Week #4 - 2010 Quilt Project

This week's quilt block was inspired by the poem, "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. Our lives have been quite topsy turvy the past several months, and I feel that with all the roads available to us at the moment, we are having to take the unknown roads...the unplanned roads...more often than those we are familiar with or have planned for. I began to think about this idea - that my journey lately is taken one day at a time - a lot especially this week. And on Sunday while taking a shower, I visually designed this quilt block. I later drafted a few drawings in my notebook, and the quilt block turned out pretty much exactly like I had envisioned it.

I am not an artist by any means, and I feel that when I do try to draw, it is very cartoony in nature and doesn't have a lot of elements or depth. But, I tried to stop judging myself and just go with what was in my head. I used two-sided Press n Steam sheets to iron the pieces together, and then used a variety of stitches and thread colors to sew each piece's edges. For the sign, I used permanent markers to give it a wood-grain look, and then chose the word "SELDOM" for the road sign. The road "less traveled" if you will. Still using only fabric from my scraps collection, I am very happy with the results of this week's block.

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that, the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

two roads diverged in a wood, and I --

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.