EBMC - May Finish!

To quote a fellow-student in this year's EBMC, "This piece very nearly landed in the bin."

I spent most of yesterday with the re-vamp of my May piece for the "Landscape" theme, and the quilting was a struggle.  It was my own fault, really;  I decided to try a slightly different tension for my walking foot (recommended by the instruction book that came with my sewing machine) and it looked great on top -- but underneath, a mess of small loops where the top thread was pulled down off the surface.  Sigh.

Reverse sewing was the only way out.  Rough-edged fused strips became really rough-edged and bits of frayed thread were all over the surface.

(cut here to weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth....)

Cursing gave way to a frustrated yell to the Heavens...recognizing I should have gone with tried-and-true...

Eventually, the thing was quilted:

Ready for trimming and squaring up

Here's the faced piece on my design wall (facing still has to be stitched down but at this point, I consider it ready for submission to EB):

Wide Alberta Sky (C) 2015
26.25" W x 23" L

And a detail:

And EB's feedback:

I think this came out very well...especially the detail!!   The little hint of gold does just make it!  A LOT better than that darned shed!!  That's because its shape is in keeping with the other shapes so it is unified, but the color is bold and that gives one the contrast.

With hindsight the full version would be a lot better if the sky wasn't so obviously stripped...if instead you had pieced the sky in a similar fashion to the land...the vertical joins stand out very boldly and really for no good reason.

I do like the canola!!!  Yes when I say rape[seed] down here people look at me very funny...interesting though both here - in Georgia - and in the UK, it's a bold chartreuse, never gold - I've got it in a least one quilt and several paintings!! 

The slough looks okay...but would have been better had it come further across...or come and gone (as it were) like the canola.  Remember you don't have  to make it exactly as it really is!!!

But you have caught the sense of the rolling plains and the wide wide sky which is very nice indeed.

All in all, I'm satisfied.  I take her point about the pieced sky, which I created because I wanted to generate movement in the sky and because, darn it, I wanted a variety of blues and didn't have enough long yardage, so I used shorter bits!  (grin)

Any thoughts?

Linking up to Nina Marie's Off the Wall Friday, and taking a break with some knitting.  I have a sock to finish -- and the Socks-from-Stash challenge deadline is tomorrow night!