Three Little Pigs Quilt

 
Earlier this year I made a version of my Red Riding Hood Quilt as a commission. I was photographing it in the shop when one of my customers came in, saw the quilt and got very excited. Catriona completely fell in love with the wolf and the trees and the next day she was back to ask me to make one for her.

But she wasn't interested in Red Riding Hood, she just wanted the wolf, and also a hot air balloon. She had been wanting to make this cushion for a while. I had put this on as one of my first classes last year, but it was too early in my craft studio's lifetime and I didn't get any takers! But Catriona really wanted a hot air balloon cushion and came along with an idea for a quilt that incorporated it.

I have to say that I have really enjoyed working in collaboration with Catriona on the design for this quilt. We've had lots of meetings in the shop over the last six months, refining the design and deciding on fabric. I have tried to incorporate all her ideas, including her final request - that pile of logs above (which was a bit of a challenge!) for a snake finger puppet she has at home to hide behind.

And in return she has sought and found all the special fabric I needed, such as the Heather Ross gnome fabric which I have always wanted to get my hands on. The winter tree above was machine appliqued and has snow made of white perle cotton 8 French knots, beads and white felt.

The spring/summer tree has French knot blossom all over the Cloud 9 fabric and the tree trunk has my usual ladybird behind it's secret door, one of the features from the original that Catriona wanted to keep. We did think about having 4 trees, one for each season, but it was going to spoil the over all composition and make the quilt too big.

And here's the hot air balloon, it is machine appliqued but the rigging is hand embroidered, so it is a bit of a hybrid of this cushion and this quilt. The pig looks a little out of scale here but at least he is making a swift getaway from the big bad wolf! The felt clouds are topstitched on to the perfect sky fabric that Catriona found.

She also bought this gorgeous David Walker Bear in the Woods fabric (which I am going to try to order for the shop I love it so much!). I machine quilted round the trees, balloon and clouds with my amazing new Pfaff and it's integrated walking foot - I could never have managed this with my old machine!

The autumn tree is another feature Catriona wanted to keep from the original quilt, but she supplied the toadstool fabric for the trunk and found more Kokka Red Riding Hood fabric as I didn't have a whole wolf left on the piece I had.

The pigs can hide from the wolf behind the autumn tree and up in the summer tree, as well as behind the logs. It's a good job because the wolf looks really hungry!

Just before I handed the finished quilt over I realised I hadn't made a label! So this was quite hurriedly drawn and applied. Bailey is Catriona's cute little 2 year old boy who I hope will enjoy playing with this 'activity' quilt.

Catriona made all three pigs after attending a 'felt animal' class with me. She wanted each pig to wear a different coloured, checked neck scarf, but then we realised the pigs didn't actually have necks! The bandanas were a compromise and one of the hardest things to make on the whole quilt!

The gruffalo was made from one of Bailey's old pyjama tops and the owl is from an Alexander Henry home decor fabric that I bought in New York 3 years ago (good job I bought plenty as this owl has been used on all 3 quilts!).

Everyone's back in their places here with the gruffalo ready to fly away in his balloon. This is the third of these Fairytale quilts I have finished. You can see the first here and the second here.

I started this properly in August, and have been working on it in between other projects since then. Luckily Catriona wasn't in a mad hurry and was more concerned to get it the way she wanted it. I am glad to say that she is very happy with the finished quilt!