On Being Challenged

I am working on Darkwind.  This piece has been a challenge from the beginning.

First, I wanted to use different fabrics than the ones I am using now. But everything about that first attempt went wrong. The dark fabric I chose was a velour that left little pieces of itself all over the place, turning me into Spiderwoman (i.e., it drove me up the wall!); then had a hard time keeping the velour from slipping, even with pins and fabric glue! It turned out also that I had cut the fabrics too small for the size the piece needed to be, and consequently I ran out of the velour. It was a vintage fabric and I had no more. At the end of the second week of trying to work on this, I cried as I realized I had to start over from scratch.

Second, I bought new fabrics: new colors but also decided I wanted to use Evenweave for the white fabric instead of velour for the dark. The whole point of this piece was to use texture to give the sense of air (this was an artistic challenge in and of itself…) I love the purple color I selected. It is perfect. I cut the fabric into the sizes I had envisioned. I was so excited… I pieced three rows together, put it on the design wall to take a look and then I sat on the floor and cried.

It was too big.                                                                                                

I hadn’t intended on creating a piece this size. I wasn’t ready for an art quilt this size! I had envisioned it smaller, although not as small as the original attempt had turned out to be. I couldn’t cut all the pieces down to a smaller size; that would entail a lot of unstitching and measuring and cutting and restitching. I was concerned that in my confused state I would cut it wrong. I decided to return to the fabric store to get more of the purple fabric and begin again (I had plenty of white fabric). But of course they were out of the color I needed!

That’s alright, I told myself eventually. I can work with this. It is just going to be a bit more of a challenge than I expected.

Because I ran out of the purple fabric (because I had cut it too big for what I had originally measured!) I needed something for the center piece. I selected a beautiful sunset orange grunge. Something must have happened to my brain because I then I cut this piece too small. Ai, Madre de Dios. Why is this piece fighting me at every turn? Eventually I figured out a fix for this center orange strip and I was happy with it.

Now I had pieced it all together and just had the borders to put on. Well, wouldn’t you know it? I ran out of Evenweave (because I had cut it too big for what I had originally measured!). So back to the store I went. Luckily they had plenty in stock. Something was finally going right.

I looked at my finished pieced top. Wow. It was gorgeous. Time to sandwich.

Here was the third challenge. I thought I wasn’t going to have enough of the bamboo batting I wanted to use, but I was well stocked there. I pieced a back together using some various fabrics. The backing wasn’t going to matter since I generally cover my art quilt backs with a solid fabric to hide the back quilting from prying and judgmental eyes. But this piece was so big and not what I was prepared for and I didn’t know where I was going to sandwich it.

I decided on the kitchen floor. I scrubbed it three times to make sure it was sparkling. A non-quilter I was telling about this asked if I couldn’t just put a sheet on the floor and work off of it. No, because I had to tape the backing to the floor so it was taut, then sandwich, then pin. The kitchen floor was the only space large enough that I could tape the backing down. But just barely large enough. (I have since learned about pinning backing to carpet and will try that in the future.)

For another, more experienced quilter, these might not have been challenges. But for me, they were because I was unprepared for the size, and now I am feeling somewhat intimidated by it, not to mention the other minor setbacks, which collectively became major ones.

The fourth challenge is my little manual machine is struggling to quilt this piece. The piece is bulky because of its size and the Evenweave fabric is thick. The neck of my manual is only 8” deep. Quilting this behemoth of a piece is like raising a teenager: it is unruly, contrary, takes a lot of work, time, and patience, sometimes makes me cry…but it is incredibly fulfilling and worth every moment. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Except that today when my husband arrived home I told him if he wanted to see my progress he’d have to hurry to take a look before I threw it out the window. I didn’t. I’m still working on it. But I have decided I need a bigger machine.