The fish are quilted. I still have to quilt the background and border and get it bound. A new basting method I tried and I LIKE it. I pin basted around each fish and then ironed the stuffing out of it. It stays perfectly flat as I'm quilting and the stitches seem to be a bit flatter too. I've always ironed the binding to within an inch of its life at each step, but never the body of the quilt. The batting doesn't stay flat. It eventually puffs back up in a couple of days but it's a dream to quilt on while it's still flat. And no pleats on the back!
Joyce, you asked how I was quilting it. Fairly close quilting in the fish, going with the shapes of the applique with invisible thread. For the batik in the center it will be a King Tut blue/green variegated in a loose horizontal wave, and tighter quilting (McTavishing? Stipple?) with matching thread in the bright blue border. Maybe something vertical for the seaweed.
The package from my friend arrived yesterday and the picture and hand sketches are even better than I expected. I'm forcing myself to hold off on those until I get the fish quilt out of the way though. Another day or so. Of course, I fell asleep with designs swirling through my head for the Kokojazzman too. My original ideas from seeing in-progress pictures of him painting it are pretty much out the window now. Once I got the real deal hanging on my wall the ideas started flowing. The first idea just won't go away now so I think I'll have to start with that as a base and build on it from there. Maybe I can get some pics up of it as soon as I talk to him. I don't know if he wants to follow along as I work on it or if he just wants to see the finished quilt.
I managed to find a backing for the rudbeckia quilt I did ages ago. I started quilting around the blooms using a brown backing but I was never happy with it so I set it aside. I have one now that I'm happy with (who could NOT be happy with 6 yards of batik?) so I'm going to trim away the brown backing and use this one. And in the meantime, I also decided to add borders on 2 sides. I think it needs the definition. No progress other than that on getting stuff together for the quilt show. This may not be my year to have any shown.
No laundry or dishes done, but I did vacuum up the dog hair on the living room rug so I could baste the fish.
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