Unicorn Quilt February/ March 2019

Claire's Unicorn Quilt January, February, March 2019

My 7 year old grand daughter had requested a unicorn quilt and after much hunting for patterns, I realized that there were very few to be had. Thus I set out to design my own.

I found some unicorn foundation pieced patterns on line and I bought two that I liked. I looked for unicorn fabric in the quilt stores here in central Alberta, but no one seemed to carry any. I finally found some unicorn fabric on a US fabric website  (fabric.com) and proceeded to order some online as well as some solids in pinks, white and purples that I thought I might want to use.
Then set out to come up with a quilt pattern arrangement of my own.

Unicorn head pattern 18 inch block Dec 10/2018

Dec 12/2018

Dec 13/2018

My first step was to choose of my fabric to make the large 18" block of the unicorn head which I wanted for the centre of the quilt.

The centre block was a download from
www.robyniepatterns.com

It was very time consuming but turned out beautifully!

With sashing added

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Heart blocks made Dec 6/2018

 These heart blocks are a simple 2 piece snowball pattern,  from a magazine that I had,  (American Patchwork and Quilting- February 2017, page 64- Keys to my Heart pattern).

30 inches square

This is the centre of the quilt.
After that I decided I wanted more foundation pieced unicorns, one at each corner of the quilt (more or less.)

I made 4 foundation pieced unicorn (12 inch blocks), 2 facing left and two facing right (I just sewed two of them on the reverse side, by tracing the back of it against a window using a pencil and ruler. )

This pattern is designed by Kristy@QuietPlay, which I bought and downloaded from the Quiet play website. 

Coming up with a design was a lot of fun. Doing the math toi make it all fit, not so much but with a bit of tweeking here and there it worked out.

Kitty helpers

I added a rectangle of unicorn print (6 1/2 X 30 3/4) to both sides of the 30 inch heart/ Unicorn head block, then added a 3 1/2 X 57 inch strip of pink leftover smooth minkee, at the top and bottom.  I took another strip of unicorn fabric and added alternating 6 inch heart blocks with 6 inch purple squares beside it.

Next- how to place the 12 inch foundation pieced unicorns to each side... 

 I made more heart blocks, solid purple fabric squares and unicorn fabric in between the paper pieced unicorns, tweeking all the blocks a bit so they'd fit.

I did the same pattern of minkee strips and blocks below the unicorn centre (about where kitty is lying in photo above.)

After that I added pink bumpy minkee fbric strips ( leftovers from other projects) to the sides of the quilt top.  Then sewed purple minkee strips to the sides of the quilt top. 

They measure 2 1/2 inches wide by length of quilt top.  (3 3/4 X 57")

Pinned/ sandwiched unicorn quilt top with batting and pale pink with crescent moons minkee fabric on back. 

Next I added a border of 4 pink hearts ( 2 on each side ) and a rectangle of pink swirl fabric 6 1/2 X 34 3/4 " inches on all 4 sides, with a snowball block of unicorn fabric at each outer corner.   The whole quilt top measured 70 1/2 X 80 inches.

Yes, It took a lot of calculating to make all the blocks in each different row work out. 

But overall, I was a lot of fun to design this quilt as I went along, and I love it! 

Unicorn head foundation piecing pattern

Machine quilting the unicorn head

I used my Janome Horizon 8900 sewing machine to quilt this. I first sewed in the ditch around the centre block and also ditch quilted horizontally next to the minkee strips. 

I free motion quilted curls on the white unicorn head and meandered on the background candy fabric behind its head. 

I also free motioned sewed inside the hearts surrounding the unicorn head block. I continued to quilt my way outwards, row by row.

it was very difficult to sew a stretchy minkee strip to a plain cotton one. I had a lot of difficulty sewing the top and bottom pink minkee to the outer borders so it was taut. I had to open up two of the borders which I wasn't happy with and resew them. 

This quilt was extremely time consuming but very gratifying to have completed as it is a very unique quilt and I'm proud of having designed it myself.  No other little girl in the world has a quilt exactly like this one. :)

" Life At the Lake" Wallhanging June 2018

I started my "Life At the Lake " wall hanging in early June, 2018. I decided a while back that I needed to hang something intriguing on my empty bathroom wall space.  I thought a wall hanging depicting a variety of things found here at the lake in the summertime would be lovely to depict...

I had collected a variety of paper pieced block patterns to put together, some from the Quiltmaker magazine Summer 2015- a pattern called "Over by the Pond" and some were downloaded from Craftsy, and others were free on the internet.

I started off making 2 small foundation paper pieced dragonfly blocks, (6 1/4X 6 1/4")

Then I worked on 2 spiky plant blocks,  (7 1/2 X 7 1/2") both also foundation paper pieced. These were relatively easy and fun to make.

Next came the 2 Frog blocks, (7 1/2 X 9 1/4"). I found the directions in the Quiltmaker magazine Summer 2015.

After that I decided I wanted some butterfly blocks since there are a variety of butterflies here at the lake, notably the yellow swallowtails (usually found on my lilac blossoms in May) and one that looks similar to a Monarch.
I used a free patten from the internet called B is for Butterfly, (a butterfly from the side.)   (8 1/2 X 8 1/2"). and decided to make them bright and colourful. I went through my stash and found a variety of fabrics.

My next butterfly I wanted shown from the top. I found "Breezy Butterfly" by Marney (Marianne Hertzel@gmail.com)  I added some sashing to make it 8 1/2 X 8".

Next I downloaded a free dragonfly pond block called "Spring in the Pond", which was fun to make, (10 1/2 X 10 1/2")

Back of dragonfly/pond block

Segments of pink pond lily

Pink Pond Lily- I tried to buy this pattern off the internet, but none of the links I tried worked. I printed a copy of the pattern lines from Pinterest and magnified it 140%.
Then I drew heavy black lines around the segments and used markers to colour in the petals, lily pad and water.

Next I printed that a second time and cut the separate segments out. Now they needed 1/4 inch seams all around, so I glued them far apart so I could draw the seams on all of them.
Lastly I printed these up on a sheet of paper piecing paper to use. A lot of work! I would have gladly bought the pattern and saved all that hassle.

Pond/Water lily 

I love this water lily!

I arranged and rearranged all the blocks and auditioned some fabric to make the sashing in between the individual blocks.

Auditioning fabric to use for sashing

Last but not least I made 2 bumble bees to depict the hardworking pollinators in my garden which I love. In all the years I have been gardening (over 45 yrs) I have never been stung by a bee. I feel safe among them and I garden next to them and feel safe. They know That I love and appreciate them, and they have nothing to fear from me.

Voila! Over the Pond quilt completed.

I entered my wall hanging in the Heartland Quilt Show in Stettler, Alberta on June 8, 2019, and to my surprise I won a first prize ribbon for Small/ household category!   :D

At the Heartland Quilt Show June 8/19

One More!

My first ribbon, first prize!

I was so thrilled! Happy quilting everyone.