Serpent

I have been working on the border for my bookcase, and I found a really cool serpent pattern at Sewhooked.com.   It measures 5 1/2  x 15".  I bought the pattern, and made the serpent. But I wanted a 4 inch border.  So I shrunk the pattern down by 80%.  Now it will fit a 4 inch border perfectly.  I also wanted the snake to be longer than the pattern, and so the fun began.  I actually designed my own paper-pieced sections.  A lot of this was trial and error, and I had to re-design a piece along the way, breaking it into 2 sections to get the desired curve.  I added 6 new sections in all.  It took me all day! My serpent measures  4 1/2 x 22 1/2.
Here is my serpent and the original version:

My Version

Original

I pinned my serpent next to my Harry Potter quilt, and it seems to be "floating" in mid air.  Hmmmm.  I actually wanted to have the serpent appear to be crawling up the bookcase.  If I go with a 3" border, I could trim the right side of the serpent to a quarter inch from the snake so that after I sew it, it would touch the side of the fabric.  The problem is, the head of the snake is already at the seamline, 1/4" from the edge.  I have studied this problem and have come up with a solution!  (of course!)  If I undo the first section of the snake right under the head, I could trim the rest to a quarter inch.  I could add the head to the top border so it would be overlooking the bookcase a little bit.  I would have to trim the neck about 1/2" so that the head piece is also 3.5 inches tall.  (Can't have the side borders smaller than the top/bottom borders!)  I think that would work, although, I do like the 4 inch width of the border.  I will be experimenting today!