Barbara got her quilt, putting it in perspective (again!), fixing mistakes and a few more embroideries

Pink Peonies by Barbara C 2013

 

Barbara received her quilt yesterday morning and she loved it! It was beautiful before it was quilted…it reminded me of bone china but the quilting was the finishing touch! The fabric is loaded with pink peonies which are just coming into bloom so she named it Pink Peonies! The Quilting Gallery Show and Tell theme this week is Flower Garden Quilts so Barbara entered it last night. There are some beauties this week! Why not pop on over and vote for your favourites!

I was at a machine quilting workshop recently. The woman sitting next to me looked at her quilt and said “it isn’t very good”. I took it from her and stood back about ten feet. I asked her what she saw. She was surprised at how good it looked! She had focused on the individual stitches rather than the whole. When seen from a distance the stitches didn’t make a difference. That’s perspective for you!

When I work on a quilt I am up close and focussed on the tiny details but that isn’t the way the quilt will be viewed. It will be viewed from a distance so every once in a while I need to step back and take a fresh look at the whole! It’s a completely different quilt when I do this. It’s like looking at your face in a magnifying mirror. Most of the time we don’t look at our faces in this way and this isn’t the way we should look at and evaluate our quilts. When you only consider the up close, any “flaw” is magnified and this can be disappointing.

So here’s the way I look at quilt making. If there is a flaw and it really bothers me I step back and look at what I’ve done. If I can still see it and (this is the important part) it bothers me I look for a solution to the problem. Otherwise I leave it as it is. This doesn’t mean that work should be sloppy – I’m a firm believer it doing the best work that you can. But no matter what you do there will be little wobbles and bobbles. When they happen, take a deep breath, take a few steps back and take a fresh look and put it in perspective!

 

Afrika, 1996

My Mom (Anne H)  made a lovely quilt titled “Afrika”. She had two wobbles that bothered her but she was quilting it and had gone too far to take things apart. The solution? She appliqued two African killer bees to cover the gaffs.

 

Bee covering a mistake

She just told me yesterday that she made a mistake fixing the mistake! And she showed it to me!  She fogot to pad the bee so he is flat as a pancake! She decided she could live with it! She added a several more bees so that they actually became part of the quilt.

Bee covering a mistake but he's missing his padding!

 

He should have been stuffed like this guy!

 

 

Killer bee chasing a rhino right off the quilt!

 

She used the quilting to mark the bee's flight path

 

Since that time bees have become one of the signature characteristics of her quilts. If you see a bee on her quilt it might just be hiding something, or not!

 

I leave you with a few more embroideries and then I'm off to work on Alex's quilt!

 

Honeysuckle

Blue butterfly

Wild rose 

 

Cardinal flowers

Pink and purple flowers

 

Until I post again, happy sewing!