Quilt Decisions

I’m working on quilting the isolation quilt, and trying to figure out what I want to do next.

I’ve pretty much figured out how I want to quilt the figure. I’ve outlined the figure inside the box, but not outside the box. I haven’t decided how or if I want to quilt the rest of the box. I’ll make that decision after I get the rest of the piece quilted. I also haven’t decided if I want to quilt around the outside of the part of the figure that’s outside the box.

The hard part is deciding what to do with the quilting for the rest of the quilt. The original idea was to do narrow quilting. Rather than have sharp corners on the quilting, I decided to stagger the lines.

Quilting this narrow is tedious and a PITA. So….. do I keep slogging along hating every stitch? Do I gradually make the lines farther apart? Although it’s hard to see when the lines are this close together, the quilting is a variation on the Log Cabin quilt block. I didn’t have that in mind when I started quilting, but I like the idea now that I see it. Log Cabin and it’s emphasis on the home gives an interesting additional meaning to the quilt. I think lines an inch apart would make the Log Cabin more obvious. It would certainly make the quilting less tedious. Until I figure out how I want to proceed with the rest of the quilting, the quilt will sit quietly.

It’s finished, quilted, and bound.

My Biology Journey. I put the beads on before I started quilting. I thought I’d be okay quilting by hand. While I don’t mind hand quilting, the cataracts make seeing up close difficult. Unfortunately, I kept going until I was too far along to give up and machine quilt the piece. I’ve got some serious retina issues so cataract surgery requires an extremely skilled specialist. Hospitals in New Mexico have gone into crisis mode this week. No elective surgery and we’re about to start rationing medical care. Translated: you get to lie on a gurney gasping for air and dying slowly while others get medical care.

I ordered some Hobbs fusible batting. I had two of my photos printed by Spoonflower. Each photo is centered in a yard of fabric. I’ll be doing the quilting on those by machine and neither lends itself to any kind of beading or other embellishments.

In the last couple months, I’ve put 203 new fabrics in my Spoonflower shop here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman

My store, Deb Thuman Art, has new work for sale here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com