Cow Quilt Quilted!

Instead of putting the cow quilt into the 'to be quilted' closet, I decided to just quilt her now and have a complete finish.

First thing was to sew a 1" finished black border around the flimsy. It just needed some black to make all the other fabric shine.

Machine quilting is not my thing, I don't enjoy, I do it just to finish a small project and save some money. Since I had recently machine quilted several small projects using the serpentine design, that's what I decided to use. I used a brown/beige variegated thread.

Here is a close up picture of the quilting. Just so you know, cows don't have blue eyes.

There was green grass the day I took these pictures. I should embroider the mouth onto the cow and add a black eye to the rooster . . . I really should do that but I probably never will.

This cow quilt measures 49" by 55" after washing and drying. I'll be keeping this quilt for someone in my own family.

I had the perfect fabric for backing in my stash. I buy brown cow fabric whenever I see it because it is a rarity! I see now I took the backside picture the wrong direction. The quilting should be vertical, not horizontal.

The Cow Quilt pattern can be found here on the Counted Threads website. I did make changes to the pattern with color placement for the cow.

You can read more about piecing the cow quilt here.

Linking to Needle & Thread Thursday, TGIFF!, Peacock Party, Whoop Whoop Party, Finished or Not  Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Beauty Pageant, Patchwork & Quilts

A Cow Quilt

Years ago I bought the Cow quilt pattern from Counted Quilts which was designed by Lisa Muilenburg. Back then I needed to wait while it traveled through the mail. Nowadays you can buy the pattern via PDF and print it off the same day.

She had to take her turn on the glider. Doesn't it look like she is really sitting there?

Yes, the day I took pictures we had green grass . . . and . . . the sun is shining. That is my shadow on the right side of the quilt.

Of course I wasn't going to make a holstein cow, my quilt is going to be a Guernsey. I searched out the best fabric I could find to simulate the mottled fawn color. My friend Nancy (who used to work at Yoder Department Store) helped me since she grew up on a Guernsey farm and knew what I was looking for.

I got all the fabrics together and cut out the pieces but didn't sew it right away. It became a UFQ (unfinished quilt).

After we moved, I decided this quilt was going to be finished before another year passed. This has been my latest sewing project, another UFQ finished!

The cow has a lot of light fabric but I didn't want a white cow. I reversed some of the fabric colors and this is what I came up with.

There are  3 sizes in the pattern and I made the lap quilt size. She measures 55" wide by 48.5" long.

To organize my pieces, I use trays. These trays are my sewing trays and are never used in the kitchen. There are a lot of pieces in a lot of different sizes. I labeled each group with the appropriate letter of the alphabet and also wrote the size on the slip of paper which was pinned to the group. Very important, mark the pieces! You will be very thankful you did.

I used 3 trays, there were a LOT of pieces. I did have pieces leftover but that was because I changed colors in the body. I'll admit it did get confusing prepping all the pieces.

This quilt is pieced in a row by row fashion.

There are a lot of pieces in each row.

This quilt will get quilted sometime this year but for now, completing the piecing is enough.

All of the diagonal seams were flippy corners. I have a LOT of cut off pieces! I'll take these along to the April retreat and give them to a lady who collects scraps and uses them to make dog beds.

I asked the semi-retired dairy farmer for his critique. After his first quick glance, he said he thought the head looked like a dog. However she (the cow) did have a large muzzle so she would certainly be able to consume large quantities of feed and produce plenty of milk.

He also informed me the cow did not possess the desirable characteristics that our farm has been known for. However her teats are straight and her udder has a strong attachment. 

He's still milking 2 cows once a day.

Linking to Monday This N That, To Do Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Wednesday Wait Loss, Put Your Foot Down

On my Sunday post I showed you pictures of the hail that blasted us on March 31. Linda asked if we had any damage. We didn't personally, our vehicles are parked in the garage and it's too early to plant field crops so it came at a good time. I'm sure there are plenty of people who had damage to their vehicles if they were parked outside, that hail was big!

Retreat Projects That Didn't Happen

Several weeks ago, I had a post showing you fabrics from all the projects I was going to make at retreat. Only one of those projects happened, the first one, the salmon/peach fabrics, which turned into Orange Sherbet.

This post is about the projects that didn't happen at retreat. The first one was a cow crib quilt. I did prep all the fabrics pieces for this one. While prepping I decided this pattern needed close attention, especially since I was changing the cow colors. Close attention is not a good candidate for piecing at a retreat, at least not for me.

Those pieces are on a tray, ready to be pieced sometime this winter.

The second scratched project was Blackbirds by Lorna of Sew Fresh Quilts. I didn't even cut this one out. These blocks are not foundation paper pieced. There are a lot of pieces to keep straight, again needing close attention. 

The last project, using my beloved blues, was Double Delight, a former mystery quilt by Bonnie Hunter. This one did get completely prepped and taken along to the retreat but not worked on. It will happen sometime this winter. 

The individual 9 patches are all pieced and ready to be sewn into the double 9 patch block. 

The other block is a rolling stone block. I sewed one of the blocks to make sure I liked the color combination I'm using. I love it! There will be other blue fabrics used also. This will be a good scrap buster.

I greatly over estimated how much I'd accomplish but I'm glad to have several projects ready to sew.

Linking to To Do Tuesday, Midweek Makers  Wednesday Wait Loss, Needle & Thread Thursday