A fabric surprise

Hello, everyone.

Today is more of an update on various ongoing projects.

On the book cover business, I decided that I'd learned enough about using the poly doupioni and took it out of the embroidery hoop. A scrap (large scrap) of poly taffeta had crossed my awareness and I wanted to see if it would be hard or easy to needle. I backed it with a scrap of muslin and tucked the set into the hoop for a look-see.

Testing the taffeta

This is leftover Ivory Two-Tone Taffeta that was off-cut from wedding dress projects. I used a pencil to make a little bird and then got one of the needles from the Bohin sample pack and loaded it with two strands of the same orange DMC floss I was using before. (Hey, it was out already.) The bird is being done in chain stitch.
I am amazed. I had expected the fabric to resist the needle. It doesn't. And the smooth texture of the fabric lets me just sketch with the automatic pencil--it has a consistently sharp point--and go.
I suppose at this point I should consider whether using up the tons of ivory scrap is an idea for this project...even though it would need to be laundered more often...just because it's so easy to work with.
But at this point, I'm really just trying a few last ideas before talking it over with the decision maker.
If the little dove-ish bird comes out this easily, maybe I can trace a pelican on it? Using outline stitches instead of heavy fills would get the project done faster.

On the quilt, I did more auditions: border fabrics now.

A slightly-wild hearts print that didn't work out as a border on this already-very-pink quilt. (Bit I have intentions of using it as the binding!)













This ticking strip didn't work out as border either.












And the winner is: the mottled gray "solid" at the top right. (I fold up hunks of fabric to just about the thickness of the border and lay them alongside the top for the final auditions.) The gray solid at the bottom just didn't have enough contrast and looked "dead" next to the rest of the top. A couple of other candidates are not shown, they were either too busy or just didn't spark next to the top.