A Day at the Zoo

This is my first finish as part of the Spring to Finish challege by Jacquie at Tallgrass Prarie Studios.

Originally, for lack of a better name, I called it "Elephants in the Park", but I'm now calling it,

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"A Day at the Zoo."


I started the quilt back in August or September of '08. I was using fabrics I had bought (and then never used) to make some more quilts for the vet. I didn't particularly like the fabrics, but they were 100% cotton flannel, and on sale, so they seemed ideal for the purpose. By the time I would have gotten around to using them though, I'd already made about 25 quilts for the vet and thought that was enough!

The quilt was intended as an experiment in sashing - at that point, I'd only been quilting for about 6 months.

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I made it crib sized, not because I knew of any babies, but because that seemed a good size to experiment with. I ran out of the animal print in any case, so had to do a bit of piecing job on the back:

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Because I wasn't totally enamoured of the project, I was easily distracted, and put it away very shortly after beginning the quilting. Coming back to it though, what I I'm please to find is the difference in my quilting ability between then:

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and now:

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As you can see from the stippling on the outer border, my stitches are much more even and tight now. I was really pleased to note the improvement!

Other than that, though, I'm not any fonder of it then I was when I finished it last fall, and as I trimmed the sides

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and sewed on the binding,

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I reflected that though I'm grateful to Jacquie giving me the impetus to finish my UFOs, much of what I'm going to be finishing are pieces like this: quilts I didn't like to begin with.

*sigh*

Next up, either a quilt called "Man's Fans" (made immediately after "A Day in the Park" it's yet another example of me having a great idea and my quilting ability not being up to my quilting expression); or the quilt I made just prior to those two that is soooooooooo ugly, I've actually been calling it the "The Ugly Black One".

At least I'll finally get those done. Those two are lap sized, and after that, I hope to finish a twin sized quilt called "AutumnSteals In" which I actually like for a change, and after that an as yet unnamed queen sized Bento Box pattern that is batted and pinned and even rolled and ready to go. If I manage to get all of those done, I have a whole list of other UFOs that could be part of this challenge!

That's a lot to finish before the end of April, especially since I've just gotten a commission which I'm quite excited about. But I'll post more about that later.

Ooh lah!

Anonymous

6 comments:

  1. Wow! you really did improve in your quilting skills. Very pretty.

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  2. Thank you so much!

    And thanks for stopping by my blog. :)

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  3. Hi there - great finish!

    I saw your comment on another blog and came over - I wish you would link up with the festival! It's for EVERYONE no matter the skill level - I've seen a few first quilts. Come join the fun! K?

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  4. Hi Amy,

    Well, I just told Beloved Spouse about your comment and they said "She's right! You can show any of your quilts!"

    So, I think I will post. Thanks for the encouragement! :)

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  5. Wow I love this one too! especially the colours and that cutie print!!!

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