Challenges!

Challenges – as in a ruddy challenge from beginning to end middle!
I wanted to show you a bit of what I did in my class at Fabrications. Our instructor, Laura Cater-Woods had us doing some interesting things but one of them was to try to save a WIP (work in progress) that was stalled. I had a small quilt that gave stalled a new meaning. It had been hanging on my design board for three years. Yes, I am mortally embarrassed to have actually typed that! In my defense, this quilt has been a challenge since the first piece of fabric was chosen. It’s humble beginnings were in a workshop with David Walker and I selected colors that are not in my usual palette to make me jump out of my comfort zone, Oy! Browns are not easy colors for me to work in. I’m more of a purple/green/teal kinda gal. I did manage to make a “background” fabric in some lovely mushroom browns with a touch of copper (I just mention that so you know what colors are supposed to be in the accompanying photos ;o). So, I decide my background has potential and jumped in by adding a lightening bolt, or two. Feeling frisky I added a pieced border.

Stuck! Here it sat for three years, being ignored by Moi! The center section was way too dull and had no contrast. All my contrasting colors were in the border making it too light. How to save it? Nothing came to mind… for a really long time.

So, it hung on my design wall and I ignore it.

And ignored it some more.

And some more.

Fast forward to this October. One of the suggestions for this workshop I took at Fabrications was to bring a stalled project. Assuming that the only salvation at this point was to cut it up for ATCs, I bravely packed it with all my other fabrics. Why is it, when you pack fabric for a three day workshop you pack enough for a year in the Tundra and still buy three more pieces of fabric at the LQS? This one stumps me. I digress. Laura’s talent is to make you think with out telling you what to think. She just knows how to open those little doors in your brain. She suggested I might think about cropping it – I had to chuckle; in a Melody Johnson workshop this last summer, the favorite catch phrase for the weekend was “If it’s crap, crop!” So I took out my rotary cutter…

After doing some free-motion quilting, another first and a major biggie for me, I added some sharp contrast; binding to cover the seams where I re-sewed it back together. I was delighted with the transformation! Now, I just have about 12,857 hours of FMQ to go.

Now, I know my FMQ is never going to pass muster in a judged show, but I’m doing it and it looks good enough for me at this point in time. I’m sure with practice, I’ll improve. Always the optimist, me  ;o)

I think I’ll bind it in the same narrow binding I used for contrast and call it quits. Oh…..   maybe just a few sparkly thingies  ;o)

Oh! I finally added some of my hand-dyed yarns to my Etsy Store and got the “Etsy Mini” working on my side bar (a peek and a link to my Etsy). I just hope I can get the rest posted soon. So many distractions!  🙂