Blogger's Quilt Festival

I hope you're ready to spend a lot of time cruising blogs since the Blogger's Quilt Festival kicks off today and runs through Nov. 8th. It's always fun to see so many bloggers come together and share their creations and the inspiration is overflowing. A huge THANK YOU to Amy of AmysCreativeSide, who has been putting this together for years, I can't even imagine how much work goes into it. 

A funny thing happened on my way to the last festival, I got sidetracked by this guy and never made it.

I did use him for a string challenge, but I feel it's right that he finally makes it to this show.

I became obsessed interested in making him after seeing a watercolor painting which just screamed quilt to me. 
I've had a lot of questions about him so here's how he came about. While I was making him I never even thought of taking pictures, but I'm working on the next one and didn't completely lose my mind with it, so I have pictures of that one, I'm pretty sure you'll know what the next animal is.

I started with a quick outline sketch of what I wanted, nothing fancy, just size and most important the curves for his trunk.

Heres the new one, can you tell what it's going to be? I laid my strips down on the outline for color placement, size and checking those curves.

Sewing the curves is the most important part, but easy

Once he was all sewn together, I made his tusks, then drew the pattern on WonderUnder, trimmed him down and appliqued him to the backing. 

I kept the quilting very simple, remembering an elephant I loved at the zoo when I was a child, who would spray water at people as they walked by. 

He was great fun to make and I'm so happy he finally made it to the festival. I hope you like him.

Finished size is 29 1/2" X 22"

Category: Wall Hanging

I hope you enjoy the festival and join in. Again Thanks to Amy for putting this all together.

Later gators,

Dana

You're A Quilter? Prove It!

Snoodles over at Lily Pad Quilting has thrown down the gauntlet and challenged us to prove we're quilters, is there enough evidence in our homes to convict us of being quilters? 

Some days my entire house is a sweatshop, cutting in the living room, sewing in the den, ironing in the kitchen and quilt blocks laid out on the bed, that's how I get my exercise :)

Den

But I can't show you that because it would mean a whole day of cleaning before I could take pictures.

I can show you the wall hangings all through the house, they change by season or holiday, these are all the summer ones. 

Front Door

Bath

Kitchen

I see other people showing beautiful pictures of quilts on all of the beds in their homes, I don't have any because of games like this:

The rules are very much like queen of the hill.

Have you ever wondered why I call them "the terrible twins"?

So I pulled together a bunch of the quilts I still have here and made a collage quilt on my bed

Will that do? Am I a convicted quilter?

Please visit Lily Pad Quilting where the "Go To Jail" linky party is going on and see how others are proving they would be convicted of quilting, it's fun and of course when you get a lot of quilters together, there's lots of inspiration. Have fun.

Later Gators,

Dana