I was scared but did it anyway!!!

A few posts back I told you about the judge’s comments on the Himalayan quilt…..saying that the bottom portion of the quilt didn’t have enough contrast.  And, I actually agreed with her comments.

At first I thought that I would just leave it and not worry about it but then I started thinking about ways that I might be able to fix some of the problems, but still wasn’t sure that I could do it well.   A few nights ago I woke up in the middle of the night and started visualizing myself actually MAKING the changes.  To me, this signaled that I was ready to attack the problem.

So, on Monday night I put on my “big-girl” panties, pulled out my fabric paints and, with much fear and trepidation, started adding paint to the finished quilt.

I first looked thru my “Setacolor” paints but didn’t find the colors that I wanted.   Just as I was about to give up for the night, a bag of Tulip brand “soft” fabric paints fell out of the box and, low and behold, there were the colors that I was looking for.  

I squeezed out three large blobs of paint…..

….mixed it into this rather obnoxious color……

….and started sponging the color over the grass.    I started super slowly but then kept adding more and more paint as I went.   I knew that I had to keep the process pretty dry because I didn’t want the paint to migrate thru the batting and onto the back.

After about 5 passes over the top I was pleased with the way that the individual grass fabrics were melding into a more unified pasture…..

And, it was slowly lightening the color saturation of the grass.  

One note to self…..it is MUCH easier to darken fabric than to lighten it!!!!

Now I had a bit of moxie going for me, so decided to tackle some shading on the monument.   I mixed up a nice grey paint and, using a paint brush, started adding shading around the edges of the monument.  

Next I looked at the inner opening into the monument and realized that the inner wall needed to be darker than it was so out came the trusty sponge and…voila….the monument now had more depth!!!

 

The final job for the evening was to sponge some darker green underneath the monument so that it was grounded and not floating above the grass.

All in all, I am very happy with these changes and think that it is a much better quilt

Here is the original…..

 

Hopefully I have learned to listen to my own instincts and not hurry to finish!!   Now I can move on to something new……