Project Process

I must admit, over spring break I geeked out and wrote ninety percent of my paper and finished ninety percent of my project. In my defense though, to geeking out that is, I had access to the main tool that I needed to complete my project; a sewing machine. Since the creative portion of my project is a quilt, I kind of needed to utilize the short amount of time I had with my sewing machine. I will be going home this Thursday for Easter and I plan on finishing my quilt between Friday and Saturday. The only thing I have left to complete is cutting out and pasting/sewing on silhouettes of the Puritans and Mohawks. The only problem is that I haven’t found an outline of these cultural stereotypes that would translate well onto fabric.

Through this whole process I’ve discovered that hardest part in making my project was the actual designing of the quilt. As I started delving into my opera more, there was so much that could be talked about or represented in a creative way. I think I spent the majority of my time with a box of colored pencils and computer paper figuring out what to do. Finally, after a trash can full of colorful attempts I knew what my game plan was! Trying to illustrate an opera through fabric art is a bit of a challenge, more that I expected. I’m not a seamstress, by any means, so I had to keep in mind what I could within my limits. Yet, the goal of my quilt is for someone to look at it and understand what is going on in the opera and also identify the differences but see how they are “sewn” together. Either way, this project has forced me, in a good way, to dig deeper and be more creative.