Do Right or Don't Even

“DO RIGHT OR DON’T”

Why do we get all in a bundle about doing something “the right way”? As if there is only one way to do something and have it be acceptable? Anyone who uses a computer knows that is not true. There are all kinds of ways to do an end run around your stubborn Dell or Mac or whatever you have. We all know about unplugging, counting to ten, re-plugging and re-booting. But there is also the “making your hard drive regurgitate all those cookies it‘s been consuming”. As a last resort, I have been known to write my computer a sweet little note reminding it that the Big Lake is only a few blocks down the hill and computers are not known to float.

Creative people have been making a point of NOT doing things the right way for centuries and when they are successful at it, their names become household words. Or else their brilliant ideas turn out to be so much hot air and we’ve never heard of them. The successful ones are called “entrepreneurs” and “inventors” and have buildings and streets named after them. Most of the time they start with their cock-a-mamie idea of a different way of solving a problem. Their friends and family stand around observing the process, making negative noises about how that is never going to work. They are the designated “Nay-sayers”, like a Greek chorus, and will never have so much as a chicken coop named for them.

Just think, if Manet, Monet, Sisley and Degas hadn’t gotten tired of perfecting their brush strokes and started dot-dotting and daubing their Impressionistic canvases or even outright flinging the paint at them, we would never have had the lovely picnic scenes or water lilies or “Starry Night”, because, by all accounts, the Art World was convinced they were “not doing it the right way” and told them so in their loud, sanctimonious voices.

Speaking of loud voices, you may never have heard of the “Quilt Police”, but back in the 90s, when I started quilting, they were still in full force. There was a whole, long list of the approved techniques and methods to make a quilt the “correct way” because “we’ve always done it that way and if you don’t do it our way, you’re wrong and you get drummed out of the quilting community, no backs, no reprieves.” 

So! You traced your templates on cardboard, you cut them out with your scissors and you laid them on your fabric. You cut the fabric out with your shears. Cut, cut, cut. You sewed the pieces together with cotton thread-because there was that old Wives’ Tale about polyester thread slicing your cotton fabric in 85 years or so. You sure didn’t want THAT! You pressed seams to the dark side and you always, always washed and ironed your fabric before you started a new quilt with it. Above all, you would never even think of PAINTING on your quilt. Surely you would get struck by lightning if you ever did that!

See where this is headed? The Quilt Police stomped all over your creative urges and said it was their way or no way. Wow! Where have I heard that before? So, being naturally bull-headed, as my father used say, as soon as their backs were turned, I ran right out and bought a new-fangled rotary cutter, a cutting mat, rulers, the whole shootin’ match. zip, zip, zip! No more cutting templates and fabric with scissors! No more using a bazillion straight pins when sewing a long curve, I stick all my quilts together with glue (OMG!) and cover up my mistakes with Magic Markers. I never wash my fabric, even the red stuff, and to complete my rebellion, I love PAINTING on my quilts, AFTER I quilt them. So there! The thunder was a little frightening but when the lightning struck, it missed me completely! I do it my way. It’s the right way. For me.

For that matter, I’m sure my grandmother and mother would have something to say about doing things right. They both adhered to what I call “the dish towel schedule”. You know, do the laundry on Monday, go to town on Tuesday, iron on Wednesday, bake on Thursday and clean the house on Friday. In our household, the laundry gets done when the basket is full, we go to town every day and who irons anymore, anyway, unless it’s quilting or a craft item in the making? Baking gets done around Christmastime and cleaning the house takes place whenever our cleaning person has time to come by, bless her.

Along those same stubborn “fly by the seat of your pants” lines, who on earth was the first person to run out of the salt used in preserving their fish, looked around to see what they had on hand, and decided to use lye, instead? His best friend was right there and kept warning him “Say buddy, you do know that stuff is poisonous, right?” But, Lo and Behold, it worked. Well, sort of. Depends on how you feel about Lutefisk.