Finishing the Collage - Fish

I don't usually work on multiple things at once but I'm bending my rule because I have a quilt on the LA frame that is very slow work. While the detail is simple, circles, the material is flannel. The only way I can control the movement is to pin every inch, as I stitch.

I work on that in the mornings while I'm still 'fresh' and my back is happy. When things start to slow down I turn to my other projects.

There is a quilt on the hand frame and my 'Child's Art' is still waiting a decision from the grandparents. So I went back to the Collage.

I was of two minds with the background, but I ended up going with my hand dyed material and made the decision to add seaweed.

I'm using thick yarn. For this specie?, a small piece threaded through the couched 'stem' and unraveled makes a pretty good imitation of familiar vegetation.

Exactly where the fish will finally fit can't really be decided until all the seaweed is in place.

Snow Days - Picking a Quilt Motif

Having decided awhile ago that I was NOT going to do an all over pattern on this, I searched to see what others had done. Unfortunately the quality of the photos that end up on the Internet and Pinterest were not very useful.
I knew I wanted snowflakes. I decided there was no reason to join them in a continuous stream. That said, they could be any size.!  Snow flakes are really abundant in the CLOUD.

When it came to the large border, (I had added almost 8 inches), I decided to treat it differently, partially to maintain the border identity but also to ensure an good solid quilted edge.

I found this continuous  pattern on line and figured I could adapt it. After playing with the size and the placement of "diamonds" / "stars", I'm now ready to begin quilting this fellow.

Snow Days Quilt _ adding the border

While I still really like this quilt I decided it was just too small.

So I spent a long time deciding how I wanted to enlarge it only to come to the realization that I didn't have enough of any of the fabrics. I had worked primarily from fat quarters or single yard pieces, (and shirts).

I went back to my quilt store, Caroline's Quilts in Cambridge and came away with almost the same materials AND some WOOL batting. With the cost of that batting I committed to hand quilting this guy.

With the addition of the three bands, white, grey and brown, the size went from 64 inches square to 86 inches square.
Now it's definitely a bed quilt.
And Now it's on the FRAME. All set for winter mediation. 😌

Children's Art - Day 3

So here's where I'm heading;

            a narrow, 1 inch border, random arrangement of 1 inch squares.

My intention is to sash between each with black wool, in keeping with the original art.

Children's Art Flimsy done

What a difference adding the black crayon lines made. (couched wool)!