Hi everyone! 
                I put the coffee pot on about 5:30 and looked around this morning.
         The dishwasher was snoring.....the vacumn cleaner was dreaming of dust bunnies.  And they were so quiet in their slumbers! You'd never have known they were there!  So, since they were both sleeping so well....no use waking them up.  Monday's are always hard....let 'em sleep.

       I fired up Baby featherweight and got to work.  (Baby is so quiet, it didn't even disturb the dishwasher.  the vacomn cleaner just turned over and went back to sleep.)

      The Oak Leaf wall hanging is coming along great!  I posted the first step of it yesterday on my FB Quilty Stuff...   https://www.facebook.com/Quilterrific

      This is it.....ready to quilt.  It wound up measuring 28" x 30"......... a bit bigger than I'd envisioned.  But I took a trip to the fabric store yesterday to get fabric exclusively for this wall hanging.  When I found the "wood,"  I just knew it would be a wide border.  I'd had the stripe in my stash and I like the contrast of shapes that's going on.  Please pardon the yellowish-ness of the image.  I took the picture inside the house and it's an overcast day.  The pictures below represent the colors much better.
               The oak leaf is my own art.  It was initially done in colored pencils. (At a picnic table in Idyllwild Park!) I printed  it on TAP (transfer artist paper) and onto white fabric (Kono cotton).
 I've put TAP transfers through their paces.  When I first thought about putting my images onto fabric for use in quilt blocks, I was dubious.  Could you iron the image?  Would the image be washable....dryable?  Would it lift?  Of course, these factor wouldn't be as important if it was a wall hanging, but what about a usable quilt? 
             So I put a small design onto TAP then onto Fabric and I sent it through 5 washings. 
             NO, you cannot iron it.
             YES!  You can wash it.  It doesn't fade, lift, chip or shrink! I was amazed and delighted!
So, very soon I will have cotton squares in my shop with my artwork on them.  These will be unique and can be incorporated into both useable quilts and wall hangings.  I'm so jazzed!  What I particularly like about TAP is the wonderful, crisp images you can get, which is important for this piece as I wanted the poem clear and readable...which it is!  And another thing...........if you are still unsure about putting the TAP-images-on-cotton into a usable quilt, you could always put a very thin layer of fabric medium over the images.  It's just a small, $2.00 bottle of stuff you can get at Joanns, and just apply it with a paintbrush or q-tip or something like that.  It will dry clear, and won't be seen. 
        
                  I'd like to ask opinions regarding the quilting thread for  this.  I usually quilt with white thread...for several reasons.  I can see it better as I work,  and it's a "safe" color.  I've tried quilting with other color thread, picking up the colors in the prints, and I usually wind up feeling as if I've made a mistake using colored thread.  I want to break out of this, but I'm a little afraid to.
          So what I'm asking is, would anyone have any suggestions for thread colors that might look good on this?  I'm going to echo-quilt around the leaf, and I'm thinking about feathering the green border and stippling the "wood" border.  Any thoughts?

           Well, off to make a brunch and wake up the dishwasher and vacumn cleaner.  Ya'all have a great day!