Time to start the Sun and Moon

I painted this piece a while back and my schedule has been so busy, I couldn't get to the bordering/ quilting til now. I'm thrilled to get to it.  I'm in Sedona, AZ presently, one of my favorite getaways for quilting and inspiration.  But it's cold outside.. 19 degrees.  Oh well, I'm inside by the fire.
The Painted Piece complete with lavendar eyes honoring the mesmerizing eye color of the late Elizabeth Taylor....

Now to border or not... and how if so.  This piece is fairly small and I felt a  border would help support the center but  I wanted it to be narrow ( 2" of so) and maybe a bit graphic thus I choose a metallic silver/grey zig zag border.  I may be sorry but I think this will read contemporary and well.   We'll see.

As with most of my work, I begin in the middle of the piece and work outward.  First up I work to secure basic elements and quilt edges using monofilament.

You may note the strange teardrop stitching beyond the  top quilt edge and onto the batting which is  atop backing.  If one has EVER had a backing turn itself under the quilted top, you never want it to happen again.  I once had to pick out a quilted poem that went around the edge of a quilt top. ARGH...   so while I am securing the edge of the quilt.... I'll  go off the edge and stitch out into the batting to keep things together nicely while I'm quilting. Yes,  I know I could leave pins there instead, but I  love the freedom from pins so this works well for me particularly on smaller pieces where my hands spend plenty of time atop the batting area.

So I began in the very middle by stitching those cute rosy cheeks in a simple in and out spiral.  That was done BEFORE surrounding the cheeks with a fill pattern.

I'll start here with  the Mack The Knife- looking character ( Mr. Moon) .  I wanted a small/tight filler that wouldn't draw a lot of attention.  I was quilting a male character here so I didn't feel I wanted a curvy set of lines.  I settled on a very small triangular fill I've used before.  Here's the basic stitch idea... a VERY simplified scrolled triangle...

Scroll in and out and on to to next triangle and it seems to work out just fine especially with slightly different shapes of triangles as needed to get the job done.

The lady SUN in my mind called for a few curves, so another tight fill.. this time the simple triple teardrop worked out fine. 

with the outer edges of the lady sun flared out with echoed curves coming together at the point of each sun flare. 

I finished off the center of the medallion image with an on point gridded background that seemed to provide a contrast of "open but nonetheless supportive structure" 

I'll stop here and pick up next post. ;-)  My hubby is taking me out for a mini shopping trip and a cup of coffee at one of my favorite Sedona haunts... The Wildflower Bread Company with a 'spectacular' view of red rock mountains. .