Tuesday, May 17, 2011

The battle of the beleagured quilter

Job never had it as tortuous as the quiltmaker!! 
I don’t know whether it’s just me but it seems that the fabric, the machine, the thread, the needles, even the dratted pins have become  as stubbornly resistant to simple straightforward commands as the most truculent teenager testing the totally tolerant.   Every  needle suddenly has decided it’s a poker, or has the desire to become a  drill, hammering its way through the fabric.

all that glitters is not gold

And this is regardless of size, in fact some of the little ones are veritable Napoleons determined to blast through to the Moscow of the inner workings of the machine.

barewinter

The fabric is  shredding itself madly along the edges while maintaining a concrete like  substance not 3 threads away!  The thread only has to look at the oncoming drill needle to dissolve into shreds and shards of its former self, making sure to do this well within the bowels of the tension system.

Black & White,no grey 72

The pins glue themselves magnetically to everything in sight except the fabric and develop mysterious rust spots, strange kinks, blunt noses and even lose their heads!!  Then you see these rolling heads all over the carpet, but no bodies attached when you finally manage to pick them up!  And while a headless pin is awkward to use, a bodiless head is of no more value than an ice cube in Siberia. Furthermore, they jump!!  As fast as you pick them up, they’re leaping off your hand ready to wink at you from the floor “maybe I’m a pin!!, come get me!”

foggyday

The needle has developed a strange desire to push as much cloth through the needle plate as it can, rivaling the packing of carry on bags to avoid extra fees at the airport.  If not burying cloth like a demented dog with a bone, then it’s folding it into little Fortuny pleats – perhaps this is the long lost technique!

  Irons no longer smooth out the world’s creases, they’re just namby pamby, lily livered, luke warm successors of their furnace-like forebears!

actreactchimneys72

The scissors are sharing an invisibility cloak between them, except the ones that were used to test the cuttability of pins by enquiring baby engineers! 

I keep wondering how Job actually made it through, did he emerge from the whale with a finished quilt, oh no! that was Jonah!! Where are my patience and fortitude now when I need them the most?  I think it’s time for a cuppa tea, don’t you? (or maybe something stronger?)

ejyorkshad

 

 

 

And, if you have been, thanks for reading!!! Let me know if  the instruments in your life are as rebellious as mine!!

Elizabeth

10 comments:

slkunze said...

Worse'n little kids! When my tools and materials begin to be petulant, I've learned to leave them alone and go play with other toys: the spinning wheel, knitting needles or maybe gardening gloves and trowel. This also breaks the repetitive motion cycle.

PS - I really like "Bare Winter!" I like the change in imagery, and I love the shadows.

Elsie Montgomery said...

And if that were not trouble enough, normally obedient fingers fumble, eyes start playing tricks and glazing over, and my mind also "goes south" and will not work at all! Glad that we are not alone on "those days" that might be better spent cleaning toilets!

Jackie said...

You're a poet, m'dear!!

Clare Wassermann said...

hmmm looks like a Guiness - good idea

Nina Marie said...

LOL! thank goodness, God gave Jonah a second chance and Job had patience! Still many - many a-times I think - OMG why did I NOT take up pastels or watercolors?!?!?! Its that whole love/hate relationship we have with our medium. Some days I just want to pitch it all - then the realization comes in like an ole marriage and I say to myself -- "Oh hell, got 20 years in this - might as well stick it out. . . ."

Jenny Williams said...

You have the poetic pen as well as the artist's "brush" - you are blessed and thanks for giving we mortals a familiar diatribe. Fabulous!

Marianne (dagmar.eu@gmail.com) said...

Thank you for a good laugh on a otherwise grey morning! Can I add feed dogs to your list? Mine are like BA workers - they go on strike when I need them and stay down then when I don't need them they pop up like Jacks in a box and work overtime. It is Sod's law that it happens right now when I am in the middle of a project and creativity is NOT on strike.

Frances Arnold said...

Love the verbal imagery!!! I am looking forward to seeing your talk on Friday!!

Karen said...

Gee, you have had a bad day! Made me smile!

Tracy said...

Great writing!