With every project, you learn something. There was a lot of learning with this project.
The thread with the peacock feathers was shedding when it was by itself. I put a piece of fabric behind the thread art. I put dark blue tulle over the thread. I sewed with a triple stitch around the feathers with a variegated teal to try to bring the feathers out more.
Even with the tulle covering the thread art, the actual peacock feathers were still shedding. I asked an art quilter at guild what she does about the shedding. She suggested something sticky behind the thread art that is shedding. She also said she doesn't use tulle any more. She uses a really thin, shimmery fabric. It has a closer weave so nothing gets out.
Up close, the peacock looks really cool. I think the quilting in the body of the peacock brings out the green like the green on real peacocks. I did put the really bright green thread on the main body because the body and the neck fabric were so close in value and color. Even before quilting, the body and neck blended into each other.
But as soon as you get any distance away from the peacock, the body of the bird just disappears. The colors are too similar and you lose the bird.
If you are any distance at all from the wallhanging, you do not see the peacock at all.
I am really bummed about the peacock fading away because the colors are too similar but I guess that is the way it is going to be. Dale suggested outlining the bird with a really light thread but one line of thread around the body of the bird is not going to be enough. I think the wallhanging looks cool when you are up close to it. But when the new owner takes the wallhanging out of the bag at the December meeting and holds it up for everyone in the guild to see, they are not going to be impressed because they cannot see what is in the center of the wallhanging.
I didn't want to spend too much time on a label for a wallhanging that I was going to give away so I tried to make the label with the automatic lettering on my domestic sewing machine. I am not too impressed with how the machine makes the words and sentences. I am glad I tried it so that I now know I do not want to use the domestic machine to make labels for all quilts.
I also tried a new way to do binding. I wanted to machine sew the binding on and not do any handwork to get the binding attached. Dale's aunt said that she was shown how to do piping binding. You sew a 1 1/4 inch section to a 1 5/8 section. The smaller piece is the most visible part of the binding. The larger piece becomes the piping. Then you stitch in the ditch between the piping and the visible part of the binding. The sewing is supposed to match up on the back where the binding is sewn onto the back. I pinned and pinned, and pinned some more, but the sewing on the front did not line up perfectly with the ditch on the back where the binding was sewn onto the back of the quilt. Again, something new that I am glad I tried.
It really was a lot of fun to create this peacock. Part of the beauty of quilting is learning. I have a lot to learn!
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