I was on Pinterest about a month ago and just aimlessly scrolling like normal when this pin popped up.... https://www.pinterest.com/pin/226235581258413581/
Two things.
1. I love making things for other people.
2. My best friend just happens to be obsessed with foxes.
I knew immediately that I wanted to make this quilt for her. I quickly turned to my google and found out that I could purchase this lovely pattern designed by Elizabeth Hartman. The name of the pattern is "Fancy Fox" and it can be found here.
After purchasing the pattern I knew that picking out the perfect patterns would be essential to an amazing looking quilt. Before I picked out the fabrics I had to pick what size I wanted to make, the pattern comes in three sizes; baby, lap, and twin. I just knew that I had to make a baby quilt for her. Now for a disclaimer....she is not pregnant, BUT she will be one day and will have a beautiful baby girl or boy and so I wanted to be able to give it to her for when the time came. No rush hehe.
I ended up on Art Gallery Fabrics and fell in love with designer April Rhodes and specifically her line Wanderer. I ended up picking out three fabrics from the line and one additional fabric called Fletching Chant by Maureen Cracknell. I also ordered Kona in Pepper and Snow for the muzzle and eyes and nose. I ordered through Fabric Bubb and in about a week my beautiful fabric arrived. The combination of fabrics was stunning. Eventually, because I was not patient enough to order more Kona for the background color, I found myself settling for a blue/green color in Country Cotton at JoAnns. I honestly do not know the name, sorry.
Once I had all my pieces, the cutting began. I spent a Monday night, watching, AMERICA, The Story of US on Netflix and cut perfect squares and rectangles.
The hardest part about making this quilt was keeping it secret from my best friend. I would do incognito pictures on Instragram, posting that I was just working on a regular ol' quilt.
Piecing the faces together was fun as I had practiced with some of my scrap fabric before I even got in the fabric I used for the project. It was a lot of sewing and pressing and filling up my iron with water and repeating the process until I had just enough fox faces for the quilt.
After that I sewed the faces together to form 4 rows and then I connected them with the background fabric to make a beautiful quilt top.
I found the perfect quilt backing fabric at JoAnns that was 100% organic cotton and was just the finishing touch for this project. I loved the pops of gold and the feathers, it matched so well.
I have quilted a few times before but I always used fleece on the back and would just sew right sides together leaving enough space for me to turn it right side out and then sew on the lines as my "quilting." This was the first time I got batting and actual backing fabric and laid them on top of each other and pinned the heck out the quilt. I recently received a new sewing machine from my friends that has around 100 fancy stitches and I was determined to us it to my full advantage as well. I finally picked out my stitches and went to town, sewing straight lines, then fancy lines, alternating to get this neat textured look to the quilt.
My roommate also got some shots of my sewing in the middle of my project!!
I kept going until it was all sewn together. Finally I added some black binding which tied in nicely to the eyes and noses of the foxes. My quilt was complete, and I could not be more satisfied with it. I have definitely caught the quilting bug and plan on producing a lot more in the next year.
Jenny
