WIP: Bantams, Basting, and Books

In working through my ongoing projects list, I prepped the backing for the monkey quilt and spray basted it for free motion quilting. While I was on a roll, I spray basted the chicken quilt as well. I have not shown the chicken quilt yet and here is a sneak peek of one section of it. 

One small dilemma, though, is that I'd completely forgotten that those little chickens still needed their legs embroidered and their beaks and wattles sewn or appliqued on. Cutting myself a little bit of slack, I think my original intention was to send this quilt out to a long-armer and add the appliqued beaks and three dimensional wattles later since they would have gotten in the way. Realizing the wings were 3-D too, the 3-D wattles would not have been the only culprits; sending it out to be long arm quilted would still have been problematic. So I changed my mind and decided to FMQ it myself. This decision, however long ago it was made, does not explain how I also forgot to embroider the legs. Maybe I wanted them to be on top of the quilting lines... ? Here is the diagram for adding beaks, wattles, and legs  

This is a pattern from 1994. Not remembering after a couple of decades is allowed – especially with three kids to care for back then. Having just spray basted it prior to embellishment, I now have two choices. I can do this embroidery and applique after it is quilted or I can peel the top away from the spray-basted batting and backing and work on the top alone. I use 505 spray and I tested it a bit. The top will peel off easily so I think I may go that route. I will need to see if the exposed surface is too tacky to work with though. At first blush it does not seem to be.

While contemplating recovery from my premature basting episode, I sewed another cloth book titled My Baby's Day which has precious Joy Allen illustrations. You can see the inner pages of this book in my December 27, 2012 post.



Thinking back to those three kids running around... when my middle child was growing up, one of his many aspired occupations was that of a marine biologist. I'd bought a fabric panel called Ocean Babies to make him a quilt since he was quite fond of dolphins and other sea life. As can happen to a young mother with other chores, priorities, emergencies, etc., I never did get around to making that quilt.  But this week I did sew the fabric as a book, the original intent for the printed panel. Seeing the clever rhymes in the poems and the bright colors in the pictures again reminded me just why I'd liked this panel so much.

My son did not pursue becoming a marine biologist. He did become certified as a scuba diver but chose the unrelated career path of a licensed architect and construction manager instead. Go figure. I guess land won out over sea. No matter what job choice he made, he is now an adult and a new father. Maybe I did not finish this book in time for his childhood, but at least he can read it to his baby daughter. I am traveling to visit her for the first time this week. She was just born April 6th, 2014. Here she is gazing at a quilt I made for her. (See post for February 8, 2014.) I can hardly wait to hold her!

Enough reminiscing about recent decades! Here are my stats for the past week.

Completed projects since 04/16/14 WIP post:

1. Ocean Babies cloth book
2. My Baby's Day cloth book

Ongoing projects:

1. Monkey on a bike quilt (April 2, 2014 post)  - spray basted awaiting FMQ
2. Chicken quilt - spray basted, awaiting embellishment and FMQ
3. Classic Cars strip quilt (August 3, 2013 post) - need to back, quilt, and bind
4. Grinch quilt (May 22, 2013 post) - all borders added, need to back, quilt, and bind
5. Overlapping square wall hanging - awaiting FMQ
6. Mask quilt (October 19, 2011 post) - hidden away awaiting inspiration for arranging hexagons

New projects since 04/16/14 WIP post:

1. None.
2. But I did buy fabric. Shame on me. (It was 50% off ...)

Time to hop over to Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday and check out what has been keeping other folks busy this week.