I'm a Honey Bee Quilter

I love Bees.  I’m talking about the insect here, which as this is a quilting blog might easily get confused with a quilting bee.  I love that they play such an important role to life here on Earth.  We know that over 1/3 of our food supply relies upon them for pollination services and we know that pollination is essential for the reproduction of the plants the bee services.  So if the honey bee does not pollinate the crops, the crops do not grow and produce the food that gets harvested and brought to the store where we buy it.  So there is a direct connection between bees pollinating and sustaining life on Earth.  

Why may you ask am I taking about Bees?  Because I feel in the quilting world I’m a honey bee.  Just as a bee hops from one plant to another, I find myself hopping from one quilting style to another.  Bees pollinate in their travels, contributing the all important elements needed in the chain of reproduction.   I feel that as I move back and forth from one quilting style to another I leave a little behind in knowledge and skill that perpetuates the craft – sort of like quilting pollen.  Perhaps I’m looking for a way to legitimize what may appear as my flighty interest from one quilting discipline to the next (traditional to modern to traditional and back again).  It isn’t that I love any one style over the other; I love them all just as the bees love all flowers.  

 I’m babbling about this because lately I find myself stressing over what to bring to show and tell at quilt meetings.   Because I easily move from traditional style to modern style projects almost on a daily basis,  I find myself finishing more of one particular method then another so I have nothing for show and tell when I’m going to either my traditional group meeting or my modern group meeting.  I’m hesitant to bring say a traditionally pieced Lemoyne Star project with reproduction fabric to my modern group meeting even though this may be my latest finished project or particular interest at the moment.  I’m afraid to have someone call me out and say ‘hey that’s NOT modern!’ and of course my feelings are the same for my traditional group.  When did quilting meetings get so stressful?  Sometimes I just want to quote what Jack Nicholson said in the movie Mars Attacks “why can’t we all just get along?”

Perhaps I need to keep my honey bee quilting tendencies more focused in order to have projects to show for in more than one discipline.  I suppose I’ll strive to do this.  But remember just like the honey bee I can’t be held back for long because otherwise the delicate balance of the quilt world might collapse and we’ll be left with just granny yoyo quilts or abstract line quilts exclusively. 

Oh the Humanity!

(Geez, I must have drunk too much coffee today to write this dribble.....)