Professional baseball players have a rather cruel superstition. When one of them is having a bad slump in his game, he goes out one evening, finds the most unattractive woman available, and brings her back to his room for the night. According to locker room conventional wisdom, this — um — sacrifice will end his slump and put him back on his game in no time.
This is my slump buster. It, too, could be called pretty ugly (but I am not taking it to bed with me).
When I’m having trouble getting into working, or — as now — when a project I want to do isn’t coming together properly, I piece a tiny traditional quilt top. I concentrate on precise cutting and stitching and pressing while a fluffy comedy plays in the VCR. I let my subconscious work on whatever is preventing me from doing art while the left (engineer’s) side of my brain is occupied with meticulous busy work.
The whole thing is 12″ by 15″, and it took maybe three hours this morning to make, start to finish, including the three rows I threw away because the seams weren’t consistent and points weren’t matching.
Maybe I’ll make another one this afternoon, and by then the slump should be over.
July 26th, 2006 at 8:01 am
[...] • Hand-quilting a tiny doll quilt that I sold on eBay and now must finish and ship to the new owner; [...]
July 26th, 2006 at 8:02 am
[...] • Hand-quilting a tiny doll quilt that I sold on eBay and now must finish and ship to the new owner; still working; my hands get tired quicker than they used to! [...]