The pile measures about 7" high. It's an interesting strata to analyze. The early pieces are on the bottom while the recent pieces are on top. There's a lot more background color in the lower layers. That's because the the early pieces were constrained--I saw the edges as a border and tried to stay away from them when designing.I remember the moment I realized that 6" x 9" was only the finished size of the piece, but that the actual image could be larger and cropped to size. My work became more interesting as I viewed the world with a new perspective--one that was no longer constrained by an arbitrary size requirement.
As I look at the pile, I can remember how proud I was during the first few days and weeks. Each morning I'd finish the piece and run upstairs to place it on the small, but growing, pile. Once or twice a week, I'd spread them out and look at them together, noting similarities in theme, design, and color. And, I have to admit, just admire the fact that I had made them all. Each piece was precious to me, whether it worked or not.
Now that I have 45 pieces, I no longer do that. As the pile has gotten bigger, the addition of one more quilt hardly impacts its size. Spreading them out now would take a lot of time and my style has changed from the first few weeks. I can always scroll through my blog to see them.
But more importantly, I've become less attached to any one piece. As I wrote yesterday, it's no longer about the product for me, instead, it's the process. After yesterday's post, my husband emailed and commented, "And, with each new piece you create, that adds to your total of art work (good or bad) so that new pieces don't seem so imposing ... what's a new piece with the hundreds you've already made, and the dozens of techniques / patterns / etc. you have at your disposal?"
I replied, "Yeah, the more I do work, the less any one piece feels precious to me. There's always tomorrow, you know."
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