"Fairy Tale Lane" Quilt Top in Reproduction Prints, with Dogs!

The puppy is 7 months old this week so sewing time is limited. On Saturday I gave him his first raw meaty marrow bone and he gave me 2 1/2 hours of unbroken silence (except for chewing sounds) which allowed me to finally put this quilt top together. Whew!!

The pattern, “Fairy Tale Lane” was designed by Tula Pink and is in her book, Books from the House of Tula Pink: 20 Projects to Make, Use, and Love.

The fabric is a reproduction print. I’m thinking it imitates fabrics that are post-Civil War, but pre-1900, but that’s only my guess. I was gifted a very big stack of fat quarters from this line and other than the solids used for the “lanes”, the whole quilt is cobbled together from these fat quarters. There is a piece of fabric printed with little dogs in each of the quilt’s blocks which adds an extra element fun. (Look for the lightest patches in each block and you’ll find the dogs).

The actual puppy is going to look stunning on this quilt when I finally get it done. But it might be a long while at this rate! I already have quite a stack of UFOs from this year, all waiting to get quilted.

"Dalmations in Diamonds" Quilt Completed

Here's my completed "Dalmations in Diamonds" quilt. 
All the quilting was done with a walking foot.  That took me nearly a week.  I have the time to do now that I'm only posting on the blog once a week!

I'm making good progress on another quilt using the focus fabric, using up the half square triangles (HST) from this quilt's flip-and-fold construction!  The new HST quilt has a more modern esthetic.

Here are some my other creative activities from the past week from the #40ddc2017 daily drawing challenge. 

With future surface designing for fabric in mind, I've been experimenting with digital drawing. Digital drawing requires learning a new set of skills. It's fun and has lots of potential. But I'm going to need to practice a lot for it to really be useful.

• Ink and colored pencil--Farmer Dog.  Prompt: Funny Creature
• Digital drawing--Dog in a Diamond.  Prompt: Diamonds
• Digital drawing--Cat on a mat. Prompt: Cat

Modern Improv Quilting: Project 5, French Forest Tapestry

I fell in love with the hound in Lizzy House's "Tapestry in Green", part of her fabric line, The Lovely Hunt.  The dog looks so much like a dog on a French brooch that my mother had when I was a child. And the "Tapestry in Green" really is reminiscent of a northern European tapestry.

This is based on Score #5, "rhythmic grid" in Sherri Lynn Wood's book The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters, A guide for creating, quilting and living courageously. 

I really like the lighter blocks in the two lateral borders and the darker center blocks.  It was mid November when I was piecing this quilt.  I wanted to add an accent color to the dark blocks.  Yellow was perfect.  So it came in as a sunbeam filtering through the woods.  It wasn't until I had all the blocks up on the design wall that I noticed that the sun blocks started low on the quilt, almost an echo of the the sun here in New England at this time of year. 

The back of the quilt has a red strawberry flannel print.  It's an oddly shaped quilt, but perfect for sitting on the couch watching television.  It's warm, and cuddly--a great addition the collection of quilts which I rotate seasonally!

I'd really like to do the Round Robin in this book, but don't plan to make any of the other scores in this book.   I'll put a gallery of all the improv quilts based on Sherri's book in my next post. It's fun to see them altogether!

Another use for leftover quilt batting bits

A couple of weeks ago the temperature hit the 50s for a couple days, a novelty here in Boston this winter. I used the break in the weather to shovel out a parking space on the street so my friends could have somewhere to park when they visit.  It was a great afternoon. I got to talk to  several neighbors out walking their dogs and one even had her newborn with her.  

I decided to make some dog friendly baby presents. Seems like dog-themed baby items are always for boys. But wait! Girls love dogs too!  I looked around the internet for patterns and found a great site, Fishsticks Designs.  Bonnie, the designer, has a free bib tutorial on her blog and lots of other fun and useful patterns.  (All the patterns in her Etsy shop, FishsticksDesigns, are half price through March 29, 2015.  There patterns for a variety of bags, super comfy clothes for kids and teens, especially clothes for boys, and even few patterns for adults). 

Bonnie recommends using flannel as the middle layer of the bib. But I have so many small odd bits of leftover quilt batting that I decided to use that instead.  I put the flannel on the back of the bib so it will feel cozy next to the baby's skin!  I also used velcro in place of the metal snaps because that's what I had on hand.

To keep the batting from shifting, I quilted a heart on the front of the bib, with a line of echo stitching around it. Makes a sweet detail.  Where possible, I put the heart around the dog that most resembles the family's dog!  

The bibs come together really quickly. Taping together the pieces of the PDF pattern is the most challenging part of this project. But because all the pages have registration marks and are sequentially numbered, assembling the pattern pieces really is straightforward and not difficult.

Infant and toddler sized bibs

Lunch anyone?