Fishies

Back to the Grind.

The holidays are over.  The first part of vacation week prior to Christmas was anything but relaxing, and I got little quilting done.  The day after Christmas, we took off to DC for the week.  It's about 600 miles, which is the longest car trip we've done with the kids.  It was really fun taking them to a multitude of museums, and getting a well-needed dose of American history along the way.  DC was cold, but we have returned to Maine with 15" of new snow and temps today of about 10F!  I am still battling a cold/sinus infection for which I visited an ER on Christmas day for antibiotics.  Looks like I may be going back to the doctor soon for something stronger.  Being sick has zapped my energy to quilt, but today I started on the quilts that will be done this month.  

This is a client's McKenna Ryan wall hanging.  It is all batiks.  She fused the pieces and left them unstitched for me.  It worked OK, but I am not immensely fond of raw edge applique and the way it can be thick and stiff in places.  I gunks up my needle now and then.  The purist in me would just as soon hand stitch these instead of glue them.  In the end, it is a nice looking wall-hanging.  Only being about 20"x24", you might think it would be fast.  You'd be wrong though.  It took me about 3 hours to quilt.

 I stitched around the fish and the borders of many items with Monolon, before stitching with the colored thread.  I have used a sea foam Glide on the water, a lavender Glide on the fish, a horribly behaving Superior Rainbows in variegated green for the border and Khaki Glide (which looks gold) on the seaweeds.  These are all shiny threads that add a nice texture to the quilt.  It also has 2 layers of Hobbs 80/20 batting since it is a wall-hanging.  This helps to give lots of relief.

The fishies are stitched in a fun purple.  It works with the batik fabrics, and gives them a somewhat irridescent look as they might naturally have.

 I have left the rocks unquilted so that they really pop out.

Now, off to figuring out what quilt might be entered into the spring shows.  I have 2 quilts that need names, and I am presently devoid of inspiration on that front.  Somehow I need something better than "that dang quilt"!  I will have more great quilts to show in the coming days.