Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Orphaned Quilt No More

I cleaned out my workshop over the holidays and came across this unfinished quilt top.

IMG_20181218_133317.jpg

I made it years ago when I was working out the pattern for this much-beloved house pillow and I needed to make a version in scrap fabrics before making it in the fabric I had purchased for the bedroom.  When I tinker with patterns, I end up with lots of these little unfinished blocks that I use to make sure all my measurements are right.  This one was too cute to just toss in the trash (which is what I usually do.)   So I posted it on Facebook asking if anyone wanted it. Our good friends, the Peixottos, mentioned that their little girl would like to have it, so I spent an idle afternoon quilting it up just for her.

Now, I've made a couple of quilts for Shiloh, who likes to cover her stuffed animals with little quilts and I remembered that she likes the little pocket that is created by my quilt labels on the back of the quilt. So I decided I'd go one step further and add a zipper to the back of the quilt. She's maybe at that age where she's working on fine motor skills, but mostly I just figured if I were a little girl that age, I'd love to be able to zip up my little bears into a special sleeping bag. I've made a quilt with a zipper in the past.

This is actually one of my favorite bits of patchwork I've ever made.

IMG_20181218_140312915

It's backed with much beloved Strawberry Shortcake vintage sheets I found at a thrift store and it's equipped with a zipper, so we can use it as a cover for our little electric blanket.

IMG_20181218_140327392

Have you ever worked hard to figure something out and then completely forgotten how to do it when you attempt it again a year later? Yeah. That happened. But it wasn't too complicated, so I was able to get the zipper installed in the binding again like I did last time.

IMG_20181218_164214980

I put some very bright fabric inside as a pretty surprise for Shiloh.

IMG_20181218_164228107

As for the front, I quilted some straight lines over the house,

IMG_20181218_143945205

did a little free motion quilting over the borders,

IMG_20181218_150537847

and added some cute stripey flowered binding I had leftover from another project.

IMG_20181218_164155323

Finally, I drew this cute bunny on the envelope, which I am rather proud of because I am generally very rubbish at drawing.

IMG_20181218_165641426

Have fun, Shiloh! Cover all the babies!

Wednesday, January 2, 2019

We Met an Aardvark

The Oregon Zoo now offers animal encounters now and we recently signed up for the Aardvark encounter.

Now, the zoo has a large and handsome aardvark.

IMG_20181118_100323512

This aardvark loves noms from a tube.

IMG_20181118_101850889

We totally got to feed the aardvark noms from a tube and we also got to pet him.

IMG_20181118_100955014_TOP

IMG_20181118_101215974

IMG_20181118_101341625

If ever you have a chance to pet an aardvark, by all means do so.

IMG_20181118_101352175