Confessions Of An Imperfectionist, Part 4: Hey, I Meant To Do That

Posted on December 17, 2018 by gretchenwing

WordPress tells me my last post was #500. Not paying much attention to these things, I just happened to notice, but–mazel tov, me! That milestone’s a good enough reason to carry on blah-blah-blahgging, right?

I’ve written in the past about my imperfectionism as it relates to the arts of baking, music, and quilting. This latter trait came to light big time this fall when the Mate actually commissioned me to make a quilt.

More specifically: a window quilt, something to insulate our sliding glass door in the winter months. Since we heat exclusively with firewood, blocking that giant heat sink was going to save us a lot of logs.

His request happened to coincide with a one-day workshop I took from Grace Errea, on a new method of adhesive applique. Grace’s quilts are jaw-droppingly beautiful, so I thought–aha! Here’s an opportunity to use what I’ve just learned.

Since this quilt would be blocking our view of the sunset over the water (which, admittedly, we only see between late April and September, before the sun moves south) I adapted one of Grace’s sunset patterns to place just where the sun would be. I chose my fabrics, cut out every tiny, curvy piece, applied the adhesive on the back, ironed the whole thing, and…

Voila? Non. Not quite. See, I had been taught to sandwich my pattern with tin foil before ironing, so’s not to get the adhesive on my iron. But I must have missed the part where Grace specificied which side of the tin foil to place next to the fabric. I chose the dull side. I chose wrong. It stuck.

Since I wasn’t planning on blogging about this topic, I did not take pictures of the resulting disaster. You’ll just have to imagine me peeling miniscule strips of tin foil from the back of my painstakingly-pieced pattern…each pull dislodging the pieces from the adhesive I’d so carefully applied.

When at last all the horrible silver stuff was gone and it came time to sew, of course I found most of the edges of each fabric strip were now misaligned. So not only did I have to try to re-align them while sewing by machine–which I do not recommend if you enjoy all your fingers–I actually had to do quite a bit of hand-sewing to repair gaps the machine could not accommodate.

The result was a wrinkly mess.

Or was it? Here’s where my Imperfectionism came to the rescue. “Those aren’t wrinkles, those are texture,” it said. “Nature’s not two-dimensional! All those rucks just make your scene look more real.”

Go ahead. Look closely. Sigh.

Thanks, Imperfectionism. You’re the best friend I’ve got.

All those wrinkles? Meant to do that. Yup.

The light wasn’t great when we set up our window-quilt, so I only took close-ups. You’ll have to imagine what the whole thing looks like–and now, of course, it’s partially obscured by our Christmas tree. Probably just as well.

But y’know, when you step back…it’s not so bad.

But I’m still proud of my imperfect sunset–or rather, proud of myself for not tossing the whole thing into the garbage! Besides bringing a huge ray of brightness into our winter lives, it’s a darn good metaphor.

Confessions of an Imperfectionist, Part II

Posted on October 16, 2014 by gretchenwing

I have finished another landscape quilt, and I’m bursting with pride. Please, look at my pictures! But don’t look too close.

“The Enchantments”–based on my Happy Place in the central Cascades.

Detail of the bottom. I like to have the picture overflow out of the border.

A look at the variety of stitching on the back. I try to match the quilting with the picture.

About a year and a half ago, I blogged about my imperfectionism as it relates to quilts. Here’s what I said:

I’m a lousy carpenter. So I never thought I’d make it as a quilter either, and I never tried. Till I discovered landscape quilts.

Landscape quilting is just what it sounds like: you create a landscape, like a painter, substituting appliqued cloth for paint. The effect can be as realistic or impressionistic as you choose. Me, I’m all about the impressionism. Who cares if that flower has eight petals in real life? On my quilt, it gets five, and it’s still pretty.

Nice and sloppy, just like nature.Another way landscape quilting is like impressionist painting is in its wonderful, inherent sloppiness. Who cares if my stitches are uneven, or if I miss an edge here or there which might fray? Nature’s full of ragged edges, weird curves, asymmetry. It’s a gorgeous slop-fest out there! Too much precision = unnatural-looking landscape…or so says I.

Am I making a virtue of necessity? Cheering myself up for being lazy, not to mention bad at arithmetic?

You betcha. But hey: I’m quilting, aren’t I?

Now, a year and a half later, my quilts are no less imperfect. Or no more perfect. And I’m still okay with that…in quilts. But in writing? Good enough has never been good enough. That’s why I write draft after draft, that’s why I’m still re-re-re-re-re-revising Headwinds even when it’s in its final proofs.

And lo and behold, with my next community concert looming in a week and a half, I’m starting to apply that perfectionism to musical performance.

You: “What do you mean, starting to? You mean you’ve been performing up till now without caring how good you are?”

Me: “Nnnnyeah….well…not exactly. See, when I first got onstage, it was really kind of a lark. I didn’t think of myself as a “real” performer. So what if I couldn’t nail the hard chords? Isn’t that what the other musicians were there for–to cover for me while I distracted the audience with my singing?”

You: “You’re really buying this?”

Me: “Well…the alternative was to practice a WHOLE LOT more than I wanted to. So…yeah.”

You: “Wow.”

Me: “I know, right? I sat on a stool for my performances because I’d never used a strap with my guitar and I didn’t want to learn. I used a music stand in case I forgot the words or chords. I glanced at my fingers all the time, even when that meant singing away from the mike.”

You: “So is there something you’d like to say to your audiences now?”

Me: “I’m SORRY! I’ve upped my standards. Come to my concert on October 26th and you’ll see.”

You: “Yeah. But you still could have brushed your hair for the promo poster.”

Me: ***sigh…***

OK, all you fellow imperfectionists: where do you draw YOUR line? Where do you let yourself slide, and where do you NEVER let yourself slide? Are you trying to work on sliding less, or sliding more? I am very interested to hear.

Imperfectionists Unite!

Posted on May 5, 2013 by gretchenwing

SO not me. (courtesy normanack, flikr commons)

I have started making quilts. But I am careful NOT to tell people I’m a quilter.

Quilters choose patterns, or design their own. Quilters pay careful attention to color contrasts. Quilters cut cloth into little tiny pieces. Quilters MEASURE the heck out of those pieces as they stitch ’em together. Then they measure some more, because, to quilters, like carpenters, precision is everything.

I’m a lousy carpenter. So I never thought I’d make it as a quilter either, and I never tried. Till I discovered landscape quilts.

Landscape quilting is just what it sounds like: you create a landscape, like a painter, substituting appliqued cloth for paint. The effect can be as realistic or impressionistic as you choose. Me, I’m all about the impressionism. Who cares if that flower has eight petals in real life? On my quilt, it gets five, and it’s still pretty.

…or four petals. Who’s counting?

Another way landscape quilting is like impressionist painting is in its wonderful, inherent sloppiness. Who cares if my stitches are uneven, or if I miss an edge here or there which might fray? Nature’s full of ragged edges, weird curves, asymmetry. It’s a gorgeous slop-fest out there! Too much precision = unnatural-looking landscape…or so says I.

Nice and sloppy, just like nature.

Am I making a virtue of necessity? Cheering myself up for being lazy, not to mention bad at arithmetic?

You betcha. But hey: I’m quilting, aren’t I?

Isn’t it gorgeous?

THIS is what I’m shooting for (someday!) These three come from Nancy Zieman and Natalie Sewell’s book, The Art of Landscape Quilting.

Yup, it’s all cloth!

I’ll never be this good, but I can dream, right?

So what’s your version of landscape quilting? What’s something you have NO patience for, but have found yourself a better way around? Maybe you’ve discovered an ingenious way never to empty the cat box? Or a recipe for croissants that doesn’t involve sticking the dough back into the fridge every half-hour? Don’t you feel smart? Let me hear from you!