Moving Ahead before Moving

Beginning to come out of a sinus/bronchial thing that's hijacked my life for a week now, I was determined today to do something besides cough and blow my nose. Even if it did take me twice as long as usual, due to foggy thinking.

The new studio isn't quite ready--no carpet yet, which is a must, due to the plywood floor. Can't stain that floor and make it look good, no way, no how. Just need to order the carpet, which we've already found at Home Depot--a short, dense pile that can in no way hide pins and needles (knock on wood!). Meanwhile, I'm struggling to do something, anything, creative in my little old bedroom space, where movement is now limited at best.

So out of purgatory today came one of my UFOs, a landscape quilt whose working title is Lida Luna. This is the quilt top (minus Lida, the focal point), which as of today is pieced, glued, and for the most part tacked down with mono-poly thread:

The focal point as I mentioned will be Lida (pronounced Leeda), the bird who will perch on the middle branch after the whole top is quilted. Here's Lida, who will get lots more embellishment, including eyes, once she's fused to the quilt:

 

Lida is 16 inches long and made of pieced cotton, fusible web, and some boa-eyelash type yarn for her feather-tips (you can see a sample of the yarn hanging from the clips on the design board). I knitted about 30 little pieces, each different lengths and made of two rows of knitting before binding off, then hand-sewed each little length of knitted 'feathers' onto the tips of Lida's fabric tail-feathers. And I couldn't resist giving her a boa!

Next up: choosing a backing, sandwiching the quilt, and pin-basting--which may have to be done in the dining room as with all my previous landscapes. But as far as the final quilting, it's looking like Lida Luna may be the first landscape to come out of the new studio! Lida was already kind of special to me (which I'll explain when I post the finished quilt), but that will make her even more so.