I Ching Modern Quilt-along: 10 ~ Continuing
Introduction
In the last segment of the I Ching Modern Quilt-along we began to translate our random castings by SEWING them into quilt blocks. This week it's more of the same. If you are CONTINUING to sew your blocks faithfully, as chance provides, then perhaps you are discovering some interesting things about yourself through this process.
Information
My I Ching process has given me more to think about than I realized. I've felt quite stuck in my creative life lately and all my throws show this... Waiting, The Well, Deciding, Coupling, The Well, Deciding, Confined.
YIKES! These are dark times!
It was very uncomfortable sewing TEN unbroken dark lines in a row. I wanted to CHEAT the process! I wanted to leave out some of the castings or to recast them. Anyone else having this urge to bypass fate?
I was also tempted to peek into my bags when pulling out my strips, or to redraw if I didn't like the first pick. I wanted to control the outcome. Instead I mustered up some integrity.
I found these small exercises of integrity to be a fantastic practice for my life. IT'S HARD! I thought...
if it's so hard for me to stick to my score as defined for something as inconsequential as an experimental quilt, then how much harder is it to support integrity in my life?
Of course I want to make my I Ching Modern Quilt beautifully, evenly, light and bright... but real flow doesn't happen like that. Flow is continuous but it is not consistent. As if to reinforce this reality, the oh-so-wise I Ching defines abundance as being "many opportunities for joy and for sorrow."
Assignment
Continue to ask the oracle questions, cast your coins, and then translate your castings into sewn blocks.
Sew your blocks in order, building rows from the bottom right corner to the top. New rows begin at the bottom and to the left of previous row, but don't sew your rows together yet.
Stick to the rules of randomness even if you are severely tempted to cheat!!! Make your quilt with integrity!
Pay attention to your resistance, or lack of resistance to the process. Do you have a strong desire to control the outcome? Or are you relieved to go with the flow no matter where it takes you? Are you somewhere in between?
Next session I'll review IRONING.
What are you learning? Please comment with any questions, discoveries, surprises, satisfactions or dissatisfaction you might have.
It's never too late to join an online quilt-along! I'll be posting new segments of the quilt-along on Mondays. Access the archive and subscribe to the RSS feed here: I Ching Modern Quilt-along. I've set up an I Ching Modern Flickr Group if you want to share images of your sketches, process, and final results.