Mariners goddess WIP

I'm reaching out for opinions on how to quilt the dark background area of this quilt.

 

I've quilted her hair, outlined all the points and quilted the words peace, joy and love in 3 of the rays.

Hard to see but it's there.

 

I've got straight line "rays" coming out from the points.

My dilemma is should I fill these rays in somehow? I watched Leah Days video this morning on McTavishing and on one hand want to try it but on the other know it would take a long time to do.

Would it be worth it? Any other quilting suggestions that might be easier? Just leave it alone and finish?

I'm posting this on Off the Wall Fridays in the hope I get some suggestions. Thank you!

Quilt On!

 

 

WIP Wed

first the big finish - Max is done and looking for his forever home thru Etsy

ongoing UFO Mariners Godess - her hair is quilted but need to quilt the rest of the compass

this photo is bad but this fabric is so gorgeous it won't matter what I do with it. Have done some rocks. I think I'm going to quilt the background first before adding other elements.

and this is going to be a simple fusible applique quilt that I am going to make a pattern / tutorial for.

Can you tell what it is? 

Stay tuned for more progress on all of the above and thanks for stopping by:-)

well this didn't work

I saw leah day painting the world and loved it , you should check out the video.

I of course didn't want to do the same thing so thought of a soccer ball for some unknown reason.

and figured this would be my weekly 5 x 7 project

first I quilted for some texture

I mixed it with a gel medium thinking it would go on better - WRONG - red shows thru

so then put it on right from the jar - WRONG - to cakey (is that a word?)

ok, so this won't be a total loss, let me play with different stitches on my machine.

So I did and found the perfect stitch that looks like the seam on a baseball or soccer ball for a future project.

then labeled each with machine # and stitch width.

Now how smart am I?  :-)

Meet Max the joyful yellow lab mix

 

 

 

I finally finished Max today. He's a happy boy :-)

 

Here is Max in his non quilty life.

 

He started out like this

 

Then became this.

 

Now he has a body

And a field to play in

 

Now he's happy to be quilted and looking for his "forever home"

 

WIP - Oval mariners compass goddess

I've been sitting on this WIP since July

Mostly because of the middle bottom point and my aversion to ripping out anything.

Also felt it needed a border but not quite sure what.

After watching Leah Day's FMQ project goddess , I thought hmmmmmmmm..... Goddess - yes!

So I added a goddess, and oh look! She just happens to cover the horrid point of my middle star ;-)

I'm still doing her hair, auditioning different colors.

And I cut up part of a batik jelly roll for a border. It works.

Lots more to do, but I'm liking it now so it will be enjoyable thus finishable.

Max the yellow lab is almost done, just binding and a collar tag in case he gets lost.

And last but not least this little experiment with a bleach pen gone awry.

I describe the fun in my last post here.

Quilt On!

CRP/ wet / 5 x7

Artquiltmaker's creative prompt word this week was wet. I'm trying to take her word each week and make it into a 3x7 inch little piece of art. Motivation brought to you by fiber artists journey blog with her 5x7 challenge.

So I took this photo off the Internet.

Traced a rough sketch

Sewed a sky and beach, pencil drew the outline from the sketch, then filled in with paint.

Looking at the simple sketch as a guide, thread sketched in the details.

Here's where things went awry. I had to make water, so first I tried white but only had opaque and that was to light, so I tried a flesh tone. Just dabbing it. This is wet paint.

This when it dried. Not so great.

So a final ditch effort was using a Clorox bleach pen to make the white water flying spots.

This is with wet bleach.

And this is what I ended up with. Sort of looks like alien stars are attacking the poor thing. Lol!

It is no masterpiece but what fun to play and next time I want to make alien stars I'll know just how to do it.

Free motion Friday 1/11/13

This the back of Max the dog I have been quilting this week.

I'm having issues, nice that the worse thread problems are happening on the black so it hits you in the face

As you can see my issues happen when I go backwards. I'll be moving happily along and then always on the way back, I get the looseness , (tension bobbin problems?) above. It doesn't happen all the time which puzzles me. Can anyone shed some light on what I may be doing wrong?

I did some whiskers this morning that came out good.

WIP Wed - max is born

I'm making good progress with my portrait of a joyful dog that I have named Max.

I'm quilting him now, have to quilt the background and binding.

He's a yellow lab that just wants to play. Next week he should be ready to meet you:-)

I also have this UFO that I want to finish.

My problem is I screwed up the middle star and have to rip out and start over, something I hate doing.

I wonder if I can do a lot of quilting, like rays coming out and hide the skinny bottom part.

I will spend hours of quilting to avoid an hour of a redo, just hate doing the same thing twice.

What do you think? Should I just stop whining and redo?

I really want to finish both projects so I can start another I have an idea for using this luciousness.

Shall we make any bets on what happens first?

Thank you quilt bear :-)

 

This lovely basket of quilty goodness was delivered to my door today with a card from Mary Jo at the quilt bear online quilt shop telling me I was automatically entered in a drawing last month (anyone who spent over $40 bucks) and I won!

How cool is that!

The quilt bear always has free shipping to US and has the best aurifill thread prices I've found. If you buy 3 large spools you get 1 free, so buying 4 makes it $8.35 each w/free shipping. I know that sounds expensive for thread, but it really is worth it. (And I am as cheap as they come)

You can also get a 10% discount by using the coupon code - podcast - thanks to Katies Quilting Corner

 

 

WIP Wed the pillowcase chronicles

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

now that's done, let's get some quilting and sewing done for ourselves - no more gift making and cooking

 

This is my newest obsession, making pillowcases. I know alot of you out there have been doing this for awhile but I guess I'm slow on the take sometimes. They are quick, easy and you get to play with your fabric - AND clean out some of your stash. just thik of that novelty fabric you just had to have 3 years ago and it's still sitting on the shelf. There is a good tutorial here if you would like to do a few. The idea is to donate them, although you could keep some for yourself of course. I plan on giving mine to local houses that give cancer patients a free place to stay with their family while here under going treatment. 

this is my WIP and will be for awhile - another one of those David Taylor inspired "why did I ever start this thing" projects. It's a hot mess right now but just you wait - it'll transform 8-/

and for anyone interested the pattern / tutorial I maade for the moose is on Craftsy available for free download. go here for that

Quilt On!