Happy mail day!

These three beautiful blocks arrived in mailbox a day or so ago.  This first one belongs to our CQI Basically Beaded RR and is Kathy S' block.  So far it has the work of Meg, Pegsue and Arlene and a section that Kathy added before sending.

Also in the Basically Beaded Round Robin, this is Meg's lovely block with Pegsue and Arlene's lovely beaded stitching.

Here is Rebecca's  block from our Brazilian RR.  So far it has made only one stop, at Dee's.

I think I have my work cut out for me these next couple of weeks!

WIP: Works in Progress Wednesday

Here is a progress report on Spoolin' Around (what do you think of the name? I'm pretty happy with it, so if you think it's too dorky, um, don't tell me...)

Anyway, use some imagination at this point and envision the white border on all four sides rather than just the top and bottom. I didn't have time last night to sew the last two borders on. Oh, and also ignore those ripples on the top and bottom borders. Not sure what is going on there. I carefully measured the  quilttop and borders. They are both the same width. Anyway, I'll work on that too.

Things changed a lot in the last week. Last Wednesday I was still pretty set on doing a small inner border and then a larger border using the challenge fabric. Then Jessica left a comment with a GREAT suggestion (thanks, Jessie!) and from there I ended up with a 1/2" inner border. And let me just make another observation here. Do you ever buy fabric for no known reason, other than "you'll know it when you need it"? Alexander Henry has a few colors called Heath, a wondeful blender fabric.

The brown colorway was the perfect solution when I was making border decisions. The challenge fabric has a lot of negative white space, and in a few places it would butt up against a tipped-over spool, and I didn't like the white against the white. So I needed something to separate it, and this was perfect. A solid would have been too jarring, but this brown and white "mesh" fabric was a great transition. So I'm saluting the decision to buying fabric just "because." Because at some point it might come in really handy.

Next came a 1 1/2" border of the challenge fabric and then a 4" white border. I had tossed around the thought of appliqueing a needle on the bottom border and big stitching some "thread." Instead, I am going to big stitch a needle, and then the thread will wander around all of the white borders. I'm thinking variegated thread?

My next dilemma is the quilting around the spools. I was thinking of quilting 1/4" inside just the brown spool part with brown perle cotton. Alternatively, stitching around each spool with white perle cotton.

Further decisions, which I won't have to make for at least two weeks: I got this companion print, which I could use for the back, or the binding.

Oh, and I kind of snuck this in on the bottom border. When I cut the selvage off, I had only cut 1 1/2" so it was a little too small to just sew it in to the border. Oh, well...

I'm linking up at Naptime Quilter for Workshop in Progress and Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday. Check out what everyone else is up to.

I just had a random thought. Yesterday I mentioned that Mark's fused glass plate appeared in a quilt magazine put out by Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims. Have any of you ever watched The Quilt Show? After Alex did eleven years of Simply Quilts on HGTV, she and Ricky Tims teamed up for a web-based quilt show. I renewed my membership recently, and I received a free gift certificate for a 1/2-year membership. I can give it away to a friend who is not a Star Member of The Quilt Show. And it doesn't even involve your postman trudging through the snow. I just email you the info and you go from there. If you are interested, I can give you the information. It is entirely free to you. So as a giveaway, anyone want to be my friend? Leave a comment to enter. I'll pick a winner on Friday morning and get the info to you.

Fractured Cats and Other Progress

I've finished my latest art quilt. I'm calling it Fractured Cats at this point, not sure if I will change that or not. It measures approximately 12.25" square. I ended up quilting only the background areas and the dark lines of the quilt as I really liked how the cats and flowers appeared sort of dimensional after the background quilting was done.

One word of caution, and this is for those who use the Dr. Ph. Martin Bombay India Inks like I did on this piece, it smells when ironed and I imagine it may be releasing some fumes that are not good for breathing in, can't be sure on that but you don't want to take any chances. Do it in a ventilated space, use a cover cloth and don't iron for too long as I think it can scorch and change the appearance of the color. One thing I do like is that the hand of the fabric is not hard and stiff. You can tell it's not exactly the same as unpainted fabric, but it's not much change at all.

I got my FW Acrylic Inks in the mail yesterday and I'm anxious to try them and see how they compare to the Bombay India inks.

Overall, I'm very happy with how this quilt has turned out.

Up next is a before/after photo of my gourd progress. I'm still not completely finished with this project. I'm not sure if you can even really see much difference in the comparison. The differences are: I sprayed the gourd with a fixative and that added a bit of shine to the finish...but the main reason I did that was so that any of the dark lines I drew on wouldn't bleed or fade from further work on the surface. Then I added some shading on either side of the bolder swirly lines that run up and down the sides. I also added some white charcoal to add some highlights. Both the shading and highlights are to add dimension and at this point I'm not sure if they are too subtle or not. I may think on it a bit.