BLOG 509

 

Blog 509

 And I did knuckle down and make progress this week! It was slow and steady and mainly done to the sounds and rhythms of Radio 4. I am desperate to get this project behind me so that I can do something creative again. But don’t get me wrong! This IS a creative project but, as I said in an earlier blog, once the major decisions have been made, it is all about application and slog! It gets boring to be continually repetitive and I long for the freedom to play again, to try and to fail and to try again, and to search for pastures which are challenging and new. I know I could never make things commercially, and I am in the fortunate positon of not having to, but all that repetition would be the death of me I’m sure!

This reminds me of the time when we came back from living on a remote and tiny Pacific island in the seventies. We settled in a B&B in mid Wales whilst ‘he who cares’ settled into his new job in Llandrindod Wells and until we had found a house to buy. In typical B&B fashion, we had to vacate our room by 9am so I was left on my own for the day to potter around the town of Kington (a small market town, a handful of shops and a population less than 4000).This dismal state of affairs soon propelled me towards a local trouser factory where I instantly became employed to sew waist bands and fly linings! After a short training course, I was let loose on a treadle machine and batches of 50 trouser sections were dropped by my side for me to do my part in the construction process. As you can imagine, after a tentative and careful start, I got quicker and quicker and after a couple of weeks I worked my way up to piece time rates. All the girls around me were already doing just that and they were slumped at their machines day after day, largely uncommunicative and fiercely intent on completing batch after batch. I was just getting into my rhythm when I was moved onto another section. This slowed me down considerably and I was indignant at not being allowed to work at piece time rates. I left at the end of the third week and thank goodness I did. It was scary to reflect on how easily I settled into this repetitive boring work, how obsessed I became by numbers and targets and how unaware I became of the people around me. It was a valuable lesson for me and here is my preferred repetition these days!

 

Sheers

 

Stitch

 

Soldering (claustrophobic)

 

Mask (not a pretty sight!)

 

Corners before

 

Corners after

 

 Lattice before

 

Lattice after

 

Completed (centre section)

 

Close up

 

The same repetitive process went into the outer border and corner stones, so the body of the quilt is complete and all I need to do now is decide whether I am going to lace all the pieces together or sew them on my machine. I know which will be the quickest!!

 

Outer border

 

Lacing

 

Machine stitch