Cross Roads--

Placing the strips

Our book club read, "The Time Traveler's Wife," by Audrey Niffeneger. The story is about a librarian who posses a gene that allows him to travel uncontrollably back and forth through time. I was inspired to create the feeling of slowly coming together or slowly disappearing. I had a piece of printed fabric that contained red, black and gray circles. I fused a stabilizer to the back of the print. I cut out strips, but didn't use a rotary cutter in light and dark. 

Grey circles and red diamonds

Once I had a selection of strips, I have myself an hour to arrange the pieces. I gave myself a limit because I knew I'd agonize for days about the placement and I didn't have days to spend on the project. In about fifty minutes, I was finished. I turned the light out in the studio. The next day, I surveyed my layout. I changed two strips. 

Detail of applique and background quilting

Back

Label

After I had fused the strips into place, I auditioned gray circles and red accents. I decided the red accents added the most. I kept those and added more. I removed the gray circles.

Next, I machine appliqued the edges. I used invisible monofilament thread. 

Finished front

The reason the piece is small is because a friend gave me a piece of 80/20 legacy batting to try. This was about the size of sample batting. I was happy to have a test. I decided that the batting was not my favorite. I stippled quilted in most of the background, I found that the background was flatter than I had anticipated.

I do like the view of the quilting from the back of the project. The texture of what quilting can add to a project is one of the reasons that I enjoy the quilting part of the process so much.

I used YLI 100 wt silk thread in the needle to quilt the background. I used Aufifil 60 wt cotton thread in the bobbin. It went together fairly quickly. I made a flange as part of the binding. It was fun to make. I made it in 2011!