Putting Myself on Notice

While continuing work on the lake quilt this week, I noticed a potential problem. Do you see it?

See the dark part of the turtle's foot near the bottom edge of the quilt? Notice how close it is to the edge. It suddenly occurred to me that, by the time the bottom edge gets squared and trimmed and the binding gets sewn on, at least part of the turtle's foot will probably be under the binding. Why had I not noticed this before???

As I stood there in disbelief and speculated--because I'm nothing if not analytical (*snicker*: notice the first four letters of that word)--I wondered if, before the rock fabric got quilted and satin-stitched, there might have been more space between the turtle's foot and the bottom edge....

Hmmm. So I looked back at an old photo of the quilt top, taken before any quilting was done:

 

And there it was. The turtle's foot actually started out just enough above the edge that its proximity didn't get my attention--but the 'drawing up' of the fabric during quilting had now brought it close enough to be an issue.

 

So, what to do? I could border the quilt--which I'd had no intention of doing--however, I didn't leave enough backing fabric and batting around the edges of the quilt top to do that.

 

Except at the bottom. AHA!! A light bulb flashed on in my head. Could I attach a border at the bottom, alone--no sides or top? Ehhhh, maybe not. Depending on the color, it would probably end up looking like some weird fenceboard or dirt road or patch of grass...wait...a patch of grass? No, that would look too 'manicured' for such a natural setting, but what about a hedge? Nah. Again, too manicured. Ok, what about a patch of groundcover, which you see in nature all the time? My clover fabric is the right scale, but it seems much more suited for a meadow than for a lake scene. I hunted for some fern fabric, but found only little bitty ferns--which in the foreground would have skewed the quilt's perspective.

 

On my fifth foray into the stash, out came a piece of fabric I'd thought might never get used--a yard (the minimum cut allowed when I bought it at Eleanor Burns' tent sale at the 2012 Paducah Quilt Show) of big ol' caladium leaves. That's right, caladium leaves. I know...crazy, huh? Do caladiums even grow in the wild? They probably do somewhere...doesn't everything? At this point, I almost didn't care. 

 

 

And wonder of wonders, they worked--at least, visually. In fact, they made the quilt pop. As any quilter will know, that was what sold me. Suddenly the yellow-green in the middle section of water became more obvious. Why? Because of all that yellow-green in the caladium leaves! It balanced the quilt and gave it a finish I wasn't even aware it needed. Just cover the caladium leaves up in this next photo, and you'll probably see what I mean.

 

 

 

 

So, it turns out I did myself two favors, however unintentional. By placing the turtle too close to the edge, I was forced to add a foreground that (I think) improved the overall landscape--and I had serendipitously included enough batting and backing on the bottom edge to do that very thing. Big, big WHEW.

 

After quilting the caladium leaves yesterday, I took a break and re-auditioned some fabrics with my funky palm trees. Remember this first, not-so-successful audition from last week's post?

 

 



Ok, on to the second attempt, below. I like this much better, but we'll see. Going to have to live with it for a few days first. (Notice I'm paying more attention to the space between major elements and quilt-top edges. Lesson learned. :)

 

 

Heading over to Leah Day's FMQ Friday to see what she's up to today, and to Sarah Craig's Whoop Whoop Friday. These two gals and their reader hookups always give me an infusion of creative energy. They'll probably do the same for you, so check them out.

 

Which reminds me--this has been mentioned before, but it's worth saying again--there are a lot of those wonderful reader hookup blogs I've visited and tried to comment on, but for some reason, on many of them, my comments never show up. My daughter-in-law has had the same problem with my blog: she comments, but it never comes through. If any of you know why this is happening, please give me a heads-up in a comment on this blog. If you don't see it come up within a couple of days, then you may be having the same problem. :(

 

Have a great weekend, everyone. Just two weeks until fall--my favorite season! :))

 

Linda