Wednesday, September 28, 2005

SBQ: Quitting

Have you ever just quit a project while in the midst of it? (We’re not referring to UFOs here, rather projects that you know that you’ll never work on again.) Why? What did you do with it - throw it out, give it away, put it away?
Yes. I once took a class with Maureen Appleton on silk gauze. The design was of pansies. I took the class to see if I should invest in a dazor lamp with a magnifier. I figured if I didn't like stitching that small, there was no reason to invest in the lamp. Now, I have a habit of putting the needle back through the hole when I want to take out a mistake. It's not a very good method; about half the time, the thread catches and doesn't come out and I am left with a knot. I do it to avoid rethreading the needle. (Stupid I know.) So while I was in class stitching the pansies, I tried to unstitch and the thread knotted up. Unfortunately, I couldn't see anything to get the knot out. Cutting the threads would have undoubtedly cut the silk. For a long time, I thought about shelling out for new gauze and finishing it, but then I realized that I wasn't keen on stitching those pansies. I have no idea where they've gone.

I did, however, invest in the lamp. One day I saw a table lamp with a magnifier at Pearl Arts and Crafts on a table marked "make us an offer." I offered them $20 which I figured was about 25% of the price. They took it. And to think I could have avoided that pansy class.

Now that I think of it, I'm probably never going to finish the silk embroidery flower pillow class I took in the mid90s. SRE is so yesterday. That I know is in the storage unit.

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