Personal Lesson in Creativity - Quilt Edition

You never know when a lesson is going to sneak up on you. Here's what snuck up on me, today. 

I was working an online jigsaw puzzle, like I do most days, and here's the link for it:  https://www.jigsawexplorer.com/puzzles/double-wedding-ring-jigsaw-puzzle/

This is a double wedding ring quilt, from the 1940's made by an African American artist, which is now in the Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston. It's beautiful, isn't it. It speaks to me. It speaks to me about where I am right now as a quilter. (Not that I expect any quilt I ever make to be in a museum collection anywhere, at any point. But then, I doubt that this maker expected that to happen either.)

Not knowing more about this quilt than I stated above, I am going to make some assumptions, which, even if they aren't true about this quilt, are true about MANY quilts. It was made for a practical purpose: keeping someone warm. It may have been made as a gift, to be treasured for many years, and multiple lifetimes. It was made with what this quilter had at hand to make it with, so the rings aren't all the same colors. It is not an easy pattern, so skill went into the sewing of it. I love the purple as the background color. Often this pattern includes a white background, but the purple adds some life to it. I think it is interesting that only ONE of the rings is the same colors all the way around. (top right corner, red and yellow) The other bands create movement in the moving patterns of colors, so that my eyes travel around this quilt.

If I could ask a few questions of this quilter, I would ask them how they decided to spread the colors through the quilt. Is this the vision of the quilt that they started out with? Did they work to make it perfect? Or work to make it done? Please understand that by asking about "perfection," I am not asking about their skills as a sewist OR a quilter. 

For me, done is achievable. Perfect isn't always. Perfect may put a halt to ever getting a piece done. And yet, this is art. I am not questioning that. It is art. I have hopes that my skills as a do-er and a get it finished-er will continue to improve to doing a better job getting the thing done. Skills gained, if you will.  In the mean time, I will enjoy the way the color combinations in this quilt create interest and movement in a way that other orientations of those blocks would not have, and use it as food for thought.