Penguins on My Mind

There's been one obstacle holding me back from creating new art quilts, and it's this group (flock?) of penguins.   They've been on my mind for five or six months now, and they even travel with me sometimes, as they have this weekend.  I'm at my cabin, The Naughty Pine, in Camp Sherman, OR for a couple of solitary days, with the sole purpose of quilting, binding, and finishing a quilt that I'll soon be teaching from the pattern Standing Room Only, by Carol Morrissey of OCarol Designs. (www.ocaroldesigns.com) 

I've also made three of her other designs, Poinsettia, Poppy, and Pansy, and taught them as well.

Here's a photo of Carol's finished Standing Room Only quilt.

I finally started free-motion quilting it yesterday.  Even though it measures 51" x 71,"  it wasn't hard to maneuver in my sewing machine. 

However, I did have one scary moment when I realized I hadn't marked each penguin's belly/torso, so my quilting of each torso blended right into quilting the background.  Both are white fabric, quilted with white thread.

Carol showed this separation by long, horizontal quilting lines in each belly/torso, and more rounded free-motion shapes in the background.  

So what could I do at this point?  (Did I mention that I'm already late with this project?  It was due at the shop by July 28th, nearly three months ago!) 

My options:

1.  Quilt the outline of the torso with an off-white or light grey thread while continuing to quilt all the white fabric areas

2.  Same as above, and after quilting, lightly paint each torso with a pearlescent fabric paint.

3. Rip out all quilting done so far in the torso areas and redo with long parallel lines as Carol did.

4. Put the project away for another year.

"Alex, I'll take #2, please."

I also forgot to add feet to the penguin in the far right, the small adolescent guy.   I'll leave that area unquilted until I'm back home and can cut out two more feet from orange fabric.  Or maybe I should make a quick trip to the Stitchin' Post in Sisters for a bit o'orange fabric and more white thread . . . just in case I run out.

Or would that trip, like this post, just be another form of procrastination?

It's going to be a long night of sewing.  Good thing I decided to stay until tomorrow!