One of the (many) glories of having lost my job (three weeks ago now?) is having the time to work, re-work, and then work some more,  on a quilt.

My wise friend KR notes, “You ALWAYS go through a phase where you hate what you’re working on!”

She’s generally correct.  That phase has resulted in experimentation galore, often of the chop/chop/chop and re-arrange/re-arrange/re-arrange variation.

This week’s lesson was all about not being finished.  Areas and moments of dissatisfaction were met with little grunts of “not done” from me.  While I do not need to consider this ‘progress’ from some of the more dramatic creative cycles I’ve been through, it is noticeably DIFFERENT.

So, in preparation of this upcoming Long Island show that my wonderful cousin Ginny Mallon is curating, I pull out the large quilt made after the Indonesian Tsunami – a quilt I have YET to like – and one of the only Katrina quilts that I have not yet sold (BECAUSE IT ISN’T FINISHED!!).  Today, with the quiet fall rain pattering the leaves outside, I am finishing these quilts.

Yes, there is a theme here.

(You can visit my cousin and view her beautiful photographs here: Life in Crab Meadow – the link is always handy on my sidebar).

PS — Two Practice Notes

One — Viewing portions of a quilt on the screen often highlights flaws – AREAS not YET DONE – in a way that is expedient.  For instance, looking at the section above, it is obvious that the blue swirly night sky needs to be tacked down some more.

Two – This metallic stippling thread was loaded into the bobbin to avoid the frequent breaks that probably would result if it were the top thread.  I had already stitched the circle around the moon, and placed pins along the edge of the speckled polyester so that I would know where to stitch (since to have the bobbin thread on the top of the quilt, obviously one must be working on the backside of the quilt).