Where the River Meets the Sea
by Linda S. Schmidt
Somewhere there’s a place where the river meets the sea,
Where crashing crystal waterfalls meet their destiny,
Where waves with wild abandon advance upon the shore,
With silken waves and shining foam, and then retreat once more.
And one day when I find that place, I’ll dance among them there
All in my fancy, seafoam dress, With ribbons in my hair.
With crystal beads around my neck, I’ll dance beneath the moon,
And THAT is where I’ll wear this dress--I’m sure I’ll find it soon.
by Linda S. Schmidt
Somewhere there’s a place where the river meets the sea,
Where crashing crystal waterfalls meet their destiny,
Where waves with wild abandon advance upon the shore,
With silken waves and shining foam, and then retreat once more.
And one day when I find that place, I’ll dance among them there
All in my fancy, seafoam dress, With ribbons in my hair.
With crystal beads around my neck, I’ll dance beneath the moon,
And THAT is where I’ll wear this dress--I’m sure I’ll find it soon.
Whenever I make a fancy outfit, people always ask me where I’m going to wear it, not understanding that I really don’t care - I just wanted to make it. Sometimes I go to do quilt talks and fashion shows at little, out-of-the-way guilds, and the program chairpeople have a hard time getting models because the members don’t own a pair of pantyhose to wear a dress with, and haven’t worn high heels since 1969. The same thing happens when I make a huge, complex quilt. People ask me where I’m going to hang it - and they don’t understand when I say “It hangs in my church for one weekend a year,” or “I’m going to exhibit it at Show,” or - worse yet - “I don’t know.” They can’t fathom that people could take all that time and effort and energy to make something they may NEVER wear, or that may never hang in the dining room, or they’ll never sell at a profit. Some people understand that it just doesn’t matter - it’s the making of the thing that counts, the thing has a life of its own, and is going to BE, come hell or high water, and nobody can stop it because it has a will of its own.
People in the real world don’t understand that quilting projects just take over. You say to yourself, “Oh, I think I’ll make a little quilt,” or “I’ll make a simple dress,” little realizing how much time and effort the project will eventually demand from you. At first, it’s simply a harmless idea, an impulse, a wisp of an notion that somehow gets horribly out of hand. I’ve been trying, lately, to figure out just when it is that a project takes over; but I suspect that you’re really never in complete control, not even at the very start. Sewing a quilt or making a garment may seem like an innocuous, charming pastime; but I have a feeling that the person making the thing is really more a vehicle of the art than the art is a vehicle of the person. You may have the illusion that you are in control, but suddenly you realize you have been the victim of a deception, for the project has been the leader all the time, and you can’t even really remember why you started it in the first place. The only excuse that comes to mind is “It seemed like such a good idea at the time…..”
For instance, I was at the ocean one day and thought it would be cool to make a dress of silk charmeuse, dyed sea greeny blue, and make an overdress of white thread to be seafoam over it, with beads to sparkle like droplets in the sunshine. Innocuous? Easy? The idea is half the battle? You bet. The vision of the dress sprung up, fullblown - all I had to do was reach right up there and pull it out of my mind’s eye. No problem. Yeah, right. It didn’t matter that I had nowhere to wear the dress, didn’t have any of the materials for it, and had no idea what pattern I would use - I just wanted to make it.
Well, I decided to make this dress as part of my ensemble for my Fairfield garment. I found a pattern that I thought would work, with a few alterations, and sent off for fabric and beads and dyes and threads and ribbons, getting more excited each time a new box came. I think it was along about when I realized that I had been sewing thread together over Solvy for about a week nonstop when I finally realized this project was going to take MUCH longer than I had envisioned, that I had started with the part of the ensemble that didn’t have any batting in it (a requirement), and that I had better get my act in gear in time to get this garment ready for its August 1 deadline. Along about the time that I counted up the empty spools of thread I had used and came up with 18,000 yards (about 10-1/4 miles), I finally realized the extent of my insanity.
Things went downhill from there. Suddenly, it was BUDGET time at work and I was working full-time instead of half-time for about three weeks. Then Sandie, the other lady in the office, went on vacation so I had to work full-time some more. Then Sandie got sick and I had to work full-time some more. Then I had to take time off to go do a talk and workshop in southern California, then I had to stop and CLEAN my house because relatives were coming to visit, and photographers were coming to photograph my husband and daughter and house for a public art project (don’t ask), and I still hadn’t started on the part of the outfit with the batting in it. Great.
I finally finished the dress and started the jacket, which took way longer than it should have, mostly because I always forget that you DO eventually have to deal with the sleeves. It also left little bits of fabric and paper trailed across my house in a path through the living room to the kitchen, then to the parlor and all the way back to the bedrooms. I worked and worked on that jacket, in between trips to the orthodontist and the grocery store, working practically full time at my day job and dealing with assorted family crises, all the while wondering how I had ever gotten myself into such a situation in the first place.
Well, I finished the jacket, but then I had to make shoes and a purse and a necklace and a bejeweled and beribboned barrette to match. Those little details only took another two weeks, and I couldn’t not make them because by now, the project was in complete, undisguised control.
It happens to you, too, doesn’t it? (Tell me it's not only me???) Say you’re making a quilt and you start with the background colors. Pretty soon, you can’t make what you had planned for the main design because the quilt has started TALKING to you, in a really loud, whiny, voice. It tells you precisely what it needs in the way of fabrics and embellishment, and lets you know in no uncertain terms EXACTLY what you should do about it. It will no longer allow you to use the shades you had intended upon, and nothing you can say or do will change its mind. It doesn’t matter that you’ve already bought or bartered for the fabric that SHOULD have been perfect for it. It doesn’t go any more, and the quilt knows it and tells you at great length about it any time you try to sneak a piece of it in there.
Along about now, you’re wondering why in the world you ever started this project, and wonder if you’re ever going to finish it this side of whatever disaster is currently supposed to destroy the world as we know it. Your children haven’t had any home-cooked food for six weeks, the dust bunnies in the corners are starting to have baby bunnies, and the power and light companies are writing less than polite notes about some payment or other they’ve been expecting for the last three weeks.
It’s okay. We all do it, concentrate on the current project at the expense of housework, errands and whatever else the world can send at us to distract us from our real work - our ART. And it just doesn’t matter if the quilt doesn’t match our living room, or if we have no place to wear the dress, because we just had to make it.
Even when I finally finished that Fairfield dress and coat and shoes and purse and necklace and earrings and got them mailed - I realized I still hadn’t learned. My daughter talked me into re-doing our bathroom the night before I had six people coming from out of state to visit overnight. I guess it really wasn’t her fault that we all wound up working from 8 a.m. Saturday straight through to 5:30 a.m. Sunday on that bathroom.
It just seemed like such a good idea at the time . . . .
People in the real world don’t understand that quilting projects just take over. You say to yourself, “Oh, I think I’ll make a little quilt,” or “I’ll make a simple dress,” little realizing how much time and effort the project will eventually demand from you. At first, it’s simply a harmless idea, an impulse, a wisp of an notion that somehow gets horribly out of hand. I’ve been trying, lately, to figure out just when it is that a project takes over; but I suspect that you’re really never in complete control, not even at the very start. Sewing a quilt or making a garment may seem like an innocuous, charming pastime; but I have a feeling that the person making the thing is really more a vehicle of the art than the art is a vehicle of the person. You may have the illusion that you are in control, but suddenly you realize you have been the victim of a deception, for the project has been the leader all the time, and you can’t even really remember why you started it in the first place. The only excuse that comes to mind is “It seemed like such a good idea at the time…..”
For instance, I was at the ocean one day and thought it would be cool to make a dress of silk charmeuse, dyed sea greeny blue, and make an overdress of white thread to be seafoam over it, with beads to sparkle like droplets in the sunshine. Innocuous? Easy? The idea is half the battle? You bet. The vision of the dress sprung up, fullblown - all I had to do was reach right up there and pull it out of my mind’s eye. No problem. Yeah, right. It didn’t matter that I had nowhere to wear the dress, didn’t have any of the materials for it, and had no idea what pattern I would use - I just wanted to make it.
Well, I decided to make this dress as part of my ensemble for my Fairfield garment. I found a pattern that I thought would work, with a few alterations, and sent off for fabric and beads and dyes and threads and ribbons, getting more excited each time a new box came. I think it was along about when I realized that I had been sewing thread together over Solvy for about a week nonstop when I finally realized this project was going to take MUCH longer than I had envisioned, that I had started with the part of the ensemble that didn’t have any batting in it (a requirement), and that I had better get my act in gear in time to get this garment ready for its August 1 deadline. Along about the time that I counted up the empty spools of thread I had used and came up with 18,000 yards (about 10-1/4 miles), I finally realized the extent of my insanity.
Things went downhill from there. Suddenly, it was BUDGET time at work and I was working full-time instead of half-time for about three weeks. Then Sandie, the other lady in the office, went on vacation so I had to work full-time some more. Then Sandie got sick and I had to work full-time some more. Then I had to take time off to go do a talk and workshop in southern California, then I had to stop and CLEAN my house because relatives were coming to visit, and photographers were coming to photograph my husband and daughter and house for a public art project (don’t ask), and I still hadn’t started on the part of the outfit with the batting in it. Great.
I finally finished the dress and started the jacket, which took way longer than it should have, mostly because I always forget that you DO eventually have to deal with the sleeves. It also left little bits of fabric and paper trailed across my house in a path through the living room to the kitchen, then to the parlor and all the way back to the bedrooms. I worked and worked on that jacket, in between trips to the orthodontist and the grocery store, working practically full time at my day job and dealing with assorted family crises, all the while wondering how I had ever gotten myself into such a situation in the first place.
Well, I finished the jacket, but then I had to make shoes and a purse and a necklace and a bejeweled and beribboned barrette to match. Those little details only took another two weeks, and I couldn’t not make them because by now, the project was in complete, undisguised control.
It happens to you, too, doesn’t it? (Tell me it's not only me???) Say you’re making a quilt and you start with the background colors. Pretty soon, you can’t make what you had planned for the main design because the quilt has started TALKING to you, in a really loud, whiny, voice. It tells you precisely what it needs in the way of fabrics and embellishment, and lets you know in no uncertain terms EXACTLY what you should do about it. It will no longer allow you to use the shades you had intended upon, and nothing you can say or do will change its mind. It doesn’t matter that you’ve already bought or bartered for the fabric that SHOULD have been perfect for it. It doesn’t go any more, and the quilt knows it and tells you at great length about it any time you try to sneak a piece of it in there.
Along about now, you’re wondering why in the world you ever started this project, and wonder if you’re ever going to finish it this side of whatever disaster is currently supposed to destroy the world as we know it. Your children haven’t had any home-cooked food for six weeks, the dust bunnies in the corners are starting to have baby bunnies, and the power and light companies are writing less than polite notes about some payment or other they’ve been expecting for the last three weeks.
It’s okay. We all do it, concentrate on the current project at the expense of housework, errands and whatever else the world can send at us to distract us from our real work - our ART. And it just doesn’t matter if the quilt doesn’t match our living room, or if we have no place to wear the dress, because we just had to make it.
Even when I finally finished that Fairfield dress and coat and shoes and purse and necklace and earrings and got them mailed - I realized I still hadn’t learned. My daughter talked me into re-doing our bathroom the night before I had six people coming from out of state to visit overnight. I guess it really wasn’t her fault that we all wound up working from 8 a.m. Saturday straight through to 5:30 a.m. Sunday on that bathroom.
It just seemed like such a good idea at the time . . . .