Arise

I just did a crazy quiz on Facebook about what mythical creature you are most like.  It determined that I am a Phoenix.  How appropos!  The quiz was run by magicquiz.com and gives the definition of a phoenix as, "Associated with hope, immortality, and regeneration, a phoenix rises from the flames to become an even better version of themselves" (no attribution).  This is a perfect description of my quilt that has spent its days skirting disaster.

I have never had a quilt that posed so many difficulties or plans gone awry in spite of careful thought beforehand.  If I can get the rest of the quilting done without problems, it will definitely be a better version of my original plan.  My granddaughter's design is beautiful, but the problems arose in creating a workable version of her drawing in fabric.

The latest is the decision to quilt the "ground" or bottom third of the quilt with navy on three different dark fabrics.  Looks great with magnifying glasses and bright light.  Doesn't show up with normal vision.  Doesn't do a thing for the quilt.  Makes the fires look like they are floating in space.  The best laid plans have gone awry again.

I bravely fooled around with some quilting using red Isacord thread. The McTavishing makes me think of hot coals.  I like it.  Out came the ripper and I un-quilted some (not all) of the navy stitches.  The redo in red around the flames is very satisfying.  I love it.  Note the difference between the red quilting in the center and the navy quilting in the lower left.  The red truly provides visual clues that the bird is rising out of the fire, but doesn't take away from the brilliance of the Phoenix.  It warms the dark fabric so it blends nicely in color and temperature with the rest of the quilt.

Red McTavishing

 Maybe I will get this project done after all.

TIP:  What can I say?  Persist like the Phoenix.  Perfection is an almost unattainable goal, but there is nothing wrong with striving toward it.  Just don't wear out your fabric!

Sew a happy seam today.

Just Had to Do It

There has been so much going on here.  More jam, peach this time, more varnishing, more gardening.  The latest blow to my time is that we have one more room to panel in the house and that is our bedroom.  My "office" is a tiny nook in one corner and I had to completely dismantle it as part of the renovation.  This meant that DH had to move his stuff out of his office so I could set up my computer there.  He uses a laptop and doesn't need the desk temporarily.  You can't even imagine the mess the house is in.  My sewing room was commandeered for some displaced items, the rest are all over the living room, and I gave up sewing for a week.  At least my piano is clear so I can play a little to relieve the tension.

Well friends, that can only last so long before my sewing gene refuses to settle.  I just had to do it.  I went into the black hole (usually called a sewing room), straightened things out by finding a better arrangement for uninvited items, and sat down to sew.  Oh the joy.  I started out with orange pebbles under my fires and then proceeded with black pebbles and McTavishing, continuing to fill the background, which still has a lot of fullness.  It is working well capturing and taming that excess fabric so my time went really fast.  I feel refreshed.

Pebbles under the fire.

I did orange pebbles under the fire, thinking of hot coals.  They show up more in this photo than on the actual quilt, but there is still an orange coloration that is different from the black quilting in the rest of the background.  It grounds the fire, or so I tell myself.  Anyhow I like it.  None of the black thread quilting has been done in this photo.

TIP:  When you are busy take time sew even if it is for a short time.  If you truly love it you will come away refreshed and ready to take on the world, knowing you have accomplished something.

Sew a happy seam this week.

 

It's OK to be Lazy - Occasionally

Yes, I was lazy last week.  I didn't write a post.  Summertime is unpredictable even though my children left the nest long ago.  There is yard work to do.  I have trays my mother painted with Early American Design that have become damaged with use.  I need to repair them in the summer when the weather is warm because I must varnish in the uninsulated garage instead of in my tiny home.  Fruit is ripe and jam must be made when the time is right.  It waits on no sewing project.  I generally sew every day for 2-3 hours, but have not been able to do that for the last couple of weeks, let alone blog.  I had a visitor from Scotland so we hiked and he chiseled a crack in two of my genealogical brick walls.  Had to work on those of course.

Lastly, the sewing of my Phoenix bird hit a snag.  Do you ever make a quilt that goes perfectly from start to finish?  Grrrr!  I don't.

TIP:  Start your quilting in the middle even if the sandwich is well secured.

The bird itself turned out great.  I started on its belly in the center and worked the wings out from there.  When I got down to the tail feathers, I got so excited to work on them that I just simply didn't think it through and began with the outside feathers and worked in.  Thread painting is so dense that it redistrubutes fabric as it fills.  Here is what I got:

Extra fabric arising like the Himalayas 

All kinds of mountainous rumples arose within the confines of the feathers.  What to do?  The fire helped a little, but the photo shows it unfinished because I thought I had better bulldoze the hills first in case I had to rip out the flames.  I tried McTavishing, but it wasn't enough so I took it out and settled for small pebbles with a curlique in the center hoping that lots of stitches would eat up the extra fabric.  They did as you can see below:

Heavy quilting black on black - click to enlarge.

Mostly that did the trick, but the area does not lay perfectly flat.  I think and pray that I can flatten it during the blocking process.  If not, it will still be a nice quilt, but not show fodder.  If not, I will consider it part of a heavy duty lesson in thread painting.

TIP:  All is not lost, ever.  It is all in how you look at it and whether or not you learn from your mistakes.  After all, it is just a quilt.  Your life cannot be ruined by a quilting error.  Your psyche may get temporarily dampened, so take a break, take a hike, make some jam, clean up the sewing room.......

As I write, I know I have more extra fabric to contain, but it is getting better as I work it out.  The fires are complete so I continue with black on black pebbles that take a magnifying glass to see what I am doing.

Sew a happy seam this week.

Lighting the Fabric on Fire

I have been working on my phoenix quilt and am very pleased with the way the bird turned out.  It is now fused to the background, but I won't do the thread painting until I have the quilt sandwiched for quilting.  Time to move on.

I need to thread paint some fire below the bird.  Since I have never thread painted before, I have been doing a lot of experimenting.  I bought my thread and figured out what looks best for the feathers of the bird, but the fire left me scratching my head.

Tester:  Thread painting on two of the tail feathers.

How am I going to create the translucency and flicker that we all know and love?  How do you go about researching something like that?  There are books on thread painting, but none about setting fabric on fire.  Leah Day burned one of her quilts that was full of quilted words stating negative thoughts, but that's not what I have in mind!  My bird must fly out of the fire into freedom.

First I cut pieces that were the general shape of those in the artwork I am using as a guide, but discovered a major disconnect.  Two tries and I decided the pieces were too solid-looking to ever translate as fire on a quilt even though the original drawing is fantastic.

My next step was to hunt on the Internet and guess what?  I found some great thread paintings of fire here (scroll down to 12 Jan 2008) and here.  Lots of great ideas to look at, but I still felt insecure.

Next on my list was to pull up pictures of real fire on Google images.  Bingo!  Even more ideas emerged by looking at what fire actually looks like.  Isn't that amazing?  It is so familiar, but I couldn't figure out how I was going to make it look right until I saw images of actual flames.

My first attempt:

I have fire!

I need more practice, but am beginning to feel more comfortable as ideas materialize out of the smoke.  I want it a bit less stylistic and less confined.  I'll get there!

TIP:  Practice makes better, and better, and better.  Go for it.  Just because you don't how doesn't mean you can't learn with a little research and a lot of practice.

I don't know who wrote this, but it is apropos to us quilters:

Toil awhile.

Endure awhile.

Believe always.

Never turn back.

Happy stitching this week.