Background to the Front of the List

Bree's face is finished, finally!

Now to create the background.

In the original photo, she is sitting on the sofa and the wall in back of that is covered in a blue floral wallpaper. However, I didn't want to get too detailed with background because it might distract from the detail of the portrait. So, the "sofa" is created from random strip piecing.

Then the wall behind is represented by a simple 3" square checkerboard of light blue fabrics. The two parts of the background are pieced together and then Bree was stitched in the center.

Now it is ready for quilting.

Here is a detail of the quilting on her nose.

I used a wide range of thread for the quilting, pulling out every brown variegated thread in my supply that I could find - Aurifil, Mettler, Superior, Valdani, Sulky.

I aways think that I have a good selection of threads until it comes time to actually work on a project with a lot of different values in one particular color. Then I'm thinking "why didn't I buy more thread?!"

I'm finished with the quilting and am planning to do the edge facing, hanging sleeve and label today.