A Little More--A Chicken Update

Beginning the cross hatching

Quilting this chicken wall hanging is a lot like a sponge soaking in water. . .the more thread I put in to this project, the more it seems to absorb without much change in the look! On the other hand, all the thread in the wall hanging has to "fill" sometime. . . right??!!!!

I placed an order with Superior Threads for a few more cones of Kimono Silk thread. They were having a 25% off sale. Now, I should be able to finish quilting the entire wall hanging with silk thread.

When quilting the leaves, sometimes I chalked the lines. One reason to chalk was to see if I liked the spacing or the direction of the veins. Another reason to chalk the line was that once I've drawn it, I've the muscle memory to stitch it. It seems strange but, drawing the design really does work. What is crazy is that often my stitching is better than my drawing!

Chalked lines

Most of the leaves are quilted. I've used a variety of threads and a variety of designs to create the leaf veins.  I like the various thread choices for the leaf veins.

The leaf veins provide the repetitious quilting; but, since they are a little different--it provides variety at the same time. The grands have had fun finding similar veins, similar leaves and then ones that are different. They like playing that game!

Leaf detail and wood detail

I like the cross hatching at the base of the central rooster. Quilting the "wood grain" printed lines was a good decision. With the center panel almost complete, I still was stuck on what to do with the backgrounds and outer border. I'm getting closer to working on those areas! I have almost quilted the center panel.

When I was at a guild meeting last week, I took this project with me because I was still stuck with how to quilt the outer pieced border as well as how to quilt the backgrounds. Pat had some awesome suggestions. She took my idea of a curve in the outer border and suggested that I incorporate three blocks instead of one or two. Brilliant! She talked about quilting a cloud around the words.

JoJo suggested that I use a fill stitch like a brick wall behind the letters leaving parts of the wall out around the letters. It is great to have friends to provide input!

I am going to try the brick filler. JoJo's thought takes Pat's suggestion to a different level and will still allow me to stitch different fill stitches in the blocks. If I "get" to stitch the same filler stitch over the entire quilt, I'd be bored and it might take another six months to get to the facing and sleeve stage! Below is showing the center panel almost quilted. Perhaps, the sponge really is approaching the saturation point!

Center panel nearing completion