A Little Bit More . . .

It's not much, but it's a start

Vestiges of the cold are hanging on but each day I am a bit better and itchy towards late afternoon to get back to something creative. Yesterday I decided it was time to take action on that overdye that produced such an interesting zigzag design. It's been pinned to the wall in my office, then pinned to a wall in my livingroom, places where I could stare idly at it and ponder what to do with it. I don't want to fold it up, and there isn't room for it on the design wall while I determine a "master plan". But I have come up with a possible first step, and now that I have, I was finding it irritating to see it hanging around. Time to act and at least cut a backing in preparation for layering and quilting. While I was at it, I cut the foundation that I will build my section of the bridge slice quilt on and marked where the edge of the design comes.

That really wasn't much and didn't take long so I soon found myself considering batting for my long beautiful piece of fabric. I often use Hobbs Thermore unless I feel I need more heft and stability, in which case I generally use Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 batting. But having recently been through my stash, there were several others I wanted to consider (a cotton/bamboo blend, a polyester fusible, leftovers of a Fairfield 80/20 blend that despite their marketing I found nearly impossible to handquilt through). Much to my amusement, I ended up using that Fairfield batting as much because there was a piece of it that was wide enough and only a bit longer than what I needed, or as Harriet Hargrave discovered swayed many quilter's selection process, it was "the right size" (see previous post). Well, sometimes that really is an ok way to determine what you will use, all things being equal.

These one of a kind specialty pieces are usually difficult for me to work with. My initial reaction is often that I don't want to do anything to them because it might detract from the design and subtle textures in the dyeing. I certainly never think I can cut them up. I talked with my art group about my toe-in-the-water thought of quilting along the edge of the light part of the zigzag and maybe attaching some of these leaves that I am having a terrible time finding an appropriate home for. So as long as the piece was lying on the table, so close to my thread collection, I could not help getting one spool out I'd been thinking would be a good color for that first delineating quilting. And then the Oliver Twists came out, and the more I studied it with those threads, the more I found myself losing my fear of spoiling the design in the cloth and being drawn to ideas that would enhance on every level.