Bad to the Bone

Another strippie from novelty fabrics, destined for Sleep In Heavenly Peace:

Front: 70" x 90"

I switched to different threads for the appropriate strips, as is my wont.

I used three quilting designs for this one. In the Bad to the Bone novelty fabric I quilted the Dexter's Dog Bone pattern, using the light gray thread. 

For the bones, gold, and navy strips, I free-motion quilted a large stipple (using the variegated blues/purples, terracotta, and navy threads).

While the FMQ is faster than tracing a pantograph onto Glad Press 'N' Seal, then tearing the plastic wrap away when the quilting is done, I find myself feeling really derpy and not at all proficient at it. I suppose it's largely a matter of being too close the the subject matter as I stitch, because seeing my efforts in these pictures makes me believe I'm not that terrible at it.

 

By the time I got to the final top/bottom borders, I was stippled out and happy to stitch simple straight lines (again using the "Flower Pot" King Tut thread).

A ridiculous "lesson" I learned about stippling: it took me maybe an inch of stitching on the navy fabric (with navy thread) to realize I'd have to to highlight the stitching somehow, because I was never going to see where I'd been vs where I was going. I took a light blue piece of chalk and ran it over the stitches I'd done, then the penny dropped and I figured out I had it backwards: I needed to draw out the stipple first, then quilt over the chalk lines!

That was such a success that when I got to the yellow/orange mottled fabric, I spent way too much time trying to find a good chalk color for drawing the stipple pattern before I realized I could see the thread as I quilted on that fabric and didn't need to map out anything. I can be incredibly dense sometimes.

The King Tut "Hieroglyphics", used in the bobbin throughout, is a new cone I picked up earlier this week. My LQS is phasing out King Tut threads, and there were several cones of this at a slightly reduced price so I bought one. I'd been wondering how to tie in the blues, reds, and golds of the back fabrics, and this variegated thread features all those colors.

Two FQs of that fun primary colors striped fabric provided the 330" needed to bind this one. Onto the next!