FAP Photos

I finished my Final Assessment Piece for my C&G Level 2 Certificate in Creative Techniques: Quilting just before Christmas, and e-mailed the Evaluation and photos to my tutor Linda over the course of a couple of days.  As she is taking some well-deserved time off -- this is her grand-baby's first Christmas -- I know I won't hear from her for a bit, and that's okay with me.  I'm taking this time to wind down a bit from the push to finish it (self-administered, I grant you that).

The Evaluation process requires I document materials, their cost (or estimated cost, if from stash or thrift finds), hours spent on the piece, and my assessment of the process.  What were the high points?  The lows?  What problems had to be worked out?  That sort of thing...

Truthfully, all the sampling leading up to the final creation served well to minimize any complications during the production of this piece.  I faced only a couple of small challenges:

• I underestimated the amount of over-dyed floss it would take to do the handwork I wanted on the grassy areas.  Blessedly, Janice at Traditional Stitches had both colours in stock and quickly filled my order for 2 more skeins of each.  I've one skein of the 'Wood Rose' (pinky-brown) left -- but used every scrap of the 'Celadon' (green)!
• I know full well that quilting pulls in the fabric of a piece -- but forgot that embroidery does the same -- especially when done on top of quilting!  The result was a pulling in of the bottom half of the piece, necessitating trimming to square it up before binding.  I'd allowed for some 'ease' when I began, but in the end it is a touch narrower than originally planned.

The toughest part for me turned out to be the hand-stitching -- quantity, not quality.  It seemed to take forever to make progress on the seemingly-vast expanse of surface!  Like knitting a long stockinette project, though, "suddenly" there was a break-through and the end was once again clearly in sight.

These are just a few of the photos I sent to Linda for her assessment:

Sky quilting detail

Grass - detail of quilting & embroidery

Grass stitching & bark embellishment 

Back...

And Front

Final Dimensions: 17" W x 24" L

Materials: hand-dyed, eco-dyed, rusted and commercial cotton fabrics; recycled synthetic machine-knit sweater fabric; muslin foundation fabric; hand-dyed cotton floss, cotton sewing thread; painted and distressed paper napkin; fusible web.  Estimated cost of materials: $46.70 CAD.

Techniques: fused and machine-stitched applique, machine quilting, hand embroidery; enveloped binding.

Estimated Time taken: 28 hours.

Thanks again to the talented arlee barr for her fabulous tree trunk fabric!