So, am I a quilter yet?

Ah ha! I figured out when and how to use the chain piecing method that I've read about so much! I figure this method is good only when you have a bunch of like-kind things to piece together, when you're making sets of something. Whoo Hoo! I'm beginning to understand some of this stuff I've read about for so long! Does that make me a quilter? (How fun!)

These pieces, while still on their chain of thread, remind me of prayer flags used by some religious traditions. Well, that's fitting. I'll just consider each of these little flags a prayer when I cut them apart and press them. That's a good thing because this quilt is for a very special fellow.


I also used another technique I've read about, but never used, to make these 9-patch blocks. I sewed lengths of the fabric together and then vertically cut the size I needed. I think I'm catching on.

The good news is that the blocks for this quilt are simple enough that I think I just might have the main body of the top put together by next week. Can't believe it.

The idea for this quilt all started with the black fabric. It looks celestial to me, something that might cause the imagination to wander off for a while. It looks like a nighttime sky. I chose the subsequent fabrics thinking of gazing into the skies at night, pondering the universe.

As I put the first two patches together, the rest of the quilt becomes clearer to me. I need more elements to complete the picture, and those elements seem to be something from the solar system. Lauren is doing some Internet looking for me in hopes of finding something we can use to stimulate our creation of an artistic rendition of the universe, in applique, to put against this background. I haven't appliqued before, so that will be another new adventure for me (and that's one of my goals with each quilt I make).

Here's a quote I discovered in the November/December Discipleship Journal:

Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but rather when there is nothing more to take away."

(Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

In one of my writing groups several years ago, one of our sayings was that creativity is subtractive. That's sort of like the saying, above.

Our method was to throw it all in, and then start subtracting from what we had in hopes of coming up with the jewel we were looking for. It was a good way to thwart writer's block, and we came up with some good pieces using that method.

That's the mode I'll be using as I think about the applique elements for this quilt. I have no idea what needs to be there, and I'll only find out when I start throwing stuff on it. I think I'll use construction paper to mock up my elements, and then I can add (and take away) until it feels right to me.

The quilt now has a working name - In the Beginning... I think that describes what I felt when I first saw the black (nighttime sky) fabric.

The thought of getting to the applique point makes me want to work faster, faster faster. I'd better get back on task, right?