As a gift for someone who collects African art, I was inspired to create a wall hanging with colors that reflect that continent's vibrant and rich textile and nature colors. I knew it would be a small piece, one that is like many others I have done, because I lose interest with larger projects. I usually have several things in mind, and when my Mr. is away on work travel, I take sewing magazines and my clipboard with graph paper and mechanical pencil to bed with me and work on plans and schemes for future projects. They are usually left on the Mr.'s side of the bed, that is way too empty when he is gone. But his work trip this time may give him the chance to jump in the ocean at Challenger Deep, and give him the chance to claim swimming at the deepest place on earth. He deserves that, even if it makes me extremely nervous for him to do it. It all depends on the weather, which right now is at typhoon level 3. But he will be out there for a few weeks, so maybe the chance will still be there.
My color inspiration came from this insect, the African Bottlebrush Beetle. Africa has so many amazing creatures, this beetle among them. Its front legs look like, well, bottle brushes. Even I was able to figure that out. I also liked that the orange/yellow/black colors reminded me of some fabric that I had on the shelf, from Paula Nadelstern's Patternista Chorus Line. I love these fabrics, and am buying yardage online because it isn't in stores anymore. My choice for the background fabric with leaves on it came from the fact that the Kalahari Desert has areas that get up to ten inches of rain per year, and things grow there. These few interesting facts about Africa gave me some reasons for my choices, and I always try to incorporate things like that in work that I do.
My first bright idea was to piece it so the featured triangles were all the same. Known as fussy cutting, it is a great way to give a quilt an added visual impact. Good idea, except for the fact that this is paper pieced, and lining them up on the back of the paper, and having to sew the seam, then flip them over and press them into place left room for a lot of error. In order for the pattern to flow around in the circle, they needed to be nearly identical. 12 triangles, 3 of them removed, repositioned and re-sewn, and 1 triangle removed twice. Talk about frustrating. It was. But their position was crucial to the impact of this, and there was no way I was going to give up on it, even though taking stitching out of the paper foundation weakens the paper, and can distort the rest of the sewing lines. So I was very careful to place the needle back in the original hole so I wouldn't be adding another line of perforation in the paper. Couldn't sew them all correctly the first time, but I could resew them. Add to that the small stitch length used so the paper is easier to remove, and you have a seam ripping nightmare.
I began looking at sashing strips. Light or dark fabric...how many...I spent a day considering many fabrics. I gave in to the dark, light, dark, light look, and I think I'm happy with it.
Four blocks done. Whew. I had added another triangle to each of the inner corners to give it a center focal point, only to find that when I trimmed the under fabric and sewed the blocks together, I didn't like the fabric choice. Really, Peg? It didn't blend with the other fabrics, and was a distraction instead of a compliment. It kept staring at me like a grey eyeball. I hated it. I knew that if I took those four triangles out, having been stitched in with those tiny paper piecing stitches, it would probably distort the center of the quilt.
So I spent another day deciding what to do. Enter the fussy cut, again. If I wasn't going to remove the grey fabric, I was going to have to hand stitch a square of fabric over it. And that is where I am now, about half way done. I have an Ott light, but the only light bright enough for that kind of stitching is sunlight, so tomorrow, about mid day, I will finish it. I am going to strip piece the backing fabric, including a fabric label, and then decide the quilting pattern. I will post a photo of the finished piece in a few days, but now it's off to bed to spend some time with my clipboard and graph paper. Also, my close up photo taking abilities need some work, because these look distorted, but another blogger, Heather said it was because the camera wasn't parallel to the surface. I need to work on that...but thanks Heather!
