Dorothy's Animal Skins Quilt - Pieced & Quilted 11/26/2013

I'll be piecing & longarming this quilt for Dorothy Wonder using the Yellow Brick Road pattern. She is sending the skins fabrics. I'll do the rest including shopping for suitable borders.

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Oct 11: Got a call this morning from Dorothy to help her with this project. She is swapped & I have a lot of free time. Until her fat quarters get here, I am working on EQ7 to draw the quilt. I've gone about as far as I can for now. Double borders 2" & 5" makes a 77 x 95 quilt. As I play with the colors, it seems to me that the inner border needs to be a subtle transition, either a medium shade or a blender or simple print of some kind, to ease out from the skins to a solid or another muted blender. No inner border is too abrupt. An inner border that pops it, poops it too. The fabrics here are so dynamic so let the borders tame the wildness. We will see what Dorothy sees. I love talking over quilt layouts with her & always ask her to critique my quilts. Ha! She agrees.
Oct 12: Used some software called Quilter's Lightbox for the first time to audition pattern & thread options. This tool might help us get closer to the thread color we want before I go pull specific spools.
Oct 15: Fat quarters are here. Added real fabrics & re-did the layouts.Oct 16: Added some almost solids to the mix to have enough fat quarters to make a larger quilt. 14 skin fat quarters, 6 more or less solid blenders & one black-brown print.
Oct 16: Going/gone to Greensboro to look for border fabrics. Very successful trip.
Oct 18: Cutting & piecing.
Oct 19: Finished the cutting. The blocks are together. Finished the layout & started on the rows.
Oct 20: I have a panto designer lined up--Ellen Munnich. The main part of the top is ready. Just needs borders.
Oct 21: Restricted by the backing which is 84 x 96, I can add 2" + 3" borders or just one 5" border. Either way the top will be 73 x 91. Dorothy says 2" plus 3". I have contacted Ellen Munnich about doing a special panto for this quilt. She has agreed but I have to wait until mid-November.
Oct 31: Pieced the backing & inner border. Double checking how much backing I have now that it is pieced before cutting the outer border.
Nov 05: While pressing and squaring the backing, I realized the quality was just not there. I'll get more of one of the "solid" fabrics used in the top for the backing. Brown marble was available.
Nov 13: Contacted Ellen Munnich about our panto. She says it will be in the next batch. Not sure what that means but it had better be quick...time is running out.
Nov 16: Picked up the backing fabric.
Nov 22: Ellen Munnich did the panto today. My idea was profiles of animals represented by the skins. Ellen suggested Zany Swirls & I countered with using that type of connector between the profiles. She was concerned that including a giraffe would be hard to fit everything together. I left the details with her. Several hours later, she sent me her sketch.  I am trilled with what she did. After all that--spending most of her day focused on it--she wasn't even going to charge me. Thanks so very much, Ellen. When I get the panto today, I'll be ready to load Dorothy's quilt.
Nov 23: Outer border is pieced and thus the top is finished. Now the backing--also pieced & ready to load. Batting is cut. IQ is programmed. Thought about using a variegated but found the perfect So Fine! brown instead. Having to wind bobbins to get a perfect match. Have 5 ready to go. Wanted to get a lot more done, but HEY!, my hair cut looks great. Well, it does -- kudos to Lowell! My ultimate goal is to ship on Monday.
Nov 24: Loading. Loaded. Quilting. Very hard to photograph but I'm trying. The back should should show up nicely.
Nov 25: Quilting along making nice progress when ... a tension problem has me taking out a row. Since the thread is too loose, it shouldn't be too hard to do or take too long...just long enough that I won't get this in the mail today. And so it goes. Well, it wasn't hard but it did take a very long time nonetheless. All set to start again tomorrow & hopefully beat the nasty weather.
Nov 26: Quilting ... Quilted ... Shipped. On a rainy day, I couldn't get the picture I wanted of the back. Also the marble effect obscured the quilting more than I thought it would. Still learning after all these years.