Boxelder Bugs: Finished

 Earlier this week I blogged about the assembly stage of my Boxelder bug quilt, and today I'm back to talk about the quilting and the finished piece.  

The quilt sandwich has black lace for the backing (I was just trying to use it up out of my Thank-You-Georgia stash), wool batting, the bug layer, and then the layer of black tulle.  I accidentally realized the hard way that the black tool was VERY melty.  Luckily after melting a hole in it while trying to go back and re-fuse a floppy bug leg I still had a big enough piece to use a big section with no hole, but after that there was absolutely no more ironing.

I quilted around and between each bug with echo quilting using purple variegated thread on the grey side and grey variegated thread on the purple side.  Around the outer edge I used a bright red thread to pick up the red bugs.  Spooky was very anxious to help (NOT ACTUALLY HELP) with both the quilting and the edge finishing.  The edges are finished with couched fuzzy yarn from my stash (thanks Georgia!) that matched the color of the quilt top.

Here's the finished quilt, I love all the creepy crawly bugs and the ones that go off in weird directions and the ones that won't stay in line.  I tried to make sure that they had all their appendages (I mentioned in the last post that the legs and antennae were very prone to breaking off).  However there are a few missing a leg or antenna or eye, and it's kind of fun to go searching for them.

Boxelder Bug #3, c. 2022 Shannon Conley, 47" x 32"

Here are a few close ups so you can see the bugs and the quilting a little better.

For me this was a fun, lighthearted piece to start off the new year.  Just what I needed. Do you guys have any fun projects on the horizon?