Irony is that the hottest thing on my blog about quilting is the entry I made on zentangling last summer. And I mean by a lot.

Irony is cutting up the face — only to then begin to realize how much harder it makes everything. There are a lot more lines to applique — and now I’m starting to dread quilting this thing. All of the applique is finally done — and I printed out a B&W picture of it to start penciling quilting ideas — and it hit me. All those stops & starts. What was I thinking?

Cutting a piece up causes all kinds of unexpected problems. I also had a problem with the white backing layer (on each of the individual plate pieces) showing up between the dark colors and the now blue background. I used a black & brown micron pen on the edges which did a fairly good job of making the white go away.

So this relatively small piece has become infinitely complex.

I also starting to think that it needs something more. I’m not a big fan of borders — I’ve been using the plain small band of black on the binding for years. However, I recently hung Duodecim in my dining room — and it could use more space between the image and the wall. The black binding is not enough. I’m so used to seeing things on my black design wall — I tend to forget that most walls are lighter in color.

So I played with this in Photoshop & I think I’m going to add a narrow black border, then a couple inches of the dark blue used to shadow the plate pieces, and then finish with the black binding.