With the surface of the quilt I'm working on now fully covered, I feel impatient to get to heat setting everything down and sewing. But I know I can't rush things and there are areas of the quilt that tell me they need to be altered. I feel some resistance arise at the thought of redoing, looking further and working more. In fact, last night I had to leave it alone because I felt overwhelmed and the answers weren't forthcoming. However, today when I do look, I see shapes that don't point to the center focal point that need replacing and the upper right corner needs more variety of shape, while the left corner feels messy. Suddenly I can see that the tiny pieces near the center that I added to make it seem less 'wreath-like' are actually too dark a value. Since I assumed the center of the piece is 'done' I actually had fused it down already, because I don't want pieces falling off and then to not know where they were formerly placed. So this led me to something else I've been wondering about. I haven't made a fused quilt before, and I wonder if every piece actually needs to be sewn around it's edge in addition to quilting. How durable is fusing? Will it stand the test of years to come? I did some reading and found that different quilters have different approaches. Some do not sew edges and others do. I don't want to create alot of fragmented lines with sewing, but I could use invisable thread. If I just quilt, I'm sure lines of stitch will touch every piece at least once if not more, so they wouldn't fall off. I decided to test the center pieces since I want to remove them anyhow - and - with a little effort they came off nicely. So a fusible quilt would probably stay together, but can also come easily apart. Hmmm. I will continue to stay with this quilt as it's evolving and to do the best that I can to make it all it can be.
This morning the sunlight made a patchwork on the stairs. I'd been thinking about making something with winter fabric using a positive/negative approach and the idea of a candle shape to signify the light that is extra precious at this time of year, came to mind. I drew one and made a template which I traced onto fused fabric and then cut it out to end up with a positive candle shape and a negative candle outline. I fused the outline onto the red/green/white fabric and then decided it would become a potholder, so I fused that onto the green/gold fabric and sewed it together, adding zigzag quilting with variegated metallic thread around the candle outline, but it doesn't show up as well as I expected it to. With each project, I learn something new. If I were to make this potholder again, I would also only use fusible once, because the hand of the fabric is quite changed - although with a potholder, a little extra body won't matter much. Another thing I didn't foresee was how the fabric underneath the white one shows through. I had planned to use the positive candle shape for my next potholder, but decided I didn't want to hide any of the red/green/white fabric, as I like it. In my eagerness to sew, I forgot to sandwich in the bit of trim for a hanger, so I sewed it onto the potholder top afterwards and covered the ends with a button - after quilting it first, which you can see in the close-up of the back. 