Crossing Borders

I put the borders on my Ryokan quilt.  While they came out better than I'd hoped, with colors in the border that came from the quilt, I'm still not satisfied with them - they seem like the scale in the design is too small.  It has the elements I wanted - an 'architectural' feel, like masonry of some kind and very graphic.  Unfortunately, the squares of the 'blocks' are very small - about 1" each.  I guess I'm not going to change it now of course.  Here's a picture of it with the borders on:

I also completely requilted my Kokeshi Dolls quilt.  The comments from the judges at the last show it was in included what I knew they would. ("Quilt would benefit from more quilting").  So I quilted the background of every block.  In each 3-block section, I used a different background quilting 'pattern'.  I used McTavishing in one block (or my take on McTavishing that is), shells in another, meandering in another, and in two blocks I used what I call, 'Anne's Echinoderms' - it's kind of like a variation on meandering where I quilt long wormlike shapes.  Anyway - it was a lot of fun trying out all these different patterns.  Some of these were completely new to me (like the shells, and McTavishing), and some were old friends (meandering, and the Echinoderms). 

I was inspired for some of the quilting by designs from Leah Day's website. I highly recommend her site and her book for wonderful inspiration and designs to practice and learn and expand upon.  I will try to get some photos of the quilt that show the quilting but that is so hard to get the lighting right to show the quilting when your thread color matches the fabric.

It was a lot of fun to do the quilting and I'm glad I did it before the October show that the quilt will be hanging in.  This one isn't juried or judged, but there are viewer's choice awards so I'm hoping the quilting will be noticed by those who visit the show.  I am also putting the Folk Art Cats quilt "Under the Jellicle Moon:" and "Sunset Sail" into the same show.  I don't think I've ever posted "Sunset Sail" here so this is it:

It's about 15" in diameter and I haven't hung it in my house because I can't figure out how to make a sleeve for it.  Silly reason, but it's the only one I have.  I do like this one, as I love boats and sailing.  I got the pattern from a magazine (my bad, I can't recall the name of the mag or the issue #).  It was done for a crayon challenge in which my colors were orange and blue.  We could add one additional color, mine was white, even though the white is actually a batik with a little bit of orange and blue in it, so technically it's not really white.  I hate that the picture is taken against a white background but I had nothing else to use at the time.  I need to take a new pic of this one just for editorial purposes. 

Anyway, I've been busy quilting and sewing in my new studio and loving it - doing things I wouldn't have done if I didn't have the studio set up, so that's a good thing.  I feel like I am getting some of my quilting mojo back again.  Amazing what a small change can do!