I’ve never understood people who worry about unfinished work. I treasure my unfinished quilts because they are springboards to more new quilts, just waiting for their time.

I learned a while back that it was easier to set the machines for one process and work a number of pieces at a time. It seems a bit scattered, but it works for me. I spent yesterday working on 8 quilts at once.

It makes sense to do all your dyeing at one time. It also works to do oil rubbed fabric in batches. I could do one at a time, but the mess is prodigious for both of those. Here’s the rubbed pieces of fabric I used for my quilt batch today.

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Once I started straight stitching with metallic, some quilts needed more. Some need couching, some need extra flowers, some needed either applique or embroidered applique. So I line them up by the techniques involved. Then I set my machine for the next process and do them all at once.

It creates a lot of work in a hurry. Which is good right now because I’ve sold a number of small quilts over the sale, and am going to add these to the sale as soon as they’re done.

So, no guilt! Unfinished quilts are invitations to new work. And they finish quicker if you do each process at a time.

I find myself taking things in batches. Each quilt gets exactly what it needs. But I can work smoother and quicker by taking them in batches and working one process at a time, not just one quilt.

Look for these quilts up for sale early next week. They’ll be on Etsy at www.etsy.com/shop/EllenAnneEddy

Most of the time we take in what’s happening inside a piece of art. That’s where our focus is. But for irregularly shaped pieces especially, the edge creates a space outside that frames the quilt much more than a border does. The outside is the negative space.

It’s not like the space did something wrong or has a bad attitude. Negative space is the area around an image. It’s not in the piece or the hanging. But it affects everything about it

.Why? I think largely because as we walk in and approach a hanging piece of art, the first thing we see is the shape around it. It’s the most distinct thing. You’ve seen works jammed together where you can’t keep one from the other. Ignoring negative space is like putting a gilded monstrosity picture frame around a simple piece of beauty and joy. It’s not a help.

Do I think about the negative space when I’m quilting? Not so much. I’m so involved in including the parts that are important even if they go over the edge. It’s when I’m cropping a quilt or putting it on the wall to see it properly that the negative space pops into view. And if you put pieces together, say on a wall, it’s a make or break item.