Monday, April 04, 2011

Finished my Doll Quilt!

Well, I can finally show you this finished quilt since it has reached its new home in Texas! My partner Cindy loves all things colourful and whimsical (which makes her a great partner for me) and has a little white kitty named Took. When I was looking through her photostream for ideas of what to make her, she had a whole gallery of cat photos that she loved. She also had a lot of funny images in her mosaic (including a nod to Calvin and Hobbes' snowmen), so I thought I would do something silly for her.
This is the full quilt, which I couldn't show before or she would have seen her cat in it. As you can see, the cat is knocking the wonky mug over, creating "broken dishes", which is the name of the quilt blocks on the bottom half of the quilt.
Here is a close up of the cat. He is raw appliqued in brown thread with a little bit of extra thread painting to give him some "fur". I essentially drew the shape, traced it onto fusible web, fused it to the fabric and ironed it in place, then sewed around it in brown thread.
Here is the back. I had extra triangles, and I knew Cindy is really into rainbows right now from her favorites, so I thought I would give her a little rainbow hit on the back of her quilt. I was too lazy / busy to drive up to Fabricville (didn't feel like braving Hwy 15 which is always congested and crazy) so I embroidered the label. "Canada" just about killed me with all those a's, I tell you.
Here is another look at the wonky cups. I don't know if you can see, but little red riding hood is looking worried, because she's the next to fall . . .
And here is the bottom of the quilt. I was a little scared of making these blocks because I actually cut out the triangles so I could have more control over the tight composition, instead of making half-square triangles from two squares. The bias wasn't too bad to work with on such a small scale, so I didn't need to worry (they are not perfect, but the whole quilt is  a little wonky on purpose, so I thought it would be okay).

I was really nervous sending it off that Cindy wouldn't like it, because she hadn't commented on it in process much, but she was really thrilled with it. It always brings me a big smile and warm feeling to know I made something for someone and that they really loved it, so I couldn't be happier.

So that was my doll quilt. It was a lot of fun, but a lot of stretching and thinking went into that little quilt, so I think my next few projects are going to be some fast clothing for spring, and a laptop cover and my next sarah and molly's free peicing blocks. A few easy things before I do any more heavy design lifting.

4 comments:

Barb said...

Beautiful doll quilt, Jill! You are so creative to put 'broken dishes' at the bottom.

Lexilooo said...

this is such an adorable quilt. I will admit, when I saw the teacups, I was hoping that it was coming to me :)

my partner has not commented on anything! okay, so I can't go through every photo, but I comment on many, and never see her. she also hasn't commented on any of the things I've posted! ugh! hope she likes what I am making!

Shannon said...

I'm glad she liked it. You put so much work into it and it really turned out great. I'm still a little sad it wasn't for me.

Kristen said...

That's so cute Jill! I love the cat.