I just had to share this with you.

Dyslexic Quilting.

Red and blue, who would have thought?

I don't know if any of you have dyslexia or know of someone with, I do have a really mild form of dyslexia. It's never been a real problem for me either in school or in daily life, I have a hard time telling my right from left, my mind will take letters and rearrange them into different words or put words in the wrong places, I transpose numbers, etc. Now I am sure that some of you have done this yourselves, the difference between you and I is I actually see these things as real, my mind doesn't think it's a mistake and double checking doesn't always change it.  I've gotten to the point in my life where I've basically auto-compensated for the mental confusion, there is sort of a secondary warning system hard wired into my mind that lets me know if I am not looking at something right. It's strange but true :D. 

My dyslexia reared it's ugly head while making the quilt top pictured at the left. I had completely forgotten that red and blue absolutely confuse my mind, I haven't had a problem with them since I was in elementary school. It's not the colours themselves, I can use red no problem or I can use blue no problem, but put them together like I did in the quilt and the confusion begins.

My best guess as to the reason why that happens is all to do with optical illusion ( example ), the two faces and candle stick picture? I don't just see one or the other, I see both at the same time, together. The most disconcerting one is the brick wall illusion, the one that looks crooked but isn't, try to imagine it moving like a wave and not just a little movement either but actual wave like motion, that illusion is the most pertinent to my problem. The contrast of the squares look like they are moving to my brain, and the colours actually switch position. (Who would have ever thought you could get motion sickness from a motionless quilt?)

How many mistakes can you find? :D

The pattern of the quilt is a bit random but the gist is is alternating red/blue and breaking it up with blocks, hence the name 'building blocks'. I was fine and dandy for the first 4 rows but as more red and blue got added the harder it became for me to process the pattern even though I had it written down. If you look at the last 4 rows the mistakes are very visible, the yellow blocks are not positioned correctly and broken up, I have to tell you that I pulled those 4 rows 3 times to try and get them right and I simply could not do it. 

I was absolutely without a doubt positive that I had the blocks positioned correctly that 3rd time and when I had sewn them on the right way (I did it upside down the first time), I just had to leave it be as it is now. I would have kept trying simply because I am that stubborn BUT I doubt I would have had any usable material left ;).

I don't want to bore you with step by step details but I do have to say that every strip except the top 3 have had to be pulled apart at least once because I did something wrong to the strip and I am certainly excited to start quilting this quilt but at the same time I am not looking forward to it, I think alot of caution and an extra set of eyes is called for :D.

Hopefully by Sunday I will have an update of how my progress is going and I won't have a headache just looking at it! 

Passion in Creation! (or just plain stubbornness..)