Creative process

[kate_schaefer]

I'm making a quilt for my two-year-old great-niece (I made a quilt for my great-nephew before he was a month old, but he lives in the same state as I do, so my incentive to finish it quickly was greater).

I picked out a bunch of purple fabrics with roses and butterflies and pansies and stars and abstract patterns. The combination looked too girly, so I tossed in some fish and bugs and alligators and carrots. Some of the abstract patterns looked too muddy, so I took them out. It needed something a little more lively, so I threw in some orange and yellow for contrast. The alligators looked foolish without any zeebas, so I took them out. The butterflies really weren't doing it for me, so I cut them up into tiny abstract bits; there may be some whole butterflies on the back of the quilt when I'm done, but maybe not.

At this point, the most interesting part of the quilt was the fish, so I recentered the composition on the fish, framed with orange harlequin fabric with carrots at the corners. The whole center panel of the quilt will be five fish panels forming a ladder, with randomly pieced panels on either side.

I'm happy with it. I hope the little girl likes fish.

Comments

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

Who, I ask you, doesn't like fish? ::happy glub happy glub happy glub::

[amysisson.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see a picture, if you're so inclined.

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

The alligators looked foolish without any zeebas

Pearls before Swine for the win!

We have all the books. I was very disappointed to read in the intro to the latest collection that one of his favorite types of email to get is from married couples who tell him they speak in zeeba talk to each other. I was so hoping we were unique. Hah!

The quilt sounds good, too. Is this like cutting away all the marble that isn't the statue? Or, as Eileen Gunn once put it, cutting away all the cheese that isn't story?

[inf-matrix.livejournal.com]

But I made the mistake of telling an editor that's what I was doing, and she turned a little pale. "Cheese?" she said. "Cheese? That sounds horrible, Eileen."

"It's soft," I said.

But, ever since, it's clear that she sees me as the kind of writer who cuts the cheese.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

I love the creative process. Especially when it works like this.

[singingnettle.livejournal.com]

Sounds wonderful!