Hibiscus Haven is Done!

My Motivation

Persistence, faith and gumption is what it takes me to go from idea to completion of an artwork. When I start a new work it seems brilliant. That is the hook that motivates me to begin.  Somewhere in the middle a combination of panic and drudgery take over. The panic is due to whether I will be able to pull off a successful composition. The drudgery comes from the shear repetition of piecing and stitching that is a natural process of making the fiber art that speaks to me. Once I consider a work finished, as I do with Hibiscus Haven, my confidence, that dipped in the middle returns. There is the shear relief of completing the piece from beginning to end. There is also the sense, that yes, this will do. I have another work to add to my website and hang in galleries.

Hibiscus Haven is Done!

Detail Showing Floating Leaves and Binding Finish

Hibiscus Haven is my own design. However, Leah Day's genius in coming up with 365 different free motion quilting designs needs to be mentioned here. Her designs are my bible when selecting a motif to quilt into the background. I used her Floating Leaf pattern in Hibiscus Haven. Prior to Quilting Along with Leah, I probably would have done a small scale version of the design. However, now I am able to modify the scale of my free motion quilting, I chose to do this at a medium scale. I wanted the scale of the quilted leaves to match the appliquéd leaves. Another nod to Leah, is that I have always created bias binding and hand stitched it down on the backside of the quilt. Since, I had used the button hole stitch with the appliquéd leaves and hibiscus, I opted to use the button hole stitch to secure the binding to the front of the quilt, a method that Leah endorses.