Tuesday 20 December 2016

Winter Forest Friends

I have a very special (and somewhat unexpected) winter quilt to share with you today, boys and girls. It just came to be, almost of its own accord, as a chain of chance events and spontaneous decisions, between big projects completed and Christmas gifts made.

animal quilt block

I have written before about the great prize I won in the Handmade Halloween link-up - a pattern by Lorna McMahon of Sew Fresh Quilts. Although I was busy with a couple of projects, I couldn't resist trying it out and was really hooked. Lorna's technique is very clever, so the sewing was much easier than I had anticipated, and between this and that I made three of Lorna's forest friends - the fox, the deer and the bear.

It was the deer that prompted the direction where it was all going - of all the browns I have I thought the most suitable shade was the one with snowflakes on it (it's a strange kind of pattern really - snowflakes in brown -, but it was on sale when I was looking for various browns for a project...) So the poor dear deer ended up looking like he had a snowflake on his nose and wasn't happy about that. And then the background, which was supposed to be just neutral, suddenly appeared to look like heavy snowfall.

fox quilt block, deer quilt block

That's how I decided to make it a winter quilt, and winter forest in my understanding isn't complete without a red squirrel and a hare turned white for the season. So I set myself a challenge to try and design a couple of blocks using Lorna's techinique.  I must say it took a lot of juggling the shapes to achieve a compromise between image likeness and ease of sewing, I can now really appreciate the effort Lorna puts into her beautiful creations.

bear quilt block, hare quilt block

I think I managed to create a reasonable hare and squirrel, and also an owl to finish the layout. I was also lucky to find this snowflake batik that completed the winter look - I saw a fat quarter of this fabric held by a lady in front of me in the queue to the till and, thankfully, there was another left.

owl quilt block, squirrel quilt block

I had a nice (leftover) piece of pine print green, which supported the forest theme, and I looked for some tree print to use in the border, but could only find this holly one - so we also have a hint of Christmas in the air. I had so little of the green left, that I had to make the binding of two fabrics, and barely had enough.

And with this tale of winter magic, farewell, boys and girls, have a most wonderful Christmas, don't forget to believe in miracles, and make sure to check out Lorna's site Sew Fresh Quilts and her weekly link-up Let's Bee Social for even more wonderful quilting inspiration.

5 comments:

  1. What a sweet quilt for a winter baby or child. I like how you introduced some animals in profile view in contrast to Lorna's full face creatures.

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  2. This Lena, is beautiful.I just love it.

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  3. This is so cute Lena! I love Lorna's patterns and love the way your quilt turned out. Your hare and squirrel and owl go along perfectly. Very nice design work!
    Merry Christmas!

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  4. What a super cute quilt! Love Lorna's patterns. I have the bear paw on my list (Long list) of quilts to make. Merry Christmas!

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  5. I have truly enjoyed your post and, of course, I am in love with this cute winter quilt. You have done an incredible job of creating the additional critters. The winter hare has my heart! Withing you and yours a very Merry Christmas, Lena!

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