Particle Decay (in bias)

I am incredibly grateful to Krista Fleckenstein for her bias-strip tutorial, and to the folks who put together the Mighty Lucky Quilt Club -- I bought the full-year subscription as a Yule gift to myself, and in my opinion it has already had a great ROI! I am very pleased with my finished project from January's challenge:

"Decay" (26.5 x 32.5")

Working with the bias strips as an interesting experiment. The thicker strips, more than a half-inch wide, were trickier to curve but easier to turn sharp points. I made Decay using 1/4" strips, the same width as the Wonder tape that holds them in place. I'm taking a class with Timna Tarr later this month that uses very thin bias strips like these, so I'm eager to find out if she has any other suggestions and tips for their use.

The original photo from CERN that I used as my inspiration is here; it shows the results of smashing a neutrino into a neon nucleus. I chose this beautiful fuschia Stonehenge fabric as my background because I loved the cosmic look created by the shading variation. The strips are vibrant lime with a very faint stripe in metallic gold. The line ends represent particle annihilation, where matter becomes energy; I attached tiny sunburst charms backed by lime sequins to catch the sunlight -- this is difficult to photograph, but very eye-dazzling in person.

"Decay" (detail of annihilation)

Even the back of this quilt looked spectacular, because I quilted through all three layers to stitch the bias strips down first, then filled the spaces between with tight meandering. The variegated thread blends beautifully into the cosmic background on the front, and the design really pops on the coordinating batik on back of the quilt:

"Decay" (reverse view)

Even the practice piece that I made to try out the technique turned out to be a Lovely Thing:

Bias strip sampler

And just like that, another 2016-Q1 finish! I'm eagerly anticipating the February challenge later today...although today is my baby's 12th birthday so some fun family time is in order after my classes are over this afternoon. Life is good, my friends.