This spot in the background fabric of my sunset piece had me stumped. Here was this tan area that not a single tan or brown thread I tried across it was even close. Well, no wonder; when looking for another thread in my specialty thread drawer, my eyes landed on this plum thread and the light bulb went on. Yes, my tan patch was not tan at all but somehow related to the pink family. Quilting leaped ahead once I made this connection.
So now all the quilting is done and all thread tails pulled to the back and buried. Not all lines of stitching were done that way, but many were. And this is what you get at the bottom of your wastebasket after burying and trimming off all those threads. And no, I do not save my thread trimmings to scatter as embellishments - just not my thing.
I was congratulating myself for making this no muss no fuss with plans to do a simple facing to finish off the edge. I spoke too soon. As I released the basting stitches holding the backing in place over the extra batting along the sides of the quilt, said quilt asked if it could please have a black border just like that black batting. No you may not, if for no other reason than there isn't the same amount of excess batting and batting on each side. But it got me thinking - maybe a black binding? I've been fiddling and thinking ever since, turning back that batting to different widths to test my ideas. Binding too narrow, narrowest amount of excess batting (about an inch) also too narrow, widest amount of excess batting (about 2-1/2 inches) looking about right. The black allows the landscape to float and ties in the black triangles and the darkness at the top. I don't want to do it because it will be a lot of time consuming fiddly work, but now that I've seen it, I sense that going back to facing the piece will leave me unsatisfied and disappointed. I just wanted to be done with this by the end of the weekend, and back to the bubble quilt on Monday. I'm fighting, and it's probably a losing battle.
1 comment:
Isn't it funny about how deceptive color can be? I also know that if an idea (like you black border) pops into my head I will not be happy until do whatever that is. One time I was unhappy with a border that I had put on a lap quilt. It was quilted and bound and I decided I did not like it. I was so tempted to take it off and change it out. But that time I resisted the urge. Yours is just a small quilt so adding the border should not be a big deal plus you have the excess batting. I look forward to what you decide and what your final quilt looks like.
Chris
Post a Comment