And now with those notices, let's get to today's post ;)
Yippee, today is the last day to enter the Modern Quilt Guild Micheal Miller challenge and I am posting my entry today :) Little last minute, but sometimes you just have to roll in under that deadline :) My entry is called Dancing Daisies and measures 49" x 50".
When I first got the fabric for this challenge, I knew I wanted to do something with a flower design. So I played a bit with some sketching and came up with the squared pixelated looking daisy block. From there I added putting them in a layout that would look like they were blowing in a summer breeze. So, that was my vision, and then I started working on the project. And now, this is where I start the story of who this quilt actually went down and totally "keep things real" around here . . .
Never have I had so many things have to be reconfigured, redone, and just pushed through on a quilt. There is a reason this little guy is being posted just under the wire. Because honestly, there were many a time I just wanted to forge about it and move on. It started with piecing my flowers. We only had a bit of each fabric, but I wanted to fussy cut the flowers to stand out. Well this particular fabric and
This particular fabric gave me some issues. I got the flowers cut out, pieced them together, and couldn't stand the way they looked. Originally, this top and bottom row were pieced in with straight lines running up and down, and you couldn't tell the difference from the petal and the background. And the top blocks center row wasn't much better.
So, after going back and forth for a while, I decided that it would always drive me crazy and I was going to need to unpick. So out of the center of the finished blocks came these pieces. And then I had to get super creative in making piecing some scraps of what I had left together to make enough to replace to squares (see arrows above) and then back into the block they went. (I was so wishing my local quilt shop carried this line at this point :)
So then, the blocks were all put together and I went to put them in the layout I had figured and realized and then smacked myself in the head, that I had accidentally trimmed my blocks down 1/2" to small. Grrr!!! Out comes the sketch book and a little trimming to all of the background pieces.
And so I finally have to top together and I am all kinds of excited to start quilting it because I know just how I want to quilt it. I get going and the long arm just starts shredding the thread and skipping stitches. And after a few hours I have some wavy lines, a whole bunch of skipped space because it won't do a swirl for the life of me and I am ready to scream. (Okay, maybe I did actually scream)
And so, I move on over to the home machine to do the swirl and petal quilting ;) And man, I can totally say I am a bit rusty on the home machine ;) It took me a bit to get back into the swing of things, and even when I was feeling comfortable again, I was wishing that the design hadn't already been started because it was on a larger scale because of the trailing tails then I was used to quilting between my two hands ;) But once you have started one way you gotta finish that way :)
So yup, I bet my quilt is the only one in the entire contest that is half long arm quilted and half domestic machine quilted ;) Super special!! I did have fun quilting up the little daisies ;) I wanted to add to the flower effect so I did little rounded overlapping "petals" on the petals and then pebbling in the center.
I have to say, even with all of the stress of quilting this one, I am so happy with how the quilting turned out. I really think it added to the effect of the daisies dancing on the breeze ;) And the one part that didn't give me any trouble, the fun solid scrappy binding, which I think might just be my favorite of the whole quilt!!!
And, just when you think our story is all finished, it has one last surprise. When I took this quilt out to photograph, I noticed in the beautiful sunlight that a few of my background squares looked a little off. Now, I love my sewing room, but the lighting is not ideal as it is in the basement and has no windows. Which meant, I didn't see when cutting that somehow, (see little children) my white solid pile I had been working from had a few extra pieces mixed in that didn't match exactly. Not enough to see under florescent lighting, but it sticks out just enough in the sunlight ;) At this point, not much I can do about that but smile through it, I just told myself it was more Modern ;)
So how about that for a crazy story :) I hope you enjoyed this segment of "keeping things real" but I hope not to share another one soon. I understand that sometimes this is the way things roll but I would be happy not to roll through that again any time soon :) But I am glad to share this story if it helps us all to remember that everyone makes mistakes, everyone has oopsies in their quilt, and sometimes we just have to move on, push through, rework to make it work, and just try to smile on through ;)
In the end, I love Dancing Daisies!!! She was totally worth it :)
Have a Happy Quilting Weekend!!
Linking up this finish to
Amanda's,
Sarah's and
Fort Worth Fabric Studio ;)
