Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.

I’m doing more practicing for the Free Motion Quilting challenge. This is a bit of a “challenge” for me, as I am not used to just practicing without it becoming something I can use. I keep thinking about what I can turn this practice piece into……I need to get over that! It’s practice…..practice……practice…..

Now, in keeping with the video, we’ve been marbling for nearly 20 years. We look back at what we originally did and are kind of appalled at just how bad the initial pieces are. But it was fun to marble, and so we kept on and experimented with new patterns and other things to do with the fabric. This was practicing to get good. And now, with a couple of new opportunities, we are “practicing” even more, and the fabric looks amazing. And for the first time in a lot of years we are trying new patterns. In the last 50 pieces we have done, we have perfected three new patterns from the traditional.

We have a system for all the various stages, but more than everything involved in the process, we are having way more fun than we used to. We get good feedback, and I think for the first time we realize our work really is good and belongs “out there.” Funny how validation from others makes a difference!

So the Humane Society takes old bedding and sheets for cage blankets……that just might be where some of the practice pieces go………sheesh, it’s a rambling kind of day…..