Prairie Afternoon-My 2015 PIQF entry
Prairie Afternoon is the title of my entry into the 2015 Pacific International Quilt Festival (PIQF). It was one wild ride to make this quilt! Everything went wrong, until it didn’t. I like the final product and I’m shocked that it all turned out.
My inspiration was drawn from photos I had taken when I visited my home state of Illinois a few years ago. I love the fields and grasses and how the wind puts them in motion.
I am happy with the completed piece. But it was not easy to get there! Come with me on the journey:
Left side-no stiffener, right side is stiffened
I knew this would be a heavily stitched piece and would be prone to getting wonky, so I did some research beforehand to figure out what I could do to control that. I will not hoop-hate that, I will not put heavy stabilizers in either as that affects the drape. I thought I would try Terial Magic-a unique product that I know some embroiderers use in place of hooping.
You may not be able to tell here, but the left side is going wonky because it had no Terial Magic. The right side was treated and lies perfectly flat. Problem solved….
except I forgot to treat my piece before I quilted it! Let us pause for a forehead slap.
More problems followed. As I was stitching, of course I stuck myself and bled on the quilt before I realized it.
Double mess: “Make-up” stain and wrinkles even after first blocking
Also, every time I washed one of my white quilts, I ended up with this make up type stain on it. I FINALLY figured out it was my washing machine-there was a line of icky gunk at the water line! I tried cleaning and cleaning and cleaning it but there were still little floaty bits coming up in the water. Thankfully it began to leak on the floor and I received Budgetary Approval to get a new machine-another problem solved! And see those massive wrinkles? Ugh.
If you read my blog regularly, you may notice that some photos are from previous posts. I needed to do that to be able to tell the story of this quilt.
Since I forgot to use the Terial Magic, of course had a seriously lumpy quilt. It was VERY wonky. I have figured out a method of “custom blocking” that controls that problem. By pinning frequently along the lines in the problem areas, I can block that mess into shape. This one was a huge challenge though. I ended up custom blocking multiple times.
And some areas still needed additional blocking, so in those areas I “micro blocked” by taking my pattern weights and plopping them in the problem area.
I also had an issue with some of my bobbin thread showing on top. Even though my tension was good, in those areas where I stitched over an already heavily-stitched area, I was going to have some threads pop up. I carefully dotted them with a Sharpie and they went away!
And of course sometimes I just changed my mind on the placement of a grass and ended up with this kind of a mess to take out.
So finally I got to this stage:
I lost a bunch of photos somehow and this is the only one I have of this stage. But it’s looking good!
And the back.
And I still had 2 days until I had to submit! I was feeling good. But when I began to fill out the form, I realized that my piece was too small to fit into “Innovative”, its proper category. ACK!
I know this is so weird, but I happened to have this piece that was originally something like 56″ x 36″ laying around! I have lots of line ends in this type of quilting and on this piece, I used tiny stitches to secure the end of each line. I subsequently decided I wanted to bury each thread in the batting instead. That is how this piece came to be laying around-the ends weren’t buried.
I could make this piece work IF I put my pictorial piece upon a larger “extra” piece to create borders and make it bigger. Then I could lay the pictorial piece atop that with the black side as the front-brilliant, huh? I had 2 days to make it work. The binding on the pictorial piece had to be removed so that the hand stitching on the binding would now face the white side.
And I also needed to bind the new “back”, do the sleeve, label, write up the submittal and do my own photography. I scooted in just in time and ultimately was accepted. The only thing I don’t like is that the grasses now go left instead of right. Does that bother any of you? Do you lefties out there jump for joy when you see a “left-sided” piece?
It will be on display this week at PIQF and I’ll be there to see it. What a ride. I’ll be linking up to Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday-check out this week’s links.
Loved your piece when I saw it last night at PIQF it was great to read this afterwards. Good rationale for keeping ufo ‘s
Thank you Suzanne. Lucky you to go to Preview Night!
Well, I don’t know if its because I am left handed, but I DO like the grasses going in that direction! You have infinitely more patience than I do. I can hardly wait to see it in person. Hopefully I’ll get to see you too sometime during the weekend!
Thank you Debby! It is good to hear from a leftie. Almost all work that I see slants right. I missed you yesterday:-(
You can pay for that new washer with the $ you save on medical stress tests. You’ve passed that test with flying colors. I can’t believe all that went wrong with this lovely piece. I truly like the negative effect better than the mostly white piece you had planned. Glad I’m not the only one who uses Sharpies for that purpose.
Joanna I’m sure I heard about the Sharpie thing from some other quilter probably. I do like the end result much better-who knew?
Beautiful piece! Isn’t it fantastic how our problem fixing often turns into unexpected creativity that actually adds something great to the quilt? The frame looks wonderful on your project!
Thank you Luanne! I do think problem solving often leads to the best work.
I am not a leftie, and the direction of the blowing grasses does not bother me in the least, Jenny!
I love the piece! Thanks so much for sharing the journey! Your work is unique, and I love to hear how your persistence in problem solving pays off…especially to the point of getting a new washing machine. Ha, ha! And I have another avenue to check for the cause of stains!
That is good to know Laura. It does kind of bug me but I realized when I am looking at the work of others, I don’t even think about it. And who knew it would yield me a new washing machine!
It’s so beautiful who cares if it slants right or left!
Aww thanks Roxane! See you very soon-yippee!
Whew! I’d have tossed it aside way before that and it is wonderful!
I’ll bet you wouldn’t have Linda-not when you have already invested that much time in it!
It’s a wonderful piece, Jenny, and well worth the effort. :-)
Thank you Margaret-I’m still kinda surprised it worked out.
What a story! And your quilt is really wonderful!
Thank you Vera! Sometimes you just do the next thing and it turns out well.
It sounds like you went to hell and back on this piece, but the results were so worth it. I think it is stunning and really like the black side as the front side. I will have to look into that Terial Magic.
Thank you Norma. Yes, I am liking that Terial Magic!
Another stunning piece! But, oh my, what you go through to get there.
Thank you Linda-who of us have not had a torturous piece? I think it goes with the territory.
Hi Jenny, Your piece is great, I like the left slant. I feel every time that the quilting is desasterous but with all my efforts it turns out good, and I got comments that it really made the piece. So we almost always have to finish it and learn from our corrections. Ann
Thank you Ann. I can’t wait to see your Strata piece in person! And yes, we all learn the hard way, sigh.