Chilly Quilted Penguin

Chilly Quilted Penguin would be an excellent name for a rock band or eclectic coffee shop.

A friend told me the nursery was going to be done in penguins, which I just adore, so I had to make a penguin quilt for her baby.

I scanned the net for patterns and ideas, and from THIS quilt (Diana McClun and Laura Nownes) sketched up a pattern in EQ8.  My penguins don't look that much like their penguins, but their quilt is where my inspiration came from.

I made the beaks and feet from prairie points and left them floppy so there would be something to tug on.  The feet got some extra stitching to denote toes.

Quilting the quilt was fun and quick.  Asian wind/water for the sky, a large triangle meander for the ice, swirls for the belly feathers, and a heart for joy.

Magnifico thread in white for the shiny snowy appeal.

And to wrap it all up, a cute penguin print from about a decade ago.

Icy Hunters Star

It's all cut out and piecing has started!  I had a little trouble at first getting the unusual angles to line up correctly after sewing.  Turns out the seam allowance wants to be a thread's width narrower than I was making them.  Now that it's straightened out though piecing is moving along well.  But I've gotten ahead of myself.

Beth and I decided to build one of these each when we first saw a red and white Hunter's Star on the net a couple of years back.  I don't remember now what colors she chose, but I wanted something that looked very wintery, so I collected lots of low volume blue and grey prints and a few different whites to work with.

I made a bunch of 3 7/8" strips (to minimize waste) and ran them through my Go! cutter with the hunter's star die.  Boy was this ever easier than trying to keep everything lined up nicely for a 30° cut!  EDIT:  how embarassing!  Of course I meant 45°!

So now it's just a matter of several iterations of chain piecing, which will take a while.

I did make a test block - the real blocks will be alternating blue and grey four patches instead of four of one color/print, but I like the way it looks.

Throw in a Weekend

My long weekend had to spill over into yesterday to get this quilt finished up, but here it is!  I quilted a meander that looks a bit like snowballs in the white columns and very simplified snowflakes in the colored columns.

 

There was so much fabric left over, I'll have to do something else entirely with it, but I did want to use some of the leftovers for random blocks on the back.  The block placement isn't quite what I was shooting for, but it's close enough.  This quilt will just sit on the rocking chair in my living room during the winter months emitting coziness vibes.

 

The center block on the back is just a fussy cut from one of the cute prints with white crazy piecing to make it square.  

Here's a shot of the "snowstorm" on the back...

 And I just love the riot of color that ended up on the edge.  There were a bunch of two and a quarter inch cutoffs left so they got sewed together end to end for the binding.

Comfort and Joy

Comfort 

...and Joy...

Comfort

...and Joy...

oh tidings of Comfort and Joy!

Hazardous Weather Outlook

I do believe we got a quarter inch of leaves today!

Now, Don't Laugh...

...but it's wintertime here. This is it.


Super-severe, close the schools for the day, wintertime. It sleeted last night and froze to the streets and tree branches. I stepped out into the yard to take a few glittery ice pictures. We'll probably get another day of winter like this one sometime in February and then it will be over for the year.


Oh yah, a picture from my garden, too. Frozen spinach anyone?