Revised Edition

Meadows and Streams

 24-3/4" x 29-1/4" 

 fabrics hand-dyed by artist,

machine pieced and quilted

©2010 Lisa Flowers Ross

$350

Detail of stitching

The title of this piece is Meadows and Streams, although I think it should be called Heartache because it was such a pain in the puttuti to make into existence!  I ripped many seams, inserted and re-sewed.  As I was pin basting the sandwich with safety pins, I jabbed my finger.  That's par for the course. I just suck on it for a second, look at it and then continue on.  Then I saw a spot on the fabric that hadn't been there before.  It wasn't a piece of fuzz and wasn't coming off.  What is that?  Oh CRUD, it's blood!  So first I went and got a BandAid so I wouldn't bleed all over the piece.  I was upset because I did not want to have to rip out any more seams.  I grabbed some club soda (because I had read that that would work on wine. I was just about ready for a glass of wine at that point.) and managed to get the stain out.  Phew!

I had picked out all the colors of thread to quilt with and started with a variegated thread.  After about a minute of free-motion quilting the thread broke.  I changed needles, tension, etc. and it kept breaking. I asked for help on the Quiltart list.  While waiting for replies,  I picked out some of the stitching I had done, switched threads and continued on.  With all the help, I eventually figured out a way to make that thread work, but it is not in this quilt. So after much ado, it was completed.

Thank you to all who left comments about the first posting of the piece.  Here's the before shot again for reference.

I knew something wasn't right and I thought putting on the border would help.  But my brain said that I haven't used a border in awhile so that's interesting that I would need one on this piece.  

Well, it didn't need that border.  But what the border did was to help me focus in on what was bothering me.  Many of you hit on the same things. It was too light in the bottom right-hand corner and too dark in the lower left-hand corner.  The blue sections didn't seem in balance to me. 

I guess you can see what I did to fix it.  I inserted a light strip of color in the lower left corner.  I added another blue section on the bottom to make it darker, more weighted and to balance out the blue.  Someone had mentioned maybe adding a bit of complimentary red to give it some sparkle.  Obviously, I did not use any red, as I was going for a more subdued, calming effect overall.  But I did insert some white pieces in the blues to give it some more "excitement". 

The border is gone, but I did put a binding on it because I still thought it needed a little containment.  I'm sure some will not like my binding choice of color and having two different colors.  I thought it needed the dark green on the bottom to ground it.  I am happier with the piece now, although I think the original intention got changed somewhat.  But that's art!

Please feel free to leave comments about what you think of the changes, good or bad.