What did I do with my "extra" time this weekend not having to work on Farmer's Wife blocks? I knew It would take me a while to quilt up the flowers on the Hollyhock Quilt, but when I finished that job mid Sunday afternoon, I still had time ...
The Misfit Log
So my thoughts turned to this job that's been bothering me for years, and may have contributed to taking so long to finish this quilt top. The piece of fabric included in the kit for the log just never set right with me, never worked --- Too warm and brown for the deep bottom of the lake. And it's the wrong texture. So when I got the barn wood fabric recently, there was enough left over that I could replace / hide / cover over that odd brown curly mis-matched log, with something that truly looked like it had been under water for a while.
It was quite a job. First I had to cut out a new log shape onto the Wonder Under fusible, then fuse it to the new fabric, and cut to the proper shape. Then, on the quilt itself, I had to unsew / release all the appliques that were on top of the old log. After ripping out the stitching, it wasn't that hard to lift the freshwater grasses / seaweed. The trickiest part was the fish fin at the top of the log. I had to literally cut that part out, and re-fuse it to the new log once it was in place. Don't worry-- The fish was never harmed in any way!
Then the task of fusing it down again, and re-stitching. It didn't take as long as it could have, and wasn't such the headache I thought it would be. I am much happier with this part of the quilt now, but it makes the other brown parts of the log stand out as not quite fitting. But this is much more subtle, and I think I can live with what's left there now. Whew!
Practicing freemotion wood grain designs for the Hollyhock Quilt was also the prompt that made me think of the log. I did not end up using this pattern on the log above. Instead, I followed the patterning in the fabric to a good effect. ;-)
Green Darner Dragonfly
I also took the time to add the 2 applique butterflies to the top of the quilt. I was thinking I would wait to add those until it had been quilted, but I also did not want to lose them between now and that nebulous time in the future. So they are now part of the quilt, too.
I will have to plan another day for making quilt sandwiches ...
1 comment:
That's devotion going to all this trouble to make a part of the quilt right. But I know I too would never be happy if I didn't try to make this better, that it would bother me every time I looked at it.
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