Convergence Reveal

Here is my 'convergence' quilt for my Fiberactions challenge group. Make sure and check out everyone's great quilts on the Fiberactions blog.

To say this was a challenge is an understatement. Over the last couple of months we have been in the process of designing a second home and going through the contracting phase of building it in NC which is about 2 hours from where we live in GA. My time for art has really been limited.

This was my third attempt. The first attempt was about 3 weeks ago. I saw the date looming ahead of me and in a panic cut up about 6 different fabrics into 1 1/2" squares. I thought I would make some cool converging design and have an opportunity to practice my piecing which I have said several times that I am not very good at. Look at this

really ugly pile of fabrics....what was I thinking. I hated the colors and everything about it!

Next in even more of a panic I saw Ricky Timms book on Convergence quilts on my book shelf and thought I could at least do a simple one. I picked 2 really cool fabrics and did a curved convergence design that I really liked after the first convergence. I thought of stopping there and finishing the piece that would have been about 30" x 20" (wish I would have taken a picture). Since I had not other ideas for a convergence quilt, I decided that I should try to slice it and dice in some other way so I could meet the challenge deadline.

After more cutting and sewing I then decided it was too ordinary and decided to do some extensive thread painting on the top before quilting. I used 2 layers of stabilizer which was not enough and the top became so wonky that in total despair I cut it in pieces, arranged them on a piece of black felt and went for a bike ride with my daughter and granddaughter ! This was on Tuesday of this week....

I got up early on Wednesday, now in full blown panic mode, and went down to my studio. I looked at my now ruined quilt and started to look through my fabrics for the third time. I found a stack of my hand-painted skies. I love to paint fabric and the sky is one of my favorite subjects. I selected 5 different ones and after a couple of hours of playing with the arrangement I fused them in place. I did an overall cloud pattern for the quilting and with 2 trips abound the edges with a zigzag stitch I was done. If felt like I had just lost 20 pounds (wish I could really lose 20 LBS!!). This was really a great lesson for me since I tend to over think most things and am not know for someone who does things in a hurry. The funny thing is that I really like this quilt and it was done in a day.