Quilting on a deadline. With pets.

The good thing about quilting with a deadline is that I get the project done - none of that getting derailed when my craft isn't quite measuring up to my artistic vision. The bad thing about quilting with a deadline is that I don't have a chance to fully explore either my craft or my artistic vision - the quilt must be completed on time! This quilt was one of those projects that I love, but didn't quite "get it right" in my eyes. It also challenged the relationship between craft and tranquility, but tranquility mostly won.

The wall-hanging is of troth, or Indian Potato (Hedysarum alpinum), a powerful symbol at our campus of culture, tradition, strength, and continuity taken from the words of traditional chief Peter John of Minto when he spoke about Troth Yeddha', Indian Potato Hill, the traditional Lower Tanana Athabascan name of the hill that the University of Alaska Fairbanks now occupies, and the importance of education to Alaska Natives. It was made to give to a retiring colleague whose leadership has been instrumental in the growth of our campus, the expansion of education for rural and Alaska Native students, and the elevation of Alaska Native knowledge and interests within the university education system.

I started on Sunday morning (after a few days of thinking about what I wanted to do) with a Wednesday at 12:30 deadline. Working on such a tight deadline meant that what would normally be small setbacks became major issues. My first mistake: using tear away stabilizer for the threadwork. I hate tear away stabilizer. Such a mess. Plus, I had forgotten my tortie cat's crinkly fabric obsession (an obsession that has cost her at least three of her nine lives). Tear away stabilizer counts as crinkly fabric. I woke up Monday morning to find the piece mauled on the floor with chunks of stabilizer chewed away, a couple of holes in the fabric itself, and a number of tooth marks that didn't make it into the "hole that needs to be patched category." Amazingly, I did not panic, scream in rage, or freak out in any way. I calmly tucked it out of her reach and made plans to repair the damage with patches or trimming.

Monday night I designed the folded flowers for applique (troth is a member of the pea family), appliqued the root, and tried out some appliqued leaves as well, which I didn't like so removed. With a stash like mine it was no problem finding appropriate border fabric so I got it all put together and sandwiched for embroidery/quilting on Tuesday. The free motion machine embroidery and quilting turned out to be a nightmare! My wonderful Bernina needs servicing - I've worked it hard this month - and one of the threads I used had been wound wrong by the manufacturer. I had thread breaking, stitches skipping. I must have tried 10 different needles, cleaned and oiled the machine multiple times, re-threaded it. I finally did make it through, but for a while there I actually thought I would have to give up just because of thread problems. I actually considered running over to my mom's house at 1 am to pick up my other Bernina that I leave there for her so she doesn't have to carry one back and forth from the Lower-48.

Then Ziggy decided to get into the act. While I was putting on the beads I noticed a length of nymo thread trailing from his mouth. Thankfully he hadn't swallowed any, but he did chew it up and slobber all over it. This was after Jeanetta had discovered that he had gotten into some chocolate earlier in the evening when I was downstairs sewing. He is completely fine. Stomach of iron, apparently. I finished the piece at 3 am and got a little extra sleep by skipping my yoga practice in the morning. The final touch was a label with Chief John's quote that everyone in the office signed.

I do love this piece, but would have liked more embellishment and more balance between the root and leaves. Materials used were batiks, Cherrywood cottons, Sulky blendables thread, glass beads and dyed fresh water pearls.