Are you a Quilt Whisperer?
Do you let your quilts talk to you? Let you know what they want? What they need?
Do you let them just hang out with you for awhile? Lounging on your cutting table? Leaning casually on your design wall, watching you as you go about your day? Do you hear them occasionally trying to get your attention?
"Hey. Have you thought about pink? I'm sorta in the mood for some pink. Right here, halfway down my right side. I don't see pink on anything else that you've made lately. Might make me different. I like being different."
"Could you put down that rotary cutter for a minute and come here? We need to talk. I'm just not feeling this border. Makes me look fat."
And what about...
"Hey. Over here. No. Inside here. I'm that quilt in your brain. I'm the one that woke you up yesterday--remember? I came to you in a dream--really, I did! You woke up and were sort of excited about me, and then your kid needed your help figuring out what to wear to school and then you needed to get your coffee because we all know what you're like before caffeine and then you decided you'd really better get a load of wash in before getting ready for work then you had two back-to-back meetings right away and thousands of emails and phone calls and by the time you got home your kid needed help with her homework and you can't really remember seventh grade math very well anymore and trying to do that while getting dinner ready was a real trial and by the time you--or she--was done with her homework you crashed on the couch in front of bad sitcoms then dragged yourself up to bed and...well...you sort of forgot all about me. But I'm still here. Waiting. See that sketchpad over there? Why don't you at least make some notes about me before you forget me again. I might start taking it personally."
Quilts can actually be quite entertaining company if we just take the time to get to know them.
Excellent senses of humor.
Very understanding and patient.
But, like petulant teenagers, they can
get very pouty and annoying if we ignore what they're trying to say to us.
get very pouty and annoying if we ignore what they're trying to say to us.
I've had quilts work my very last nerve.
But that's usually because I wasn't listening in the first place.