I ran into some difficulty yesterday as I started to quilt “The Progression of an Artist”. My needle was pulling up the tiny pieces that I appliqued, leaving me to glue them down again and again. After asking other quilt artists on QuiltArt.com and my SAQA members, I was told first to use a small needle, an 80/12 instead of a 90/14. The next suggestion was to clean the needle with rubbing alcohol as all of the fusing from appliqueing and my fusible batting were adhering to the needle. After making these changes I’m  back to smooth quilting.

From my last post I had to make a change to represent my first stage as an artist correctly. I always start with an inspiration and then a line drawing. In this piece the inspiration came from a photo of me on our honey moon  taken by my husband. This was machine stitched and is frame #1:

Moving on, I take from the drawing what I want to express in fabric. Seen here in frame #2
As I become more comfortable as an artist and with the technique that I’m using, I see more detail that I want to express. Seen here#3

Now let’s put them all together to form my piece, “Progression of an Artist”.

Each frame on its own is technically correct and maybe you have a preference as to which one is more visually pleasing. Sometimes extra details is not neccessary or does not add to the compostion. It’s just up to the artist and her expression.
Now because this is a fabric challenge, I have to include the fabric somewhere in my piece. Hopefully it will still work with the design. Otherwise it’s not worth it to just place the fabric in for the challenge. I’ll just keep the quilt for a different show.