Border Quilting on Baby Elephant

 Hi all -

Fall is definitely here. We had our first snow Sunday morning. It rained all night then turned to snow in the morning. It stuck on the roof, but melted on the grass. And then it was all gone by noon. Now we're back to some pretty beautiful warm weather for the next week. What a wonderful time of year!  Here are some pictures of the aspen trees turning in my yard:

Aspen Turning in My Yard

More Aspen in My Yard

Isn't it beautiful??? I wish I could get the glow in my pictures! It's so much more beautiful in person!!

I've been spending time quilting the border of my "Baby Elephant" quilt from Lickety-Split Quilts for Little Ones by Laura Bevan. I'd already done the stitch-in-the-ditch quilting so now everything is stabilized and I can quilt wherever I want. I started with the big blue border blocks. I decided to quilt a chevron in those areas:

Chevron Border Quilting

The chevron is nice because it brings the eye into the center of the quilt. It''s nice to quilt because I can use my walking foot, but it's tedious because I had to bury the thread at the end of each line. I could have secured the stitches by stitching backwards at the end of each line. That would have been quicker, but I don't like the look of the heavy double thread at the end of each line. Another option would have been to stitch in from the outside edge, then stitch along the edge of the narrow purple border and then stitch the next line out to the edge of the quilt. This is what I would have done if the quilting along the sides of the narrow inner border was done in the blue thread used for the chevron. But I quilted the sides of the narrow purple border using purple thread so those extra little segments would have shown up on the back of the quilt. I'm weird, but I really want the quilting on the back of the quilt to look cool. Here's what the chevrons look like on the back:

Chevron Border Quilting on Back

I just find that so cool looking! For the orange corner stones, I found a rose quilting stencil in my stash that fit in the corners perfectly. I was looking for a rose to quilt in the cornerstones because I just found out that the baby's name is Adeline Rose. Isn't that beautiful? I quilted the roses in purple thread to make them stand out in the corners:

Rose Quilting in Cornerstones

I flipped and rotated the rose stencil so that in each corner the rose has the same two leaves pointing toward the borders and the third leave pointing towards the corner so the rose motifs kind of make a rectangle around the quilt. I hope that makes sense! Here are pictures of the entire quilt so far:

Baby Elephant With Borders Quilted

Baby Elephant Back

Now I need to pick a background filler for the cornerstones. I need something that will flatten the puffy areas around the roses, but isn't too heavy so it doesn't make a stiff place in the quilt. I want something curvy to contrast with the chevron quilting. Pebbles are one of my go-to curvy background fillers, but I tend to do a lot of backtracking when I do pebbling which can make it heavy. Another thought is to do a meandering feather filler. That has less backtracking and looks beautiful so it's a possibility. Another possibility would be to do some Nemeshing, which is a combination of feathers and pebbles. I did this on a wallhanging a long time ago and it looks wonderful, but I'm not sure if there's enough space around the roses to do it justice. I plan to use whatever filler I use around the roses also in the cream background area around the elephant to add cohesiveness to the quilting. The Nemeshing could really shine in that area, if I can pull it off with my current rusty quilting muscles. I'll ponder this some more and come to a final decision soon. Once I get the background quilting finished around the roses, I'll be able to put the binding on the quilt. I like to get the binding on as early as possible so I don't have to deal with the fluff that comes off of the batting while I quilt.

In the time when I'm not quilting, I've continued to work on my English Paper Piecing (EPP) hexagon charm quilt. I'm plugging away at adding hexagons to my hexagon-shaped units, making them rectangular. I've completed another three rectangles:

EPP Hexagon Charm Quilt Units

I'm having fun making progress on this quilt! But I'm also finding myself wanting to start a "La Passacaglia" quilt from Willyne Hammerstein's first Millefiori Quilts book. I've wanted to make one of these quilts since there was an exhibit of these quilts in Houston several years ago. I've been collecting Tula Pink fabrics for this quilt and I'm feeling the pull to start working on this one! So don't be surprised if you see me switch EPP gears soon....

Last week I took Grace to doggy daycare and they were having a ball pit day. This daycare offers "enhancements" where you can pay an extra $15 for some special personal time with your dog sometime in the day and they send you pictures of the activity. Every day the offer personal time where they will do puzzles with your dog or play ball with them, but every once in a while they will have a special enhancement. That's what ball pit day was. Since Grace LOVES balls, I couldn't pass this up! Here's Grace in the ball pit:

Grace in the Ball Pit

They filled the pool with balls and also treats for her to find. Grace loves to catch treats and they got this great picture of her just about the catch the treat:

Grace Catching a Treat

She really loved this activity!!

Well, that's about it for me. I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the change of seasons!!

Nancy