Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Paradigms

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."  William Shakespeare

I have been thinking this week about what makes for happiness in ones life.  There is a situation in my life that has caused a lot of personal unhappiness for a very long time.  It hasn't gone away, doesn't seem to change, so the unhappiness has lingered, a kind of background, or undercurrent to my life.  Then on Sunday, something happened to change it.  The situation didn't change.  I did.  I suddenly saw it in a new light.  And suddenly I felt the unhappiness lift, it wasn't a burden any more.  I know the situation will always be there unless something outside my life changes it.  I can't change it.  But my thinking about it changed, I had a paradigm shift, an epiphany of sorts, and as a consequence I've felt light, and happy all week.  And more loving and accepting.  And it's all about paradigms, or as William said so eloquently, 'nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so'.

As for the paradigm I see in the current applique I am working on...it keeps changing...I had it fairly firmly set  in my mind what I was going to add to the central applique block  (that I started in a workshop with Sharon Schamber) and blogged about here last week.  I was going to add a sawtooth inner border then some more applique, but I discarded that.  I have been busy making clamshells for the past several days,  and now that I have enough to lay out and look at, I'm not sure if that's what I really want now after all.  Down one side I have put two layers of clamshells, green nearest the centre and the pinks on the outside, at the top there is a single row of alternating pinks and greens.  I rather think, that if I go with the clamshells that the double border looks best.  Then would come another border of applique.  But first I have to decide if I want clamshells there at all.  What do you think?  Another idea for it is to put the centre on point and put more applique in the triangles that would be need to be added, then put the clamshells after that.  I hate it when quilts just grow minds of their own, but don't speak plainly!  And the visual distraction of the quilt off to the side doesn't help the photo of the clamshells and the applique either! :-D




4 comments:

  1. Ah... thank-you (and Will S):)

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  2. I love your applique. And I'm with the double border of clamshells. I like that look.

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  3. Shaaron, Your appliqué is beautiful! I would be seriously looking at putting it on-point, - gives more 'movement' (squares are way too 'blunt' for me!!!)

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  4. Mmmm such a dilema but pretty sure all those clam shells will look lovely. I like the on point idea.

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