A quandry

One of the high points of my trip to Houston and Quilt Festival this year was the opportunity to take a two day class with Elly Sienkiewicz, the grande dame of applique. I have admired her work for so long, and looked forward to spending some time with her.

She is a delightful teacher, gentle, calm and quiet. She clearly loves what she does. Our class project was quite ambitious, a clipper ship with a wreath of flowers. I went into the class with every intention of following Elly's processes, how else could I learn something new? While Elly did have some strategies that were new to me (especially the embellishment with the oil pastels), it didn't take long for me to realize that the basic technique was pretty much same old, same old. Luckily Elly isn't one of those hideous "my way only" teachers. On the contrary, Elly frequently repeated that each of us could feel free to use the technique that has given us the best success. Score!

 

Here is my class project so far. Since the pattern came directly from one of her books, I printed out the pattern onto Wash Away Applique Sheets before class. The masts are needle turned by hand. (See, I can do it!) It reminded me that tiny needles and even tinier stitches aren't the fun part for me. I quietly slipped over into glue basting and made terrific progress.

 

I learned some great things with the project. Elly showed us how to use Craypas (oil pastels) to add shading to our applique pieces. I love this! I've used it on the sails, and a couple of the roses. I've learned that I can glue baste teeny tiny pieces. I've fallen into creating designs that are simple and large, to make the project more accessible for beginners. Sort of instant gratification stuff. Now I am completely intrigued by getting small. Those stripes on the flag are about an eighth of an inch wide, and glue basted individually!

 

 

 

So, here's my quandary: do I finish this project? Even though I've made a space for it, I have added only two small roses, the rest was completed during class. I've always wanted to do a Baltimore Album style project, so here it is. I have been following the pattern pretty faithfully, and that has been a challenge for me. It's not yet stitched to the background (well, except for the masts), so I can move it to a new background, or recenter it, or whatever.

 

I tell my students if they have learned everything they wanted to learn from the project then feel free to toss it. Of course, if they are loving it, then have at! We just don't need anymore obligation stuff in our hobbies.

 

This is a side project from a super secret project that needs to be done in a month. I fear if I put it away it will become a permanent UFO. Help me here! Do I continue to work on it, or call it good and toss it away?