Hidden Circles

I've finished my Quilt Unversity homework - I don't recommend doing it the way I did, all four lessons in one week, but I loved this project once I got started. Here's a close-up

and here's the completed piece. I've named it "Hidden Circles."

I used a lot of silver and teal metallic thread in this piece, and I never could have done it and remained sane without Yenmet thread. Yenmet is made in Japan and has a very smooth finish, coated with a polyester film. It doesn't shred or break like other metallics and it's very strong. Because the top of the spool is smaller than the bottom, there's no trying to figure out which way it should come off the spool. I only had it shred four times this week, and I couldn't begin to guess the number of metallic stitches in the quilt. It costs about twice as much as other metallics, but it's so worth it.

After the start, I stuck with the lessons until I came to the binding. I'm always looking for ways to improve my binding, never my strong point, and it looks like the binding instructions will be great - for another quilt. For this one, I wanted a curvy binding, so I fused it.

Life lessons in this quilt? Oh, yes. I loved making the basic quilt and hesitated when it came time to cut out the circles. That's when the "what if"s came along. What if I couldn't cut out the circles neatly enough? What if I couldn't darn them back in their new spaces? What if I cut the circles, then realized that I liked the quilt better the way it was? What if the trims started to come off?

I think that lots of times life's like that. We're happy enough with what we have and when we see a chance to become better, we hesitate and sometimes we let the "what if'"s get to be overwhelming. Unless we take the chances we won't come anywhere near our potential. Enough said.

Thanks to Dena Crain for her great lessons. You can see her work in the Gallery section of her website at www.denacrain.com