If you stopped by earlier this week, you know that I participated in a blog hop for Scrappy Improv Quilting, Kelly Young’s recently released book, and created my own version of her pattern Cherub Wings. Before even beginning, though, I realized that the latest addition to the Cain family, a rambunctious Golden Retriever puppy named Gracie, might work for a specially styled picture with the mini quilt. Once the project was finished, I couldn’t resist making the photo shoot happen! It wasn’t easy, but with the help of my husband and a handful of treats, I snapped the pic at the top of the post.
Miss Gracie is now more than 30 pounds, and I assure you: She’s no angel. She’s embarked on her journey as an adolescent, which means she’s ramped up the obnoxious, boundary-testing puppy behavior. She eats books, digs through the trash, chews on the furniture, and harasses the wildlife in our yard. Just minutes before posing her in front of Cherub Wings, she went missing from our house. After many minutes of searching, I found her in the front yard exploring as if she hadn’t a care in the world. See what I mean?! No angel!
I wanted to share some more (dog-free) pictures of Cherub Wings, mostly because I love the quilting. (This is a complete one-eighty from last week’s post about straight-line quilting.) Kelly’s own version of Cherub Wings features beautiful free-motion quilting. It’s amazing work but outside of my current skill set.
I chose to stipple the scrappy improv background on my Cherub Wings mini quilt and then use my walking foot (the same one I was complaining about last week) to make a double line of scalloped quilting to mimic feathers. I did so using 12 weight Aurifil in my needle and 40 weight Gutermann (my usual piecing and quilting thread of choice) in my bobbin. I’m over the moon about it!
The smart approach would have been planning the scalloped quilting from the get-go and creating a template to make the left- and right-hand wings identical. Instead, I unsewed some quilting I wasn’t crazy about and sketched the quilting free-hand on the left side. After falling in love with the results, I had to replicate them on the right. A few pieces of tracing paper, a hole punch, and a water-soluble pen helped me duplicate the placement of the points on the right side. Then I used the marking tool to re-create the swoops of each scallop. It worked well!
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| I had always planned to snag a pic of Gracie with this quilt. I even pieced a few Golden Retrievers into the improv sections. |
Don’t get me wrong, there was room for improvement—like, what will it take for me to consistently cover up my feed dogs when I use my darning foot for meandering?! Yes, I did the last chunk of stippling with my feed dogs intact and am living with the less-than-perfect results. Blerg. : /
I hope that your time at your machine this past week included some comparable triumphs. Please share them with the rest of us in the linky or comments below!
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This is such a cute pic of Gracie. She looks angelic...not. LOL. She looks guilty as heck. lol. The quilt is adorable and great job on the quilting! FMQ is no joke!
ReplyDeleteYour quilt is darling, and the puppy. . .well, she may be a little devil, but she certainly is a cute one! Happy October!
ReplyDeleteI love the free motion quilting. I forget to drop my feed dogs when I FMQ all the time (I guess that says a lot for how we typically quilt, haha). The photo of Gracie is sweet, but I know how trying they can be; hang in there!!
ReplyDeleteHi Michelle! Look at Gracie sitting there like the good girl she is!! A nearly perfect angel. She sure had her eyes on those treats!! Lovely job all the way around. Your meandering looks great as does the stitching in the wings. {{Hugs}} ~smile~ Roseanne
ReplyDeleteThe quilting in the wings is such a lovely added extra. I am happy you stuck with it. And the first picture is so funny ;) xo
ReplyDeleteGracie is a cutie! I have been considering a dog again after many years without one. The mischievous golden are a bit too high maintenance for me. But then I watch videos of them and think...maybe!
ReplyDeleteGracie is darling and looks so cute perfectly posed with the darling quilt.
ReplyDeleteI love this photo of Gracie, looking so angelic!!! Haha! So cute! You did those wings with a walking foot? Sounds challenging. Looks great! I recommend getting a hold of the Chet and Bernie mystery series, written by Spencer Quinn--a series of private eye stories written from the perspective of his dog! So funny! Eleven books in the series so far. I listen to them as audiobooks from my library. You would really enjoy them!!!
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