Dinosaurs ...

Back at February's Guild meeting I was given some fabric strips with dinosaurs on. I've been mulling over what to do with them and, after playing about in EQ6 on the custom layout, a plan has emerged!! Ignore the fabrics used on the drawing, I didn't want to waste time fiddling with getting the exact fabrics imported, so I've made the large dino print the dark blue, the light dino print the yellow print, the squares are the plaid, etc. I've also utilised a paper-pieced dinosaur footprint design by Paula Doyle in the April 2011 edition of Patchwork and Quilting magazine.

I can foresee some trickiness when I try to assemble all the pieces together ... I think I'm going to end up with a couple of set-in corners, but I'll tackle that when I come to it!! Now to get cutting and stitching :)

SBChallenge - Number 19 finished.

I've had lots of time to sew this Easter weekend, so I've managed to start and finish a quilt using fabrics from my personal stash-busting challenge. This quilt has the added benefit of being a sample for a demo at my quilt guild of the Disappearing Nine Patch technique AND will be a gift for a lovely dog called Henry.

I have been donating a lot of my recent quilts to a local nursing home and I've often been delivering them on a Tuesday afternoon, which is their PAT Dog day. Henry is a PAT Dog or Pets as Therapy dog and really loves meeting all the residents (staff & visitors too!) and letting them fuss him - it cheers everyone up!! His mum has seen many of the quilts I've given and mentioned that Henry might like one too ... and apparently he wasn't fussed about the colour!!

So I decided to make this quilt for Henry and customised it appropriately - I quilted it with my own variation of Patsy Thompson's Loaves of Bread pattern, by modifying the end of each 'loaf' to look like a bone!! Then I quilted the word 'henry' around the small border. I love how it has turned out and after the demo I can't wait to see what Henry and him mum think of it :)

More quilting ...

I'm hoping to have a very quilty Easter weekend as DH is working and I have only myself to please. I've started by turning an old project into a preemie quilt. This started life as recycled fabrics which I stitched into a Bargello bag probably 8 or more years ago. The bag was never a great success (poor pattern, poor execution!) and I dismantled it a couple of years later, saving the fabric.

This was the perfect place to practice another of Patsy Thompson's quilting designs, this time from her third Fast & Free DVD. It's hard to see on the top, but doesn't it look cute on the back? I did get myself 'stuck' in a couple of places, but I just threw in a couple of extra 'bits' and 'escaped'!!

Now on to another Disappearing Nine Patch incubator cover :)

Feather quilting finished ...

I filled in the missing bits of quilting around the hearts and added a little curlycue heart of my own design.

I then repeated this motif on two of the sashing strips and added feathers flowing away in each direction along the length.

Finally I tried my hand at some curlycue feathers, which look quite cute, but need some work on the shaping!!

I've learnt so much about feathers by working on this top, I can't wait to get to another project where I can play some more :)

I did it ...

Yes, I really did it ... I quilted freehand, free-motion feathers on my HeartStrings top!! I'm lost for words :)

My oldest UFO ...

I don't have many UFOs (unfinished objects). Early in my quilting career I discovered the wonderful Yahoo group "Stashbuster" where they advocate finishing up UFOs and utilising your fabric stash. My oldest UFO was started in March 2008 - so it's just over 3 years years old. It was created when I finished my Carolina Crossroads quilt and used up the last of my 3" blocks to create a frame for a preemie quilt. I kept the centre plain as I had visions of filling it by quilting a feathered heart!!! Fast forward a couple of years and as my free-motion machine quilting improved, I even got as far as buying Patsy Thompson's book and DVD on quilting feathers. Still I lacked the courage. I even got pretty good at the Pajama Quilter's 'Wonky Feathers' overall pattern, but still no feathered heart was dared. Then last month I finished the HeartStrings Chinese Coin top and decided I really wanted to do some feathers around the pieced hearts. I reviewed the book and DVD, doodled a lot and finally today I decided to try that long dreamed of feathered heart on that little preemie top that had waited so patiently ... woo hoo :)