Art, traditional, etc.

The Feb. 4 post on Highland Line is an interesting post that addresses the pleasures of both traditional and art quilting. I do get tired of the frequent quarrels over art and traditional quilting. I've only made one baby quilt and two table runners with traditional piecing, but I will never forget the pleasure in making them, and I think Lynn Bunis addresses both the enjoyment and the boredom of the traditional methods. Someone else called the piecing "meditative," which I think is accurate. On the other hand, "Making an art quilt is almost all joy, start to finish. Trying new techniques or embellishments, adding surface design, can be very exciting. It can also be somewhat disappointing as every experiment brings the risk of not quite going the way you thought it would." I think that covers it for me - and the disappointment when it doesn't turn out can quickly be redirected and forgotten.

Another take on art quilts from Artmixter: "Perfectly pleasant people who would give all encouragement to someone making a bed quilt, seem to think that it's open season on people like me, who make wall quilts." Traditional quilters, however, also feel that art quilters are biased (and from some comments I've read, justifiably so) against their style of quilting.

I love both, but don't have the patience or skill for the most beautiful and complicated of traditional quilts. Like Lynn, my pleasure is mostly in the experimentation and like Artmixter, in the process.

Have had little spare time lately as Miss Mila requires a GREAT DEAL of attention. How so much energy can be stored in such a tiny little form amazes me - inspite of the fact that her mother was much the same. She chatters and sings, dances and plays, questions and orders (Help me! Help me! No, by myself!), charms and exhausts. She will be three at the end of May, but seems to have been here forever. She sees a picture of Amelia and insists that it is her mother... ?? Obviously, the girls resemble each other more than I realize.

Here she is in the pajamas her Aunt Amelia brought from San Franciso. Or, as she says, her Tai Chi outfit.

The cat in the background is one of the posters from The Fringe Festival in Edinburgh that Amelia gave me one Christmas. We had bought one when we were there in '98 (I think), then she ordered 3 more for my Christmas present. I love them!