Yes, these pics would all look better if I'd ironed first, but then I wouldn't be me.
While playing with scraps today I found a bit of black fabric with wavy black lines. I remember this fabric. Why don't I have more of it? Ah, yes, it all went into Creature Comforts, that UFO I've never quite been happy with and never finished. I really like some of the individual blocks, but the overall thing doesn't work for me. I sewed the top in the spring of 2003, after I'd been on my alien kick with Alien Invasion and Space 4 Rent. This is monsters rather than aliens, but used the same colors.
I love how Gwen Marston uses dissimilar borders and I keep playing around with it, but never quite get it right. Maybe some of that bug fabric across the top? No, too overpowering, but Lily and Habibi want to play too.
Better with bug border on the bottom:
Or I kinda like this, very narrow wavy stripes at the bottom:
I would love to hear suggestions for how to improve this beast.
My allergies are still causing problems. Just playing with fabric is making me nuts. This is my Darth Vader-like girly dust mask:
19 comments:
I so love your halloween themed quilts and this one is no exception! Just adorable!!
And your mask is cool, with pink filters and all!! I have fall allergies as well!
Lovely mask! You fit right in with the aliens! I like the bottom with the squiggly fabric going the other way...
Cool dust mask! I'm so glad I don't need one. I like the quilt as it is. Maybe a black border around it all just to finish it off? (I like black borders for some reason.)
Oh nooooo do you have to wear that mask a lot? Outside, too? Love your beasties and their creature comfort colors.
I rather like less of the squiggly fabric.--I like the squiggly in itself, but 3 sides seems a bit much. The butterflies are a good change. How would they look on the left side with the squiggly on the right and bottom --and then finish off with a black binding? Wow, what an inconvenience to wear the mask, huh? --But more inconvenient not to breathe! Take care!
No matter what border you put on Lily and Habibi seem to like it. I like the butterflies on the bottom less than the wavy stripes. Hope your allergies will leave you soon.
Do you have enough of the monster print to do a border? Or the lizards? Or could you make a border utilizing the leftovers of the monsters, lizards, and bugs? Or do something with the floral and/or the dots (the dots on black)! I could even see taking off the bottom half of the stripey border on the two sides to create a sort of horizon line outside of your narrow black frame. Stripes at the top third or so, critters, etc. on black (and interspersed with black) down the rest of the sides and across the bottom... A bit more work than you had planned to do maybe but it might make you happier with the piece in the long run!
I would only use the great stripey fabric on one side and put something different on the other side and the bottom. The quilt could take on a totally different look depending how you bind it too. I think that it is great fun, and you should finish it.
Marge
I don't know... you're not happy with it, but I love it! When you fix it up to the way you like it better, I bet I'll still love it! The only thing I *might* say is that only one wavy border would be fun, as was suggested above. I really don't give much quilt advice because I figure each person has to figure out what she/he wants and just do it... you know... be a Maverick.
I also love Gwen Marston's use of borders - I'm SO symmetric that I feel like I'm out of the box if I do something like the doll quilt and put matching borders on the top and bottom and NOT the sides!
I think the 3 wavy borders are too much. I love the 2nd option when you put the butterfly fabric at the bottom with just a bit of the wavy border showing EXCEPT I don't quite like the butterflies. Is that a lizard block in the top row?? I don't suppose you have enough of that left for the bottom border??
That is one seriously scary looking mask Tonya - love the bugs along the bottom of the Creature Comforts quilt
I would go with the bug fabric as the bottom border--it plays nicely with your lettering on top. I like the narrow strip of squiggly stripes in there.
Love those crazy quilts! There was a fantastic exhibition some years ago at the American Craft Museum in NYC with quilts by the children of slaves. I assume you've seen that.
Keep quilting...
Best,
Matthew Rose / Paris
http://lalandedigitalpress.blogspot.com/
It needs a black background print at the bottom to ground it and balance the black background at the top. I think the problem is that first house in the 3rd row doesn't have any black in it and it starts fading away in that corner. Could you add a black something in applique to that block and the one on the left below it and then add the butterflies with that little bit of squiggle border showing too.
Oh, those are so fun. I like the bug border at the bottom, for exactly the reasons exuberant color mentions above.
Sorry to hear your suffering.
I like the darker fabric on the bottom but I am not crazy about the butterflies. I have about a yard of the aliens in my stash that you are welcome to (it is left over from a nephew quilt...) I also have a black with dots on it that I used in the same quilt...
I want to know how you got that photo of you in the mask!!!
Hey Ton, quite the mask there...you could be starting a fashioned trend..everybody will want one...LOL
Love seeing the creature comforts houses again...they get my'ya-ya' all stirred up and I might just have to 'hop-hop-jingle-boo'...ya never know..*VBS*
I've been on the hunt for some really cool vintage halloween stuff the past '24'...wonder how that could be..LOL
You're not the only one who smells Halloween in the air...wheeee! IN-toxication!
These house blocks are too funny. They reminded me of a quilt project I edited for Designers' Quarters Magazine. The quilt may have been made with many of those monster fabrics. The final instruction was to "bind with eyeballs." LOL
I too like the squiggly waves all the way around and I like Joyce's idea of black around that. It sure is bright!!
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