When I had lunch with my friend the amazing quilter last week, she showed me some of her new work. She’s not reallyquilting any more; she’s doing a combination of quilting and applique, using fabric the way a painter uses paint. And it’s her choices of fabrics that makes her pieces remarkable. She’s working on a series of exotic birds, having just finished a series of zebras. I was particularly struck by a zebra wall hanging that was not a solid compilation of fabrics and images but rather pieces with empty space between them, hung from a dowel, balanced, somehow, on strings of beads.
So, I decided to take a blob of free-form crocheting that I had made a while ago and hadn’t figured out what to do with it — and I copied my quilter friend’s idea.

I’m still playing with the idea of sewing beads in strategic places on the blob, but I’ve affirmed something about myself that I’ve always known and somehow keep trying to change. You would think that, by now, I’d have accepted the fact that I don’t like to pre-plan too much, especially when it comes to making things — clothes, recipes, interior design… I have more fun when it sort of flows organically, one thing building upon another toward a surprise ending. Sometimes I end up with something so unappealing that I wind up throwing it away. But that doesn’t matter if the process was fun. And usually what I wind up with is something I’ll play with until it becomes something interesting enough to wear or eat or live beside.
I guess that’s why the idea of free-form crochet appeals to me. Not only can I have fun playing with textures and colors, but I don’t know what it’s going to be until it finally is.