Technique vs Design on Off the Wall Friday

 Something that I was reminded of this week is that I have a tendency to create in one of two categories.  Either my pieces are all about technique or all about design.  I know lots of quilters who are all about technique.  They buy a pattern and then spend their energy on learning how to create it perfectly.  The closer they get to perfection, the more of a rush they get.

Oh What Lovely Smoke, Elizabeth Barton 

Then there's the quilters where it's all about the design.  They work on designing a piece and then figure out how they are going to make it.  Or they innately will improvise a piece and just use whatever technique works at the moment to achieve their goal.  Artist that showcase these two methods are Elizabeth Barton (who once had me make 8 value studies of the same design) and Rayna Gillman whose improv work is to die for.   (Also, who actually gave me the idea of calling this blog link up Off the Wall Friday as we were brainstorming back and forth) 

Marimba, Rayna Gillman

Normally, I'm a design girl partly because after 30 years of quilting, I mostly understand how to do techniques correctly and partly because my personality isn't very exacting.  I love the challenge of coming up with just the right composition, not to mention I've had to learn all about art theory myself which I find fun. 

I say "Normally" because this week, I dipped my toe into the technique side of creating.  I drove back to Berlin, Ohio to visit the Plaid Sheep Company to take a beginner rug hooking class.  For $65, you get a 3 hr class that includes a nice 10" square kit, beginner hook and a handout with the basics.  This is basically a "get your feet wet" kind of class.  Now the Plaid Sheep Company isn't your average quilt shop...it's basically two shops in one.  One side is all wool for applique and hooking rugs while the other side is quilt cottons and notions.  It also has a very primitive traditional vibe.  So our kit had a folk art bent with a simple sheep on a grassy knoll.  

All it takes to start a new craft

Melanie patiently showed us all how to make our first hooks taking strips of wool and bringing it through a linen background.  We had the fabric stretched in PVC piped frames, but you could easily do it with a big quilting hoop (which of course at home I'm doing).  I spent the 3 hr trying to make my loops nice and even not really caring that I was creating this lone sheep.  It was more about the push and pull of the wool.  The whole thing is VERY tactile.  I mean hand quilting is tactile but nothing like rug hooking.  Anyways, Melanie would point out what I was doing wrong and I would say okay and then proceed to keep doing it wrong.  I mean what can I say?  The hands do what the hands do.  I think I couldn't get them to switch from hand quilting motions to rug hooking movements.  

What it's supposed to end up looking like

Before we knew it, the 3 hrs was done and I had about 20% of the rug done.  She encouraged us to go home and finish it this week.  I knew I hadn't quite mastered it, but you don't get to be almost  60 without knowing that if you practice long enough sooner or later you'll get it.  Then I remember what she said about going home and watching a YouTube video on how to hook,

I mean as my brother-in-law Steve says, "It's not worth knowing if there isn't a YouTube Video on it".

And guess what?  There was!  This 3 min video showed me exactly how to do it and what I had been doing wrong.  BRILLANT!  Now things are going better (but obviously not perfectly LOL!  It's a process!) and I got this much done.

Don't ask me how this going to play in my creative life.  I just knew I always wanted to learn and since I was looking for a new hand craft for the evenings it was time.  I found another kit cheapie on ebay (because let me tell you, this, like most crafts, rug hooking is NOT cheap).  I'll do that one too just to get my technique down.  For the record, there is nothing I dislike more than primitive folk art.  But that doesn't matter, because this is all about the technique.

By the time I get to John C. Campbell I'll have a good idea of how to work a hook. THEN I fully intend to let the design side of creative nature out to play.

But for now, the technique part is in charge.

What technique is on your bucket list and why?

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