that translates into
The Frost Queen (crazy-quilt project) equals twice the work of one project
honestly
everything i have done, i have done at least twice
except the stream which is on it's third incarnation
when i dreamed up this idea i decided i wouldn't piece it on a foundation the way you usually do - i'm doing a scene, in a make-it-up-as-you-go kind of fashion so that doesn't really lend itself well to piecing on a foundation - 'lessin' you want to draw it out first
(which i didn't)
{but maybe i should have!}
instead i pieced it in sections: sky, palace, rocks, snow, and sewed the sections together as and when it seemed fitting
then i unpicked most of them and did it again
and sometimes again
the first palace looked more like a mud hut - now it's much leaner and closer to what i had in my mind's eye, arches and windows that will be etched with frost, with the fabric starting the work for me
and when i had it all done i taped it up, pinning on the stream i had crazy quilted on tissue paper, and i realized i had a bit of a problem
i had pieced some darker fabrics into the snowy foreground area, adding them randomly to create shadows
and now realized i had inadvertently pieced in a perfect echo of the stream - i could not have done that if i had tried - in fact, the whole reason i was appliqueing the stream was because i had thought it would be downright impossible to piece it in
silly me
there were a few options for fixing it , and it was decided i would applique a lighter piece of silk fabric over top of one of the offending sections - and it worked!
here's the corrected version, with the stream slowly being fitted and curved into place
in the early days i did think it wrong to applique the stream on top of the background - the background really should come over the stream
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see how it "sits on top"? |
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that idea came with a whole different set of logistical problems
so in my usual fashion i ignored it and kept on with the rest
but now the rest is taken care of and it's time for the stream
as i was working on it today i kept going back to the notion i was doing it the wrong way around
but dreaded the thought of cutting the background from underneath and peeling it away, folding the raw edges under and appliqueing it on top
i know me well enough to know that when something is nagging at me like this it will never stop
and that i am better off to at least try it and see, even if it means hours more of work
so i removed the basting threads at the foreground, re-basted a little farther from the edge, cut the background fabric, pulled it from underneath, folded under a seam allowance and appliqued it on top of the stream
and in this photo you can hardly tell!
in real life you can definitely see the difference, but not so much here...
so now i am thinking about doing the bottom part like this, background on top and leaving the upper portion as it is, with the stream appliqued to the background
all of the edges (the stream banks) are going to have stitching, snow, rocks and boulders, shrubs and driftwood so there will be be nowhere that you actually see the seam
i'm not afraid of the work of changing it now but i'd rather not if i don't have to - i want to get to the fun part!
and all this beautiful, textured fabric is crying out to me to embellish it with trees, and snowflakes, and ice-crystal flowers
not mess around with the stream for a fourth time!
what do you think???