About 1 1/2 years ago, I saw the most awesome picture in Dani's instagram feed (@knitty34)--a quilt full of animals, each one made using the drunkard's path block. I knew immediately this was THE quilt for my grandson, Gabe.
Of course I contacted her right away. Soon thereafter, she had added the template to her
blog.
A nice highlight was meeting Dani at QuiltCon in February.
The first version was pretty much a carbon copy of Dani's.
For some reason, I started searching for the original source. By a stroke of luck, I found
animodul, a brand of children's clothes and toys.
Be sure to check out their website for lots of cool ideas: Clothing! Cookies! Blocks! These are all images from a fun video. (I immediately bought a set of plain wooden blocks and they are just waiting for some paint.)
Anyway...my friend thought the animal quilt would be a hot seller for the charity auction. And besides, by then I had found some more animals that HAD to be part of Gabe's quilt. The original went to our church quilting group and they are currently hand quilting it with prairie stitching for next April's auction.
It was so much fun sewing this quilt. The one thing I would do differently next time is to add the eyes to each animal block before I sew all the blocks together. Fusing and blanket stitching around each of those dime-sized circles after the quilt top was already together was, well, NOT fun. And the animals really come to life when the eyes are added. Before they have the eyes, it can be kind of tricky to decide what they are.
Before it went out to my friend,
Darby, for quilting, Gabe had to try it out.
I was thrilled with Darby's quilting--it is one of my very favorite quilting designs.
And what I love most about the animals is that many of them are open to interpretation. My favorite is this crab.
And the parrot is fun and colorful.
At first I thought this little guy was another version of a turtle. Apparently, he is a frog.
This one has been the subject of the most discussion. I originally called him a whale, until someone pointed out that he obviously was a scorpion. In Gabe's animal world, he most definitely is a FISH. What do YOU think?
And then I saw these two ducks (or is that bottom one a baby chick?) and...well, what do you think the top guy is? Maybe a lizard? Whatever, I will either have to make some pillows. Or start another new quilt!
Anyway, this quilt is probably the one I have had the most fun with. Thanks so much, Dani! Oh, and Gabe is pretty thrilled with it too.
I'm linking to
Crazy Mom Quilts,
TGIFF and
Confessions of a Craft Addict.
