RJ and the Bird

Ignoring the crappy photography, I'm very pleased with these 2 pieces. The Robert Johnson is destined (most likely) to be donated to Tougaloo College for their art auction, and Bird will be one of my three for exhibit and sale. Robert Johnson is done with commercial batiks, photo printed fabric and real guitar parts and picks. I also used annealed brass corners on it.

Charlie "Bird" Parker is commercial batik (the black stripe-y looking stuff bottom right) and some of my rust dyed fabric. Photo printed fabric, and commercial prints for the staff. The bird applique is done with a pinwale corduroy so there is a bit of texture to it. I also spent 2 days with a microscopic screw driver, taking the saxophone apart to get the keys and thumb hook. A HUGE thank you to Chris at Morrison Brothers Music for taking the time to locate an old sax for me, along with some very cool cases and spare parts for future use. He also had some really good suggestions for other pieces of instruments I may be able to use.

Neither bamboo nor solid.

It took a while to decide, but I finally landed on an Oriental floral print (why, oh why, couldn't they have that great companion print for it in the right color?) and a brown mottled looking thing for the wide borders and a sweet little goldenrod geometric for the narrow frame part. They all have gold metallic detailing printed on them so I can use my gold paint pen for some additional embellishing in the blocks. Sashiko stitching in the brown border and some of those origami flowers from Fabled Flowers. I've pretty much decided on doing the bush clover at the top right since it hangs like wisteria does and I can make the stems go off the edge and not have to worry about anchoring them to anything. The sashiko will be across the top and at the bottom of the right side. Lots of gold metallic quilting in the body of the quilt and probably outline quilting in the floral border. After that, I get to drag out the beads and tassels and "stuff" for the decoration. Total size is 43x55.

I am more than open to any suggestions on how to transfer the sashiko design onto the border so I can stitch it. I use chalk a lot to mark lines on the face of a quilt but it comes off relatively easy and I don't want to have to keep re-marking the lines. Any ideas? Anybody used the tracing stuff? Is it easy to remove? The only other option that comes to mind is using the water soluble stuff and then rinsing it out, but that would require forethought to get the stuff off before I add non-washable stuff to the quilt.

"Big Eyed Fish"

So here is the finished quilt for the Draw Down. Total size is 62x76. Not a standard size but it works for me anyway. Cotton background fabrics and backing, appliqued fish and raw edge seaweed. The eyes are 2 buttons. A horizontal wavy quilting pattern in the center tie-dyed area and a vertical seaweed-y quilting pattern in the darker border. I pulled out all my cool variegated Mettler and King Tut to use on this one. They are a dream to work with and give more of an effect than you expect them to just looking at it on the spool. All free-motion quilting with some small detail quilting on the rocks and leaves at the bottom. Have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE free-motion? And my new discovery for getting the sandwich flat and stable makes it that much better since I don't get the pleats and tucks in the back and I can work on a smaller section at the time without worrying about messing it up by leaving it in the machine for a day or two, and it seems to wash better.