Work In Progress Wednesday

I have a few things in progress right now- I need to stop starting new things!

So here are my updates:

Mario Quilt: 1 block finished (Boo), 2 blocks finished seam but need final pressing (pressing those final seams is a pain in the butt!), 3 blocks have horizontal seams sewn, 6 blocks are fused with no sewing yet.

I need to find some painter's tape to put on my machine.  It is developing two faint red lines from the permanent marker I used to mark the grids on the fusible interfacing (I did the backside wanting to keep it off the fabric, I really didn't think it would rub off onto the machine!!!)  Kevin tells me it is only cosmetic and won't hurt the machine- but my Bernie is only a year old, I don't want her messed up (despite the few scratches I've managed in that year.)

Express Your Love:  This is the quilt pictured above, and is a quilt along done with Leah Day.  I finished piecing my top and she is laid out on the batting and backing and needs to be basted.  I've selected phrases to go on the quilt- a little different from the ones suggested by the quilt a long.  To me, the idea of a goddess quilt is really personal, and it seems odd to copy someone else's.  So rather than thread painting affirmations I would say to or about myself, I am instead going to write positive thoughts that someone watching over you would say to you- the thoughts the Goddess is blowing down to Earth for us all.  Oddly, the first thing on my list was "Have an open and willing heart" was the first thing I wrote down- and that was a suggested phrase this week (except as "I have an open and willing heart") so there will be a lot of similarities.

The next step is to outline quilt the sections.  I need to decide if I want to do them all in white, or do them in the color of the section.  I might end up doing the hair in a dark color but everything else white, but since I plan to use color thread in the background, I'm not sure how white dividers will work.

It is a fused quilt- so all the pieces shown are fully fused down to the fabric, with quarter inch overlaps when they join another piece of fabric.  I used freezer paper to trace the sections and get all my positioning right.

 If you are following the quilt-a-long, you will notice the background rays are missing.  I drew them in with marking pen and plan to use yellow and orange threads to fill the alternating sections- that way it appears like the suns rays radiating out behind the Earth.

Snowflake:  This might be entering WIP territory again.  I keep putting it off for other things.  I need to do the final small square and the large square.  But then there is the whole "put quilt together" thing.  And that is going to take a while. Even longer still because the white used in the Mario quilt and the background for Express You Love was supposed to go on this quilt, so now I don't have the fabric- haha.

(I can't get the button to load- but join the link up party at http://www.freshlypieced.com/)