Quilting Santa

Every previous piece similar to this, I have minimized the quilting  so as not to scare people off from painting him... But I am taking a new approach this time because quilter courage to try new things is skyrocketing.  I WILL begin however with how I begin on the face.  This represents a monofilament outline of  portions of major elements. I have NOT completely outlined eyes or mouth... the center bottom of each are left un quilted if one is going for  a minimalist quilting plan.  I will add more than what is seen here, but you can leave it this simple and have an interesting piece.

On the flesh I am doing, my quilt lines are no more than 1/8 inch apart...  Further apart than that and things look pretty 'wrinkled.'

 The beard area is mostly a simple and fun spiral fill.

The background is begging for something other than curly curvy stuff... so a vertical drape of simple icicle/snowflakes seems to work. Premark vertical lines before quilting.  Much easier to get the uniform stability I thought called for.

I like it. A positive bonus using this quilt pattern lets the painted mottling show nicely. 

 Border work to follow.  ;-)