The Backside

I am on Facebook. I have 299 friends, and that shifts all the time. When friends post things that I call scary stories, I tend not to read them. Its not that I am so virtuous or have a pollyanna outlook, its just that the negative things in life dampen my energy and my perception. I know that the issues are real, and that people might just be wanting others to be aware. Well, yes. I am aware that there people abusing animals, children, each other and the Earth. I vote my one vote on these issues to be counted among the others who think the way I do. I have appeared before the City Councils & City Planners here to speak & share my opinions, and have even written for local newspapers. Telling scary stories doesn't count unless the storyteller also brings a solution for improvement.

Maybe we need the backside of our experiences to cherish all the good parts of our humanity. I turned over pieces that were machine appliqued & they show a different side to the work. Loose threads, wavy lines against the solid fabric serve as examples for me to see the work, and to see what I need to do to improve on it. The front side almost hides the challenging parts because the fabrics themselves are so lovely that I am willing to overlook what might need fixing.

We have to start somewhere in going forward with our evolution of spirit. I am not sure that the opinions of others matter to me as much as how they model right use of will does. That being said, I went through the 2015 projects that are set aside by me for me to work on and pulled out these two. What is seen in these packages are really the backsides of their potential. I'll need to press the pieces again, lay them out and then figure out where I want to go with them. All the fabrics come from the estate of one of my quilting friends and are not fabrics I would have purchased. 

I had to see their potential, to touch them and find a pattern that would work for what I had. It took time. And now here they are, next at my workstation. Next for creating comfort and joy. Next to fill with love and prayers.

2014 is winding up for me even though its only August. I am not sure I want to go back and fix things that didn't work on my quilts as much as I want to take the lessons that the projects taught me and then go on to do the work better. Better with more insight, better with more attention to the details that surfaced, and better with the skills I developed.

Maybe in the end, learning from our mistakes and successes, is what we can do. We have inherited our world from all the previous generations who thought they were doing the right thing too. They created the laws, planted the crops and saved for the future as far as they could see it working. Sometimes it was scary, sometimes we wonder what they were thinking. However, now it is ours to do something with, just like the fabrics and scraps that come my way. 

I've learned how to be a scrappy quilt-maker, and there is a sort of sense of accomplishment that I feel from it. It makes me a problem-solver, someone who sees potential in everything. I know that if something comes my way that I cannot use right away, that if it is folded in with like fabrics, someday it will be the perfect piece.