The back story: I recently decided to make a series of quilts out of some fat quarters that I dyed. The fabrics were created using an ice-dyeing method. Each has a unique look, and all have an incredibly organic feel to them.

After some time, I decided that each fabric will be the background to a quilt that explores “Forces of Nature and Powerful Forces of Human Nature.”

The fabric in the quilt pictured above felt like pictures I’ve seen of Supernovas. (More on that in the next blog post.) When Project Quilting’s 11.3 challenge was hearts, I created the “before” quilt pictured above; and, in typical fashion, I posted it just minutes before the deadline.

At that point, I took a step back to look at it and immediately grabbed my seam ripper.

I couldn’t live with it. The quilt had two major problems. First, the facing binding was a mistake. My eye kept falling off the edge. I was missing the gorgeous outer space in the quilt. It needed a frame.

More importantly, the quilting was a problem. I quilted it as if the background was negative space. Often the background is negative space in a quilt. However, in this series of quilts, the background is the focus. I’m taking great pains to keep each background in its original, organic order as I cut the fabric to construct the series. In my first run at Supernova, the quilting took the focus off the background and obscured the gorgeous fabric.

So, a lot of quilting came out. A small amount of new quilting was added. And, a small traditional binding was added to frame it…. Deep cleansing breath. I can live with it now.

My next post will contain the complete title and artist’s statement for this quilt.

Live well. Quilt well.