Progress in the Studio

Baba Yaga is now mostly quilted, although I'm not terribly happy with my quilting... I'll get to that at the end of my posting today.
Meanwhile, I've decided to make Vasalisa, too. Time is short - these must be completed by the end of the month to meet the Fabled Fibers Challenge. Anyway, below you can see my process and progress in pictures. First, my original notebook drawings for the pair of quilts - I had planned on doing both last spring, but didn't select any fabrics until September...

Here is a close-up of Vasalisa's hand which will hold the doll in a pocket.

Here are some of the fabric auditions for Vasalisa's dress and the background behind her.

Here I'm attempting to give the illusion of a pocket in such a way as to reveal to the viewer her hand holding the doll her mother gave her for protection and advice.

It's been a pretty good day, so far working on Vasalisa...

Baba Yaga is another story - and perhaps Vasalisa will suffer the same fate. Since shoulder surgery last spring, there no longer is any synovial fluid in the shoulder joint (due to arthritis, the doc says - but it was fine before the surgery to removed 4 calcium deposits lodged in my shoulder muscled). Lacking the 'oil' for the shoulder joint leaves me with a jerky shoulder. So, I'll be sewing along just fine free-motion quilting when suddenly the bones in my shoulder shift abruptly, causing a sideway jump in my stitching. If I don't extend my left arm very far, it doesn't happen as often, but it definitely is affecting my machine work. With Baba Yaga, I had some leeway - I decided to incorporate the jerky stitches into the design, which worked just fine for her hair. Not so great on the face, however, as you can see below.


Baba Yaga still needs some sort of finishing edge plus a rod-pocket on the back and, of course, a label. I'll get to that eventually... next week, perhaps????

And then there's the 2006 Journal Quilts that are due in Houston the same time Baba Yaga and Vasalisa must be done. Then I could squeeze in a quilt for FabriQuilt's new fabric line called "Sunny Side Up" - with a chicken theme... I'm not terribly excited about that one so it just might fall through the cracks of time into oblivion. O well.