Backs

I finished stitching down all the pieces on my current fabric wonder. Why do I do this? Because they don't stay down otherwise. I know that some quilt artists do not stitch them down, or they let the quilting hold everything down, but I don't. So there. First of all, I'm not using just hand-dyed fabrics, so they don't always stick as well as they should (that and the crappy old Wonder Under I keep using not on purpose). I enjoy picking out weird and appropriate (or inappropriate, as the case may be) commercial fabrics for each part of my quilts. Hence, there is always an image on the back that is hidden away as soon as I sandwich the sucker.

Here's the chick who resembles Mother Mary.

And here's her weird little kid.

And as far as actual quilting goes, I like the image to pop out, so I usually use a black or dark thread to go around and line everything, and then I use some allover pattern in the background. I'm really way more about the image than the quilting. I like a texture in the background, because I think it makes the unquilted areas more apparent. I like LOOKING at quilts with amazing quilting (Melody Johnson www.fibermania.blogspot.com and Robbi Joy Eklow www.robbieklow.com are two I've enjoyed recently), but their stuff is more abstract than mine, and it lends itself to quilting like that.

Anyway, that's my view on quilting my own pieces. Your mileage may vary. Speaking of mileage, how irritating is it that gas prices fall the day after you fill your tank? Sheesh. I coulda used that 30 cents.