Ugly duckling no longer

Finally. We have a solution. In this picture you can see the new small dots and dashes border, the blue binding, and the fish fabric which will be the backing. I only wish that there had been enough of the fish fabric to use in the border, but you can't have everything. You can see how well the fish fabric would have worked. At least now the backing and the front don't fight.

That dot and dash border takes far longer than you would think. You can see that the edges of the outer fabric are starting to fray from handling. I just want to quilt this puppy and get him on the road. It has overstayed its welcome. Since the pattern name X-quisite doesn't fit it (no, definitely not) I think I'll call the design "Wild Thing".

While we're talking about ugly duckling quilts and design issues, this is a good time to mention that I've been reading Lisa Boyer's books "That Dorky Homemade Look!" and "Stash Envy". This was the perfect week to discover this wonderful humorist. If you're not overly serious about your quilting, if you've never used the word "art" to discuss one of your projects, if you still do it for the love of the pastime and not the praise of others, run out right now and buy these books. I hadn't read anything for a while that made me laugh until I snorted. For example, consider one of her suggested guidelines for quilt judging: "Bonus points are awarded to the quilter who can take a pretty fabric and make it feel sorry that it ever existed." I like this girl!