Oh my stars. I actually did one of these wonky things. I can not believe it. I teach dressmaking to beginning sewists and the key word is precision or your finished garment doesn’t fit the body it was designed for. And now Sophie wants me to cut something with cuts that I DO NOT MEASURE. She wants me to PUT IT TOGETHER CROOKED and she is not too concerned if the SEAMS DON”T MATCH precisely and she doesn’t want me to TRIM IT when I am finished. I resisted this for a couple of days but then all of the positive comments on the board convinced me to try it. (After all, my goal is to do every block this year!) But if this had caused a mental breakdown on my end and I had to check in at the local “mental correction facility”, I was never going to tell any of you! I did use Sara’s strip piecing caveat and that was helpful. (And I am ignoring the fact that all of my seam allowances don’t nestle on the back!) Now, if the instructions had told me to change the width of my seam allowance, I think I would have just sat down and cried.
I’ve only been with this group for four months and I’ve never done wonky on purpose before so this simple little block was really a challenge. Here’s my first one. I’ll do a couple more while I am still enveloped in the euphoria of “See, I can do anything” mood. However, I have renamed my blocks to “The Mental Health Challenge for Really Uptight Piecers.” I’m sending encouragement to anyone else with this same little mental health challenge.
If I were to win this month, I expect I will ask a doctor for some nerve medicine to help me with the assembly but then I would sleep under the quilt, hoping the vibes from it would help me release perfectionist, play only in the sandbox tendencies!
Seriously, (all teasing aside) I like this block after giving it a try and will make several more.. It was a good way to step outside of my comfort zone and it may help me to be a bit more sympathetic when I ask students to tackle tasks they are really uncomfortable with. Smiles to all! LPB
Good for you! I mentioned trying this one before, but I will do it again, it's addictive, this not matchin' stuff ~
ReplyDelete:-}pokey
Who knew that imperfection could be such a challenge? I'm happy to see that you met the challenge and conquered it ;-)
ReplyDeleteThe first ever online swap that I hosted was for those raw edge bullseye blocks. Although my instructions said NOT to draw a perfect circle or make a temple, some of the participants did anyway ... and then, when they saw how charming the imperfect bullseyes were, they wanted me to host another swap, so they could do it again without their templates and compasses.