Let’s Focus
It isn’t easy to focus, especially when we are facing challenges on a global scale. This week I felt the frustration of having a plan, but not being able to concentrate. It happens from time to time. Now it is time to write my post and my mind remains jumpy, hopping from subject to subject. I began with a plan, but have decided on a completely different one, at least to start.
I thought you might enjoy a peek behind the curtain. In other words, not the usual edited photos I share in my blog, but a before and after photo, explaining how I go from one to other. The before picture is what my director of photography (Dana Eagles aka my husband) gave me. He prefers to photograph my work horizontally for the best lighting and framing.
In order to share the photograph with you I do several things using Photoshop Elements:
- I rotated the block 90 degrees to the left;
- I chose a section of the quilt where I could mark true horizontal; and
- I cropped the image as tight as I could in order to eliminate distracting edges.
Although I didn’t have to do it this time, it isn’t unusual for me to adjust the lighting to come closest to true color.
There are several advantages to sharing the first photo.
- It demonstrates how the back and batting extend beyond the top. This allows for a place to position my hands while quilting right up to outside edge. Also, quilts naturally “shrink” when they are quilted, so extra is always helpful.
- Just in case you were under the delusion that my work is perfectly square, this shows that just isn’t true.
Let’s Get to Work
My original plan for this post was to share the free motion quilting I’ve done on Turbulence. I spent the first hour or so of the week testing and discarding multiple thread options for the upper section. The fabric is SO busy that any thread option either blended in to such a point I couldn’t see it as I stitched or it was so obvious it was distracting. I finally settled on a variegated blue/green/purple/red combo from Superior Thread’s King Tut line. I have a blue/green, leaning more to green Bottom Line thread in the bobbin.
I am linking up with Nina Marie’s Off the Wall Fridays.
