“Fairy Tale Lane”, a Tula Pink Quilt Pattern
Here is my completed “Fairy Tale Lane” quilt, a pattern from Tula Pink’s book, Quilts from the House of Tula Pink. I used a stack of reproduction fabric fat quarters for the quilt so only the pattern is from Tula Pink.
I quilted this on my faithful Bernina 440. But because I was stitching free-motion houses which are quite large, it was a struggle. Each large block in the quilt includes a patch of fabric with dogs. I quilted a white picket fence on all dog blocks. Every dog deserved a fenced in yard if possible! I also quilted some trees, doghouses, flowers and one set of bushes. All the smaller motifs were very doable—even fun! Only the houses gave me trouble.
In hindsight, it would have been a lot easier to have rented a long-arm quilting machine to do that free-motion quilting. Then it would have been easy to stitch out those large houses. But I’m never sure how quickly I can finish a quilt, and I’d need to be done in a single day, so I’ve never done that.
While I was quilting, I was sure I wasn’t going to like the houses, but they are fairy houses, so I figured some quirkiness is allowable. Clearly the fairy builders didn’t own a level!! When I finally finished and looked at the quilt, it was much better than I’d thought.
Here are some close-ups of the quilting.
I’ll call this free-motion quilting “whimiscal!” But this quilt will definitely be a one-off! Though I do really like the “roads” in the quilt pattern!