above. Every April Fool's Day, The Dharma Trading Company puts out a truly humorous newsletter that is so close to believable it would be easy to be taken in by it. Mixed in with "the catalog audio book", "mystery jar sale (Frankly we don't know what's in them and we're a little scared to find out!)" and "how to ruin your pool - mega marbling" was this 2020 inspired spring tones chart which I think they could probably successfully market. My favorite is dumpster fire orange!

Since I didn't finish piecing the baby quilt top, let alone piece a backing, I've not done any testing of that Warm and Natural Warm and Plush batting. I did take a close look at the packaging and was stunned to see "New - Available For A Limited Time Only!" So you may not want to wait for my appraisal of it but find a source and order some before it is gone. If there's enough positive feedback - i.e. sales - I suppose they would continue to offer it but you never can tell.

So while I was doing little on my  own "finish it" projects, I ran across a quotation from a letter Vincent van Gogh wrote to his brother that I was unfamiliar with, or if I'd seen it before, I'd forgotten about it. But it is one that made me feel a bit better about my always slow pace with my quilting and art:

"...I must carry on working in calm and serenity, as regularly and concentratedly as possible, as succinctly as possible. I’m concerned with the world only in that I have a certain obligation and duty, as it were — because I’ve walked the earth for 30 years — to leave a certain souvenir in the form of drawings or paintings in gratitude. Not done to please some movement or other, but in which an honest human feeling is expressed. Thus this work is the goal…"

And then there's this which I found on Pat Denino's blog. She and I got to know one another on the internet years ago through our interest in art quilting. Pat also spent many years as an expert seamstress in alterations which explains her scrap stash she refers to here:

 "...I thought about my scrap pile, thinking a lot of people probably feel like they're just unwanted scraps. Depression does that. But I didn't throw my scraps away. If I were God and did to people what Pat does to fabric scraps, it would go something like this: I see you. You've been hidden away long enough. Let's get you out in the fresh air, trim you up a bit, and set you in a special place with some others so that you can all shine! Whatever you might have been, whatever you thought you were, well, now you're a piece of art!"

As one who has always saved her scraps, both from the days when I made garments and then as I made quilts, I think I've always felt this way about my scraps, even if I didn't express it this way. Reading this makes me want to dive into my scraps again! But how wonderful, especially on this eve of Easter, to envision that God might think of us in the same way we think of our fabric scraps, unwilling to toss them out but more than willing to give them new life.