Sometimes some of the best ideas, tackled with confidence, get to a stage where that confidence sags, uncertainty about what to do next creeps in…. and so it did, before last christmas, with this one.

I was all gung-ho up to and including several lines of quilting in the grid arrangement that so appeals to me. For some reason I assumed this composition, (a downward push or an upward surge if turned up the other way) would look just fine superimposed on and sort of interrupting the grid – but it didn’t look as good to my real eyes as it was going to in my mind’s eye.

Whether the grid wasn’t the right scale for the action trendlines, I am not sure, but anyway I rolled it up and put it away, and started another piece. In December we had visitors, and long summer holidays; but my recent return to serious work prompted me to pull it out again. Another thing was that my gallery guy, Yamandu, said he’d like to see some more horizontal pieces …. Seeing as how I had gone off this one, I did think of chopping it down… that worked marvels with another smaller piece, so why not this?

So a week ago, out it came, and I realised I was loathe to trim it down, after all. Then I pull ed out the first few lines of quilting I’d done in the grid, sprayed the fabric with a fine mist of water and pinned it up on my design board to dry – this was to restore the pristine appearance of the fabric.

Over the next few days I walked past it many times, and at last I was reminded of what it was about the composition I’d wanted to convey and had lost sight of. Suddenly yesterday it came to me, and in just an hour last evening I sat down and began some free motion machine quilting. Now I feel it is going well , and know that soon I will reach a point where any more will be overdoing it. After that, any quilting still necessary for technical/constructional purposes that seems to be outside the thrust zone, so to speak, could well be done in black, and therefore be less visible.

So, while I decide just how much more to do, and where, this piece is currently back on the wall, and I am thinking of it as “Timetracks 4” Today on one of the discussion lists I read, there is an item about someone’s crisis of confidence mid- creation, so I am posting this as an example of how I deal with something that is bothering me – I put it away for a while. Someone else said she runs a warm fragrant bath and looks at it while soaking, but that sounds a bit too intense for me, as I’d have some expectation of needing to work it out before the water gets too cold….

I have another ‘currently bundled away’ and I feel pretty certain I will throw it out soon – of course, I will salvage the basting safety pins, the batting and backing pieces before chucking the rest. Leaving a true UFO sitting around can be very inhibiting, I have found, and once in a blue moon I just have to admit one is going nowhere, and ditch it. Just as in any room in the house I dither aimlessly if the rubbish bin or waste paper basket is overflowing