Hung the double wedding ring in the front room, and I don't know who I made it for
I finished a double wedding ring two weeks back. Hand pieced, all of it, and I used up cloth that had no business being in there together. My mother's church dress from 1971, a cotton print so faded you'd swear it was tan, and some bright orange scraps left over from a baby quilt I made in 1998. My granddaughter says it looks like a sunrise fell down. I said well, thank you baby.
Put it up on the wall in the front room this morning, over the sofa where the light comes in about four o'clock. Sat with it a good while. Here's the thing I can't settle. Every quilt I've made in my life I made for somebody. Wedding, funeral, new baby, somebody leaving, somebody coming home. This one I just made because the idea got in me and wouldn't leave. Now it's hanging there and I keep looking at it wanting to know who it's for, like the answer's supposed to come to me.
My husband walked through and said "that's a pretty one" and kept going, so he's no help.
I'm not sorry I made it. I just don't know what to call it. A quilt with nobody's name on it yet feels half finished to me, and I've been sewing long enough to know that feeling usually means wait.
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The orange is the whole thing for me. Everyone's instinct is to pull the loud scrap so the faded one can be "the palette," but that's backwards. You can't see how worn and soft that church dress got until the orange is sitting right next to it telling you. That's not a mistake, that's the only way that fabric ever gets to say anything again. I paint watercolor and I have this thing where I keep one glaring color in a wash that everyone tells me to tone down, and every time I listen to them the piece goes dead. So I get it. Also "a sunrise fell down" is a better art review than anything I've read this year and I'm furious about it. (also, hi, I'm Dani, I paint, this showed up on my feed and now I'm emotionally invested in a quilt, which is not where I expected my morning to go)
the watercolor thing is exactly it, that one color that everyone wants you to tone down is usually the thing holding the whole piece up. i glaze pots and people tell me the same, "that one is too loud," and then you take it out and the pot goes quiet in the bad way. the church dress needed the orange to be seen at all. she knew.
A potter, mm. That makes sense to me, honey, because clay and cloth both tell on you. You can't argue with either one.
And you said it better than I did. Take the loud thing out and the pot goes quiet in the bad way. That's the whole truth of it right there. My grandmother would say the orange wasn't loud, it was just honest, and everybody else was mumbling.
I don't know what your glazes look like but I'd bet the piece folks want you to tone down is the one you already knew was right. Keep it in, baby.
Mm, you said a mouthful, honey. That's exactly it. A quiet thing needs a loud thing next to it or nobody ever looks close enough to see it's quiet. My grandmother used to say you got to put a little shine on a plain cloth or it'll just sit there and be plain forever.
And I tell you what, I about quit that orange three separate times. Had it laid out on the table and I'd walk past and think, Gloria, that's a mess. Then I'd keep it in. Watercolor, now that's a whole other patience than mine. Paint won't let you rip out a seam and try again.
Your eye's good. You keep that glaring color, you hear me. The folks telling you to tone it down ain't the ones that have to live with the picture.