Preparation

For every task we take on, there is a certain amount of time that is spent in preparation. This morning I loaded bobbins. Its so much easier to have them ready while working on the project so that I don't have to stop it and wind a new one.  These represent two projects I am working on; one will be a free motion quilt, and the other is another apron.

Prep work for quilting starts with pouring over pattern ideas in books and magazines, and reading about the tips the editors think we all might need. Its definitely a learning process. Fabric manufacturers want you to buy the latest prints, and make up the most darling samples for these patterns. A lot of people follow those directions to the letter and buy the exact fabrics. Some use up their stash. These are the quilt makers, the people who think for themselves.  

I am doing that for both projects in front of me this week, using my stash. I loved the quilt pattern I found, and imagined it with a different colorway and it is turning out gorgeous. It wasn't easy going against the directions because even though I wrote my own colors on it, every step of the pattern referred to the original ones and forced me to remember my vision. I did need to buy fabric for the quilt in order to make it work.

This kind of quilting is risky because you don't know how the project will look. I've heard you can change your mind up as you quilt to the point of basting the three layers. If you don't like how a fabric is, that's the time to change it. 

Is that so in life? We learn in school from Kindergarten to higher education how to relate to the concepts and theories from all sorts of experts. Then, after graduating from whichever training we went through, we have to live our lives in this culture and use the resources at hand. Sometimes we don't earn enough money to buy the high end products we see advertised, and must learn to make do with what we do have. Or we can give up.

Its a matter of attitude where we decide to thrive and dismiss the tendency towards being victimized by not having enough money or enough education, and of running out of resources regularly.

This is why its best to prepare, and in quilting, to load more bobbins than you think you will need.