This is how it works. One idea leads to another. As I was making my Meditation Trees, I saw in my mind another Meditation Tree. This one bigger made from fabric and sewn onto an old quilt. I couldn’t see the leaves, I still can’t, but I know they will come.
This morning I went looking for the ground for my tree. I pulled all the old quilts that people have sent me over the years from the top shelf where I keep them. I easily found what I was looking for and cut it to size.
What I didn’t see was the “Star” on one end of the piece I had cut. It would be the perfect placement for my Earth Energy Spiral. But it was a bit too close to the bottom. My first mistake and I’d hardly begun.
But it’s one of those mistakes that adds to the piece. Using old pieces of fabric there are always going to be imperfections. It’s one of the reasons they work for me. They bring something to the piece that I wouldn’t or couldn’t have.
My second mistake came when I sewed the extra piece of fabric on to the bottom the wrong way. I wanted to use the back of the quilt because the front of the quilt has some pale pink fabric on it. I considered if this mistake was fortuitous like the first, and decided the pale pink wouldn’t work.
So I got out my seam ripper and removed the stitches being carful of the old fabric which rips easily. But even this mistake had its purpose. It slowed me down, and reminded me not to get ahead of myself.
There is no hurry, I told myself, making my Meditation Tree will take the time it takes.
Once that was done, and the piece sewn on correctly, I got out my fabric paint. I did some experimenting then chose a purple to paint the quilting threads of the star. I painted it on the back of the quilt so the paint will stain the hand stitching on the front.
But it wasn’t quite right. The paint was uneven. It obscured some of the star and made other parts of it stand out too much.
I wanted to the star to be subtle enough so I could stitch a spiral over it. So I worked on it some more until I came up with something that looked just right to me.
And that’s where I left it for today. Next I will hand sew the fabric tree. That needs to be in place before I do anything else.
The purple star that I will stitch my spiral over.
