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!

Spot The Difference

Seeing as it's the Easter Holidays I thought it would be nice to have a 'spot the difference' competition to help keep your kids busy while they are off school. So I completely re-made the Red Riding Hood quilt that I made 2 years ago for the DQS9 just so we could play a little game!

I am, of course, kidding you. I did re-make the quilt (new version above) but not just to keep your children occupied!

I couple of months ago I lovely lady who reads this blog (Hi Christina!) saw the Red Riding Hood quilt (original version below) and asked if I would make her one exactly the same for her little girl. We decided on a price we were both happy with and talked about a few changes to make things a bit quicker for me and then, once I had my most pressing swap deadlines out the way, I started making it.

I finished it on Tuesday and it is now winging it's way across the Atlantic.
It is the first time I have tried to re-create anything. Luckily I still had enough of nearly all the fabric I had used in the first quilt (I am such a hoarder!). Including a full wolf and little red from the Kokka fabric I had bought especially the first time round.

Little Red and the Alexander Henry owl (made from home decor fabric), are both detachable and 'live' in little pockets.

As in the original, there is a little ladybird behind a secret door.
One of the main changes with this new quilt is that I machine quilted it to cut down the time (and so cost). But there was still a lot of hand finishing. All those felt apples were hand sewn. And as I had run out of the red apple fabric I used the first time, I had to sew a lot more on this time!

I had been a bit tricksy with the first quilt (showing off mainly - it was my first DQS!), and made some of the leaves as little 3D quilt leaves (they even had wadding inside!). But in the end they just looked like they had been appliqued. So this time I needle-turned them, then added blanket and running stitch afterwards to get the same effect.

Last time I used curved piecing to make the tree tops, but as that was pretty much hidden by the trees (and is always a bit hit and miss as far as I'm concerned), I needle turn appliqued the tree tops as whole circles this time. So, yes, lot's of hand sewing!

So let's take a look at the answers. Did you spot the differences on the holly tree?

Above is the new, and below is the original. I actually much prefer the new one. I outlined the leaf and the centre vein with backstitch instead of using a row of seed beads, and I think the leaves stand out much more. The berries are a better size too. And the trunk is also a totally different piece of fabric (surely you got that one!).

The owl has moved to a higher perch in the Autumn tree in the new version, above.

Here is the original apple tree, a lot less apples to sew on with this sadly missed fabric! Plus in the new one the apples are falling and landing on the other side of the trunk.

So how did you do?
Well I did very well, as I actually got paid for making a quilt, and, while I was photographing it in the shop yesterday, a customer came in and fell in love with it and has commissioned a version for her little boy! But I've told her I can't start it till July - I need to give my hands a good rest first!