Friday, August 6, 2010

Centered

Here it is, finally finished. What should have been a quick and easy, down and dirty little quilt, turned out to be one big aggravation. First I tried doing French knots on the tips. After doing only a few, with thick embroidery floss, it was clear that I would be in a lot of pain by the time I finished. Scrap that idea.

Then I went and bought lots of beads and started sewing them on. After several hours of work and many beads later, I realized that I did not like it. Big beads obscured the design and small beads did not show. So I cut off all the beads and tried machine quilting, following the design in the flower centers. Didn't like that either. The pattern was very hard to follow and if I marked it with removable blue marker pen, it did not come out. By now the piece was so over worked that I totally scrapped it and made a new one.

I printed out four new photos and my printer was not happy doing that for some reason, but with perseverance and a few choice words, I got it done. I decided to quilt the center part in a straight grid 1/2 inch apart. It took a while, but I like it. I think the close straight lines add a nice tension to the curved lines in the photos. I'm calling it "Centered", a good play on words, I think.



Now I'm on to greater things, I hope. I'm going to make a second painted cabbage quilt, a companion piece for "Mon Petit Chou", seen here. I found a vegetable garden and took some new pictures yesterday. It is all drawn out on my fabric and I'm ready to paint tomorrow. I hope to finish this in a few days to meet a show deadline. Wish me luck!

7 comments:

JYA Fiberarts said...

I aggree, the border is just right on this quilt. It's very cheerful!

Art by Rhoda Forbes said...

It turned out beautiful and I agree the border is perfect.

Cathy said...

The border is appropriate, but the quilting just proves the adage that sometimes less is more! Brava!

Carole said...

yes, Norma, the border needed to be... do you think because of the 'exuberance' of the flowers?
I do...
What I like best tho' is the quilting design you chose... that was brilliant!

Best on the new cabbage piece...

Rachel Biel said...

Very nice, Norma! I'm sorry it was such a hassle, but you ended up getting it right! Looks great!

Martha Ginn said...

The quilted grid over the flowers seems a good solution to a puzzling problem. The enlarging pattern is calmed by the evenness of the stitching. Nice counterbalance! You deserve a gold star for persevering with all that un-stitching and un-beading!

hudsondebb said...

I love the grid! Perfect.