No…I haven’t been AWOL! (Absent without leave for those of you who haven’t been in the military or federal service!)….

Over the weekend I started working on the beading on a quilt, which, alas, I can’t show you (grumble grumble!). It is my entry for the Viking competition, and according to the rules cannot be published anywhere including one’s website. I’m playing it safe and assuming that also means not on blogs, either. Durn. But I can TELL you about it, and will (change that to won’t…decided to delete the photos…sigh) flirt dangerously with the edge of the prohibitions by sharing three close-up shots since NO ONE would be able to know what the whole quilt looks like!

According to the rules, the quilt must be 51×51 inches square. Hmm….square is an awkward shape for most “art” quilt compositions. Challenge number one. Then, I began some small blocks in an improvisational class with Dianne Hire last summer, when serendipity stepped in and I got to be her assistant for a week at a quilt camp (lucky me!). Well…..what to do. The blocks are fairly “not me” in style, but wanted to do something with them. Challenge number two. Got the idea to use them in the Viking effort….except they worked up waaaaayyyyyy too small–under 40 inches square I think. Challenge number 3. So added borders, and border, and border.

This quilt is SO not me in so many ways, though I’ve tried to make it “me”…I don’t usually do red, I’ve NEVER had this much beading on anything, and I’ve never used sequins before! I love how the sequins worked as fish scales. For the head, I used very small flat 3 mm sequins with a stop-bead; for the tail, the larger sequins were translucent, so I placed a smaller opaque 3 mm green sequin under the clear-ish yellow 5mm sequin, then held them on with a stop-bead (a seed bead–bring thread up through the holes of both sequins and into one side of the seed bead, then go back down into the quilt sandwich through the holes in the sequins and snug up). Anyway, that’s it…has taken about five days to do the beading (OK….I’ll confess I’ve been HORRID about getting to work this week, so lots of dithering around, but still…..five days have elapsed!). By the way, to find another way to fritter away your cash, check out Cartwright’s Sequins, which is where I got these. That Quiltart list will get you in trouble on a routine basis if you let it, LOL!

I finally got back to the Tableau quilt today and sewed the stable building. Tomorrow, I will try to stitch the mountains and make the background, then back to the figures, and animals and and and…..pictures tomorrow I hope!

Today I didn’t really accomplish much in the way of “finishing” something, other than re-doing Mary’s skirt.

BUT, I did audition a bunch of different fabrics for the stable roof and wall, nearby buildings and I think I’ve got the background “roughed in.” I dithered away the morning catching up on this and that and working out (feeling a tad better…still not well but better).

But, even though there is little concrete done, I feel like I got a lot done in terms of how the final quilt will look. On Monday, I hope to maybe get the background cut and assembled (or mostly assembled). I need to “amend” some fabrics to get what I want to use for the background buildings. I don’t plan on a lot of detail in the buildings…maybe a window or two and the rest to be done with the quilting….you don’t see much detail in the dark! I have –believe it or not– a Halloween fabric with bats on it that I want to use….will use the back side, put some dark opaque textile paint over the bright yellow eyes/red mouth (these are just dots on the back side) then use a wash of something dark-ish over the whole thing to tone it down and make it look like stucco! The light “stones” fabric here is too bright…but want to have something lighter than the fabric behind it to create a sense of depth and dimension….time to play with paint!

OK…didn’t wait until tomorrow…here’s pics.

Here are Joseph and the three magi (Joseph on the left). Now Joe looks at bit thickwaisted, but he’s gonna stay that way….hopefully he’ll look fine once I add background, stable, animals, buildings, manger, etc. I like the magi….had a ball with the one on the far right..the white-haired one. I stamped green batik (using masking tape to mask off sections) so the fabric looks like a brocade painted in one of Fra Angelico’s paintings..fun!

Debra mentioned that the faces look *very* pale…I agree, especially in the photos. I dithered a lot about making them look Middle Eastern like they probably really did look, and looking like Fra Angelico’s paintings …i.e. northern Italian, a lot of blonds, etc. In the end I obviously went for circa 1430 a.d. Italians, noblemen and peasants. Will have to do another nativity some day that is more true to life…

Here is the tall, young king from the back:

And the old king from the back….you can see how I fused the fabric (which I pleated for the skirts) to the “front” side of the fusible interfacing, then wrapped it and glue-sticked it to the back (using washable, acid-free glue stick).

Of course, once I fixed Joseph, Mary needed some work. I got as far as un-picking part of her dress, and got tuckered out. That flu turned sinus infection is still getting me down. But I’ll finish her basic construction tomorrow and do the shepherds. Hmm….looks like you got a partial self-portrait, too….red fuzzy slippers!

And for something completely different, I needed a break yesterday and the day before, so I FINALLY satin stitched one of the blocks in my “Nourish” quilt, which has been on a back burner for about five months:

No photo today…but wanted to let you know I re-did Joseph from the neck down (using similar fabric) and he is MUCH better. Of course, that now means Mary needs longer skirts, but that’s OK….I thought she needed them anyway, and it’s only a partial re-do. I also got the three kings done today…at least the basic construction. Thanks to all for the hints and suggestions, they helped!

So who besides me is old enough to remember cutting out and dressing paper dolls? Well, that’s what it felt like I was doing today! I’d trace out a drawing of the king / Joseph / whatever onto stillf fusible interfacing with the dots side up, then cut out cloth and pleat and tuck it onto the fusible and fuse in place, then flip over, run glue-stick around the edge and tuck the edges under just like you’d fold the little tabs back. OK…I promise, pictures tomorrow.

Thanks to Terry for her about.com link for human figure drawing. I remembered the 1:7 ish ratio for the human body (as in a person is about 7 heads tall), but some reminders of width of head to torso and that the legs join the body at the halfway point were most useful! So that helped a lot with Joseph. And I got to paint on cloth to make the “brocade” for the old king’s dress….I promise, pictures tomorrow. Now, off to the sofa with the kleenex box (my nose is raw from using TP for two weeks…will I ever be well again?)….

So what does it do on April 5th in Maine? Snow, of course:

As for quilting…..was so whupped didn’t go work out today. Ended up (me????) taking a nap…I gave up naps when I was two, so if I fall asleep during the daytime, I’m really toast. So I was toast today. But before that, I worked on Mary and Joseph. I’m not entirely satisfied, so if anyone has any suggestions, PLEASE make them!

Mary isn’t so bad, and I like the baby. Mary’s pink dress is made from a pink spring uniform dress; for a different piece, I’d probably use a different fabric, but I really wanted to use the uniform fabric, so this is it. I think I’ll thread paint it heavily to shade it, and that will help. The silk cloak is hand-dyed by me, and I like it, and will carefully blindstitch it so that it will puff when the quilt is done. I’m wondering, though, if I have the proportions correct….

Particularly with Joseph. Something is definitely wrong. I trimmed his hair, but I still think he’s “off.” I’m not positive, but I think the head is too big for the body. Or the hair REALLY needs more trimming…definitely too wide. It would be easier to make larger bodies than re-do the heads, and I may try that….. I dithered a lot about the garments to have them wear…I wanted to make the figures look like they might have actually looked when Jesus of Nazareth was born, but in the end decided to go with what Fra Angelico painted, which was what he knew: predominantly northern Italians of circa 1450 a.d. Let me know what you think……hubby mumbled something, realizing after I pointed it out that something was off, but he’s worse off at figuring it out than I am….Thanks!