The moral of the story is: Never let a quick design decision wreck weeks and months of work. Two days is nothing in the Big Picture.
What happened was my dear brother Matt brought me a box full of beads left over from a church crafts fair he was involved in...and I decided to use some of them because I love my brother so much and wanted his beads on my quilt.
But as you will see, they were not the right choice....
I started by felting up some white and pink silk for the dianthus petals. I just love doing this.
Then I added some pink nylon lace bits for texture.Felting is such a spontaneous activity! I threw some angelina on there, too.
Here are my petals all cut out (there were 120 of them). Those raspberry colored oval beads were my gift from Matt, and ultimately the culprit.
They were just too big a contrast in value.I had wanted these little flowers to form a background for the large roses that would go on next...but all I ended up seeing were raspberry colored polka dots in the center section of my quilt.
Doreen Speckman, a beloved quilt teacher who passed away too soon, used to say when helping a student make a design decision, "Would you miss it if it wasn't there?" I have taken this to heart, and find that it helps simplify my thinking.
I did not miss my little flowers when I snipped them off my quilt; in fact, I was relieved to have them gone.
I've had great luck with the Dove roses though...I'll write about them in a day or two. And those dianthus will come in handy somewhere, someday....
I think a lot good came out of those two days. That pink felted wonderful fabric is just beautiful and the beads are nice too and that second picture of all the supplies on top of your quilt was fabulous. I saved it in my pretty pics file.
ReplyDeletewhat a delight that you treat small setbacks as a learning experience and share them with us! thank you!
ReplyDeleteThe dianthus are beautiful - but a bit "strong" and spotty for this quilt (an opinion). They will make some other project gorgeous, I'm sure, so the effort wasn't wasted.
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot for showing this experience. I unstitch so much (and usually the results are not usable, as your "failure" is) that I found it encouraging to see that you sometimes have to re-do something, too.
ReplyDeleteThose flowers are beautiful, but the beads are not only too dark, but too big. Somewhere else.
Well not all good ideas turn out to be keepers. It's sweet that you wanted to use your brother's beads, but it's good that you were honest in assessing whether or not you liked the look. I'm glad the flowers will keep for another use.
ReplyDeleteGlad you're saving these dianthus for another time, Allie, as they're very pretty. Felting sure looks like fun! Thanks for the photos of the process and am glad you're happy with your decision. It's interesting that you "just know" whether something works or not, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteAllie,there's a comforting written piece I refer to when I pick out more than my share of stitches.... In an interview Joanas Salk was asked how many mistakes he'd made while coming up with the Salk vaccine. He replied, he didn't make mistakes, that rather the 112 or so experiments he did led up to the discovery, so he couldn't discount them as mistakes but something more like steps in a progression.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your journey Allie and keep on progressing.....
Gee, I really liked the flowers! But I'm not exactly known for my subtlety. Your work is just wonderful; love reading about your projects.
ReplyDeleteI still think your brother is really sweet.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on the raspberry beads. Wholeheartedly. Trust your experience and your intuition. Your brother will be totally satisfied when you use those beads on something else that is special to you. And, Doreen Speckman...wasn't she dear? The quilt world sure misses her. Thanks for sharing....Pat
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