Originally Posted by candi
I don't have much to add, but just wanted to say that in a way I believe that tye art of quilting may come with experience. I have only been sewing for three years, never even owned a sewing machine before that, and I find that many of my ideas remain just that just because I don't have the skill to transform them into fabric and stitches. So right now, I am trying to improve my skills by learning many techniques and hoping that one day, I can have an aha movement when my hands can follow my mind in translating those ideas into work.
That's another issue I've been thinking about, Candi. I'm not that experienced a quilter and there are a lot of techniques I've never tried. Looking at all the art quilts, the level of skill demonstrated in, say, applique or free motion quilting, also really impressed me. To some extent, unless you're the sort of person who has an innate ability to see how to do something, surely you need a good grounding in the craft in order to create the art? For that reason, I'm not beating myself up for being a craft person, following patterns until now - it's all giving me a good basis to move on to more original work if and when the time is right.