Desperately Seeking

Now I have to quilt it. It was a lot of fun to feel like a choreographer as I came up with new poses for my little skeletons all around the quilt. Some are barely holding on by their fingernails, some are blithely strolling, some skip, some leap, some lie down and some plod. It gave me great pleasure to think of them as my ancestors, the innumerable, unknowable ones who came before, whose parade I will join someday.

I never like to have a simple quilting grid, especially something that comes from traditional quilting designs, because I feel that if I am going to do something completely new with the design of the quilt, I should do something completely new with the quilting. In that regard I am still deeply traditional. That is, I like to take the quilting seriously as a separate design element on the quilt, not as an element there only to complement the design of the top. I have many friends in the world of quilts who think of the quilting design as something supplementary, something more or less like a necessary evil. To me the quilting design is one more chance to put my own stamp on my quilt. I want it all original.

This one, however, is a real challenge--primarily because the white space is so undefined and open. I have not yet found the right approach. Sometimes it is good to be flummoxed, as it is only when you are desperate, devoid of ideas that you can be in the frame of mind to attempt something radical, something completely different. I am just about there. Every day I think of the possibilities and return instead to writing projects, music projects and family projects. Desperation is sure to set in soon.