Sunday, August 3, 2008

"Artsy"


I felt like starting something new yesterday, so I pulled out my marine science fabric collection and pulled some bits for the next phylum quilt. I probably shouldn't call them phylum quilts because some of the groups are classes and and some are orders, but that's beside the point I guess. This fabric has sharks, so it represents the cartilaginous fish. Their official name is chondrichthyes. Wow was that hard to spell! I had to keep looking it up as I made the letters because couldn't believe how many h's I had to make. It's turned sideways in the photo so you can see the letters. I had a beautiful pair of c's and an o, but when I held them up next the quilt, I realized I could only fit 8 letters down the side. So I went back to the drawing board and cut the strips smaller. I think they are about 3/4 of an inch and even then, I had to trim everything down to get it all in. The letters are less deliberately wonky than last time in that I cut all the strips straight, but I still get a pretty wonky feeling when I look at them. If you haven't done any free form letters yet, you should really check out Tonya's tutorial. They are just way too much fun! I'll get the last bit put together today and I should be able to get it all layered up. I have been working on a scale/fin shape for the quilting, I don't know how it's going to work out.
I got up and ran 5 miles this morning with two of my running partners. I felt pretty good, especially considering I did 10 yesterday. But with Kurt gone this week, I won't be able to run until Thursday night at the earliest, so it was good to log some miles. I really should do some laundry today and maybe get the yard mowed. Some days I ponder the exciting drama that is my life.

1 comment:

Donna said...

Love the idea you're using for this series -- even if you're not being consistent and restricting your quilts to phylums :-) Are your working only within the vertebrates? Even there that's a lot of groups...

If the fin pattern doesn't work out maybe you can use an image from magnified cartilage, or something else specific to the phylum...