Contemplating Projects

For those of us who enjoy sewing and quilting projects, acquiring fabric can be as much of an art as the process of piecing and sewing it together. No matter how many projects we are working on at the present, we always seem to be able to justify the purchase of more fabric - often for some yet-to-be-determined project. The cartoon below provides a rather clever illustration of this practice.

Earlier this month, I need to confess that I acquired fabric in contemplation of some future project. I had a meeting in Seattle, and used the handy-dandy quilt shop finder app on my iPhone to locate quilt shops in the area. Fortunately I was able to locate a shop, Undercover Quilts, within walking distance of my hotel. This is a somewhat small shop, tucked away in the famous Pike Street Market, but I very much enjoyed the feeling of being in a local shop, visiting with the owners, and browsing the fabrics and patterns unique to the shop and the Pacific Northwest, in general.
I picked up a pattern and kit that was designed by one of the shop owners. I love polar bears and am becoming more adept with machine appliqué, so this seemed an appropriate kit to try. I will post pictures when I finish it.

The fabrics that particularly caught my eye, however, were these beautiful ones, designed by a Seattle-area artist, featuring wildlife of the Pacific Northwest. The artist has done a beautiful job of incorporating native art styles into the outlines of the sea-based and land-based wildlife.

Although I only lived in Alaska for a very short time, I do have images of the totem poles and other native art and am still very much fascinated by them. It's hard to say which of these images I like the best, so I will go ahead and share pictures of the wildlife featured in these fabrics.

The challenging part now is going to be to determine how to combine and arrange these  fabrics into a quilt that showcases their beauty. At the present, the fabrics are already amazing and beautiful, however, their full potential of being placed into a larger project that can be used for decoration or warmth (or possibly both) has not been realized.

As I contemplate what that future larger project might be, I also find myself reflecting on my own state as a project in the works. In his final book of the Chronicles of Narnia series, The Last Battle, C. S. Lewis penned a chapter titled "Farewell to the Shadowlands" in which the characters come to realize that their lives in this present world had been only a shadow of the greater "real" world that they were experiencing as they followed Aslan "further up and further in."

Even so, our lives are yet an image of what is to be experienced in heaven. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul likens this present world to an incomplete image seen in a mirror. He also gives instruction as to what our conduct should be as we look ahead to the complete reality to come.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully know. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.       1 Corinthians 13:12-13