Tuesday, August 2, 2011

A gross of geese



Yep, 144 of them to be exact.

(Each of those piles above contains four geese. I used this tutorial for piecing flying geese four at a time, and it is GENIUS. Seriously, I cannot imagine what I would have done if I'd had to piece them all individually and sew all those seams on the bias.)

Sewing these made me think a lot about muscle memory and how practice really does make perfect when it comes to making things with your hands. That's fascinating to me. I started analyzing some of it--the way I learned exactly how far to put the needle into the fabric in order to avoid the fabric pulling once I started sewing; or the paradoxical insight that watching the needle wouldn't give me an accurate seam, I had to just focus on a tiny corner of the presser foot instead. But there's more, I'm sure, that I haven't articulated but that my body has noticed.

I've done a lot of sewing over the past couple of weeks (not just these geese, but a couple other projects that I'll share in a bit), and I can see that I've gotten a lot more skilled, which mostly means faster and more precise with my seams. It's really glorious.

Next up: a quartet of log cabins!

3 comments:

  1. Love those colors, can't wait to see it!

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  2. Thanks Darcy! I can't wait to finish it so I can show it off! I almost wrote sew it off...yea, quilting induced craziness alright.

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  3. oh goodness, lovely. That splotch of red makes my heart sing.

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