Leopard and Frog

Boing Boing CC BY-2.0 via Wikimedia

As you can see a leopard looks pretty much like the tiger I showed you in the last post.  This means I really should have written down the measurements I used to make the tiger. It might have a slightly longer neck, at least it does in the picture!  Look they even have a very similar pose with the legs.

Once I have finalized the tiger, I will be able to get to work on the leopard. I was supposed to show you the finished leopard with this post, but I haven't even started it!  Maybe I should also try to work on a giraffe in the meantime.

But I do have a finish to show you!  I love making these little blocks.  It means I can show finishes on every post!

I made the frog block last night. It was so quick and easy; I had everything pieced together before I realized I was done!  Yes, I still need to applique the eyes.  The leg fabric was used in Lansing Leaves, and I think it works wonderfully as a frog too. The body fabric was used for the turtle. It is a Mirage fabric from Connecting Threads. I got a whole bunch of small pieces of different colors from them when they were having some kind of sale.  I am enjoying working with all the different colors.

Tiger

Tiger:

enjosmithCC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr

Here's a tiger picture I want to convert to a tiger block for my Elephant Parade quilt.  I was originally thinking that it should be the same size as the baby elephant block, but as I kept looking at the turtle, I think it will be easier for me to convert the turtle pattern to a tiger.  A turtle and a tiger look alike, right? At least they both start with the letter t!  The turtle block is bigger than the baby elephant block, so this means my additional animals will have to be that size. I don't think that will be a problem though, as long as I make the other extra animals that same size.

I'm back.

Lorna, Lorna, Lorna. You made it look too easy.  I thought I would simply make a square for the head, a rectangle for the body, and some rectangles for the legs, and everything would look great! The fabric would make it obvious what animal was being represented.  But since you had taken the time to show the shape of the animal, I thought I should make some more of an effort too. Although I did draw some sketches, I did not use graph paper, and pretty much winged it as I went along.

Unfortunately, there was a cow who wanted to join the Elephant Parade and was willing to dress in tiger's clothing for that chance.  I had to be quite firm and tell him in no uncertain terms that he was not welcome in the parade, but may have the possibility of joining the primitive quilt if he behaved.

Then it looked like a horse.  Then the head seemed too small for the body. I made the body a little bit skinnier, but went ahead and attached, thinking the legs would help the proportions, but it still looks like it is too small.  It's not bad now, but I'm not sure I am happy with the bottom row of the legs.

So here it is.  I will be appliqueing a tail on the tiger. One leg looks shorter than the others, even though it is farther away, but the white will be hidden in the seam allowance so it might be okay.  What changes would you recommend?

 

Here's what it looks like in the elephant parade.  How can I make this look more like a tiger?

Linking up with Let's Bee Social 62.

Basket for A Life of Plenty

This is block 7 in the A Life of Plenty sew-along.  Actually, the directions for #7 has more than one block, so this is part of block 7. I embroidered the flower since I couldn't imagine trying to needle turn such a tiny circle.  I also embroidered the hearts on the basket, since there was floss on the needle, and I decided to use it instead of trying to figure out how to store the leftovers.

My backgrounds tend to be very light, white / beige tone on tone, and I decided to up the volume of my low-volume backgrounds to make them more interesting. 

Turtle quilt block

I made the turtle for the Elephant Parade quilt.  So cute!  I will put all the eyes on at the end.  The shell fabric is the one I recently bought from Joann's.  I thought it would make the perfect shell fabric.  I need to do a better job of pressing.

Here's the turtle with the elephants so you can see the size.

Sunflower

Here's a flower from A Life of Plenty sewalong.

The gray is from the fabric I used to make elephants. The others are scraps from other projects. The green fabric on the stem was used in Lansing Leaves. The other green is an older one that has been in several swap blocks, and is in the rail fence quilt. In the Daisy's Chickenpox quilt, the flower petals are not stitched down, and I have to say, I was very tempted to not stitch down the flower petals, but since this isn't a batik, I felt it was necessary.  The yellow has been on several of my quilts and is definitely in the rail fence quilt

 I didn't make the picture fuzzy on purpose, but I am leaving it this way, so you can't see all my flaws.  I haven't done any needle turn applique in a long time, and those flower petals have lots of sharp curves! I'm going to have to make some bias stems before I get too far along on this project.

My sister helped me clean out the basement for a few hours yesterday.  I have lived in this house for a long time, so one afternoon is not enough to completely clean it, but it looks SO much better now. I'll have to keep at it so it can be cleaned by spring.

Four Baby Elephants and a Little Bird

Only a few days after the big elephants were born, came four baby elephants. I made three of them face right, and one of them face left.  I probably shouldn't have made the trunks liberated but I'm not changing them!

 Here they are with the big elephants.

This is closer to the layout of the final quilt. I still  need to add the other blocks, like the turtle, the bird, the flower, and the other animals.

The same gray fabrics that were used in the elephants were used to start my next project. This is a free sew along from Primitive Quilts called A Life of Plenty.  They are on part 17, and are close to completing the project, but I am just starting this quilt and this is my first block. I don't have any wool, so it will probably be all cotton.  It is all needle-turned applique.  I was pretty casual about following the design. Still need to embroider the feet.

Art Prints

Since I have been making this elephant parade quilt, I have been thinking about three prints I bought at the Arts Festival.  I talked to the artist, who was born in Uganda, and purchased three prints from him.  Unfortunately, this was several years ago and these prints have been waiting for me to get frames.

With my clarity focus for the year, I decided it was time to give these prints a home.  I will be able to put the prints and the elephant parade wall hanging in the family room.  This meant I had to make a trip to the store or two.

You can see from the reflection that the sun is finally shining brightly.  These are all black and white prints. I just wanted simple frames that would let the beauty of the prints show through.  They are not originals, but are limited edition copies.  He had used three different types of paper.  The prints were all different sizes and I did have to trim the paper to get them to fit into the frames.  I'm sure that is probably a big no-no in the art world, but I'd rather enjoy them instead of trying to preserve the value.

The trip to the store meant temptation though.  I got five pieces of fabric. I loved the retro feel of the pink and orange elephant print, and the modern feel of the owl print. I thought I could use all the different things in the colorful print on the right for appliquing.  I bought a big piece of the safari print on the bottom. I thought I could use that as the back of the elephant parade quilt.  Oh, I also found a green that would look awesome for the turtle in the elephant parade quilt. It wasn't a quilting fabric, but it is 100% cotton.  It was very expensive for me, even though it was 50% off, so I bought the smallest she would cut, 1/8th yard.

The buttons on the top are actually nail hiders.  You put a nail on the wall and put the button on top so you can't see the nail.  Cute idea for hanging up wall hangings.  I also got a Primitive Patchwork magazine. I like every single project in this magazine.  I have admired a lot of primitive quilts as I go through blogs, and have decided to make one of my own.  I went to their website, and they are having a free sew-along, so even though I now have patterns I can use from the magazine, I am going to be joining their sew-along first!  So much for all of my other WIPs/UFOs!