WHAT DO YOU HAVE IN MIND?

Working within a set of constraints can at first seem frustrating and limiting. When you’re stuck for an idea those constraints can be pretty useful so it turns out.

Too many options can be just as stifling as a long list of rules.

My self-imposed limits for this quilt were - use only what was in the cupboard (that was easy, hard lockdown makes fabric shopping tricky); include some curves of some description, and finish the top the same day as I started it.

Perhaps the most important constraint I decided to impose on myself was to practice mindfulness as I built the quilt top - hence the title WHAT DO YOU HAVE IN MIND? Perhaps the most important part of making this quilt, as an act of mindfulness and to embrace the stress and uncertainty of tightening COVID19 restrictions, was to embrace the imperfections and go through the process consciously deciding not to criticise myself. There are lumps and bumps and wonky seams, fabric wrong side out and not a few quilting ‘errors’ here, but at the end of the process it’s a thing I made, it’s a thing to hold, and it’s a lot of quiet lessons learned.