LMNO…

So, this is the post I have been waiting to write since the ABCQAL started: LMNO…

Even though I had planned to post a block a day I always planned to post L, M, N, & O all together. There is no other reason than it is an excuse to link to one of our favorite They Might Be Giants songs:

But before I share the next set of blocks for the ABCQAL I want to refer back to my last blog post. I think a big reason why I so often use words/text/numbers as the basis for my designs is because I don’t in fact see images in my head. When I try to picture something, like Bee, I don’t see her face, but experience something more like an extremely detailed prose description of her and the experiential sense of what it is like to be with her. There is a flood of data, but never a picture, an image of her. Imagine your head being filled with a perpetual, ongoing version of Proust.

I think that is why words feel so much more natural to me, and perhaps why I tend toward extraordinarily convoluted sentences and structures. The stream of language that runs through my head in the place of images is rarely tidy; it frequently has simultaneous streams of description all flowing at once. And so it only makes sense for me to turn to language so often in my designs as something to transform and abstract. It is also likely why I have a healthy mistrust of untethered aesthetics, any notion of form without multiple layers of content and meaning.

So, with that out of my head I give you L, M, N, & O…

L is for luminiferous (as in the luminiferous æther)…

M is for metagrobolized (just keep saying metagrobolized; it is so much fun)…

N is for nucivorous…

And O is for obfuscate, or is it???

Also, I want to share another quilt from the Braille QAL; this one is from Kat at Sew Chibi. It is her first quilt, which makes me insanely happy. Remember that the word abecedarian means a beginner, and the entire ideal of the Braille quilts is to allow an enormous range of possibilities. Braille blocks let beginning quilters embed a special meaning in their quilts while learning basic techniques, but the basic structure can be adapted to endlessly complex quilting approaches (more of those to come).

I am honored and flattered that Kat decided to take the Braille QAL as a prompt to at last jump into quilting. I also love that she just embraced awkwardness, just went at at fearlessly (I hope) and made it up as she went along. Remember, quilts are just quilts in the end: make them, use them, and hopefully love them. They are ways to figuring out new ideas, not just finish and old idea. The very best quilts leave you with plans for five more to make in the future…

Thanks so much Kat for joining in. Yay you!!!

Happy sewing everybody…

-t