Fancy Foxes!

I spotted this pattern on Instagram a few months ago and went on the hunt for the pattern.  I love these foxes.  Full of character, especially the dude with the glasses! 

In December we had our annual "Show & Tell Evening" at The Quilt Shop.  I needed to make something quickly since I had given away almost everything that I had made in the past year and had nothing to show! I did have my Storm at Sea Quilt top but nothing completely new and finished!

I decided to make the Fancy Foxes Quilt by Elizabeth Hartman (Fransson) in lap quilt size.  It meant just 4 simple blocks. 

Today I grabbed my mini-models to take a few pictures of the finished product.  They did their best to hold up the quilt for me to take a picture but it's very difficult when the quilt is bigger than you!  Sams eyebrow though (on the right), makes me laugh everytime I look at this next picture!

Two evenings and it was done and dusted!  I handquilted it with Perlé Cotton No. 8 in a simple heart design and used my scraps for binding.  The backing is another fox print - super cute little foxes that look like their are looking for mischief (just like the new owners of this quilt)!







On the front the quilting is subtle but it shows nicely on the back and the colour works very well with my backing fabric!





 
 
 The only thing I didn't get round to doing before the Show and Tell was sewing down the glasses.  I wanted to do it by hand with a buttonhole or blanket stitch and finally almost 6 months later, I pulled it out this week to do that and the boys having been having fun with it since!  It's hard to see the details of the stitching in this picture.......  I love buttonhole stitching though - and I love doing it by hand instead of using the machine!





It started to hailstone mid-photoshoot, hence the big black dots on the quilt...........the boys loved it though!  They were dressed for the weather, unlike me - I was out in my pj's since I've been sick all week!

You can see they love it!  They were watching tv here and most possibly mid-wrestle but still, they were snug as bugs!

Accumulating UFO's

I'm finding it very hard to concentrate these days.  I have started so many projects and not finished one this past month!!  I have been hand-quilting my "summer in the park" quilt this week and that has taken two full days but it's done now and I just have to do the binding, hooray!!

I also cut lots of fq's up last week to make a little boy blanket.  I've been admiring my cut rectangles all week but have been putting off actually piecing it until I get the hand-quilting done.........I'm really trying not to be a quilter with 15,000 UFO's!  However, I couldn't resist and put it together on wednesday afternoon, it's a very simple design, lots of bright spring colours, perfectly suited to the little one I'm making it for.

My poor little Economy Block-Along quilt came to a standstill 2 weeks ago when I couldn't find the fabric I wanted to complete it.  I had been using fussy cuts from Riley Blakes "The Simple Life" and I LOVED IT but you can only use so many of the same pictures repeated.  I had used each one about 5 or 6 times and any little girl would absolutely adore them.  You can just imagine how their imagination would run wild looking at all the little scenes.  Falling asleep while making up stories to go with them...........   OR maybe it was just me, maybe I was bored with the repetition and the fabric is far too cute to get bored of!  So, I went on the hunt and found a similar but different Riley Blake pattern called "Little Red Riding Hood".  It was on a white background too and had a few different scenes!  I also came across another gorgeous print by Riley Blake called "Country Girl"............ah for goodness sake, they were getting cuter and cuter..........but this one, I couldn't find in Ireland or the UK!  It seems that it's brand new and only in the US so far.  I bit the bullet and bought half a yard of both fabrics and guess what, they arrived in just 5 days!  I opened up this Happy Mail yesterday.

Aren't they gorgeous!!!

  

The pictures on both fabrics are perfect for fussy cutting into my blocks!  Watch this space for more progress! 


So, I'm browsing the net this morning - for fear something mega happened overnight and I might have missed it when I notice someone has pinned something I previously pinned and forgotten.  Oh man, I want to make that too!  How did I forget about such a cute project!  Then, I spy a stained glass project that a fellow quilter is making - it's just stunning and I remember how I loved doing the stained glass block in my sample quilt and suddenly I want to add one of those to my list too! So today, I'm giving myself a good talking to, telling myself to cop on, knuckle down and finish the current quilts and start making an orderly To Do List instead of starting everything at once!  Let's see if that happens.........!

My two little helpers watching the "thorn" (needle) going up and down!