Bunny Butt Banner

Bunny Butt Banner on Display

The Bunny Butt Banner is the first of many outdoor quilt banners that I will be showcasing in the coming months. These fun, quilts help me to bring my passion to the outside of our home.

A New Reason to Quilt (not that I needed one)

Recently, I came across a wonderful “Support our Troops” flag and wanted to display it outside. As I was looking for a perfect spot, I realized that there are two areas on either side of our entry door that could frame this perfectly. The only problem is that I only had one flag/banner.

And this is how I came about the inspiration to create outdoor banner quilts. The process is simple, I asked hubby to install some regular curtain rods on each side of the entry, and then I measured the original flag/banner.

Bunny Butt Banner is born

Bunny Butt Block
Bunny Butt Banner before the applique
Now it’s time for Applique

Yea, I like saying Bunny Butt Banner – it’s fun 🙂 This quilt was really nothing but fun from start to finish. I have been wanting to use some of these fabrics, including the Easter egg one, for a long time.

Applique

The applique for this quilt was sketched out by hand on the back of the focus fabric, cut out, and then appliqued by machine to the center white area.

Bunny Butt Applique

What really makes this fun is the BUTT! I found some cute faux fur fabric (say that 3x fast) and used this for the bunny tail.

Bunny Butt crew
Even the Schnauzer Crew approves!

Quilting

I decided to do an E2E pattern for the quilting on this because I was more concerned with keeping the quilt together than doing a lot of fancy stitches. It is important to realize that these banner quilts will be taking a bit of a beating over time, the wind will whip them and probably prematurely wear at least the binding.

Edge to Edge Patterns
Daisies

I do have a large variety of Spring E2E patterns, but this one really spoke to me. I love how it played across the large blocks and fabric patterns.

Bunny Butt Banner E2E

As the first Banner Quilt and just in time for the holidays, I am excited how this turned out. I can also display any of these as I create them in the home and shop as well. This is a perfect size (36×60) for a wall hanging.

Then again, I may have to make another one to give away as a baby quilt too – you never know.

Do you create quilts specifically to be viewed from the outside? Why not share your passion with the world?

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Texas Gardens – 2020

Many folks don’t know this, but in Wisconsin, I was a Master Gardener. In Texas, the process of cultivating my green thumb has been slow going. Here is a look at my Texas Gardens – 2020. (and a bit of what I left behind in Wisconsin).

For years, I created perennial gardens, planted trees and added the color of annuals in the “one” growing season I was afforded up north. Not sure I have come to terms with the “two” seasons in Texas.

Wisconsin Gardens

Below are a few images that represent some of the flowers I grew in Wisconsin, unfortunately, the pictures of my “walking garden” are a bit washed out.

The Walking Garden

I called this my Walking Garden because it was a shade garden that began at the front of the home and wandered around the back of the garage and back out again. This area was totally reclaimed by hand, with great effort. The beds were made from rocks that erupted each year with Spring. These flat rocks came from an ancient Primordial lake bed that had once resided on the property.

Perennials came up every Spring

Texas Gardening

Things change – and that is ok! In my journey to garden down south, there have been some starts and stops, but overall, I have learned and found ways to add color and nature to our home. Here is a look at Texas Gardens – 2020.

The first thing I had to try was CACTUS! I bought a small one at our local flea market and today it is on its way to glorious

The other success I have had is with pots. I have found that by having large, deep pots, the moisture lasts much longer. As you can see, I have many great flowers to enjoy this season, I am very excited.

Statuary

Finally, I love hardscape elements. Because our property is built on clay and I do not have the rocks erupting each Spring, I have introduced other statuary elements.

I adore our dragon statues and even added a fountain with flower bed to the front alcove. I get to look out my kitchen window and enjoy this element every day. You can also see that I painted all these elements to match and compliment our Austin Stone and red brick home.

We bought this fountain in 2018 at the local Antique Alley Shows. I painted it right away but added the flower bed last year.

I can’t wait to see what we can add this season! If you want to learn more about my fountain- check out this prior post:

Antique Alley 2018
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The Golden Pineapple

The Golden Pineapple is a paper-pieced quilt that grew organically and finally found it’s way to the (sort of) Dallas Quilt Show in 2020. Unfortunately, the public was not able to check it out due to the cancellation because of the Covid 19 Virus. I am confident that there will be other opportunities coming soon enough.

Pineapple Inspiration

As many of you know, I adore paper-pieced blocks. Their sharpness and precision create so many wonderful patterns and sub patterns. In this situation, I fell in love with the Pineapple block.

As you can see, I also incorporated a Fleur De Lis design embroidered in every other block center. At this point, I really had no idea how to quilt this, but knew that I wanted to emphasize the stair-step look where all the gold intersected.

The image above shows how I envisioned the layout . Here you can see some of those secondary patterns emerging. As I said, the Golden Pineapple was an organic project. If you look at the fabrics in the block view above, the gold has an amazing directional aspect about it. I made sure to cut all pieces so the darts went in an outward manner.

Unfortunately, I ran out of this fabric and could not find more 🙁 I tend to use stash fabric so this is not an uncommon occurrence. Luckily, I had a gold that really worked well so, that is what I did.

Custom Quilting Decisions

As with the rest of this quilt, I let each section tell me how to quilt it. Some portions, like the corner treatments and square feather fill in alternating blocks was provided by electronic patterns, and others were hand-guided. The most exciting parts for me are the additional secondary patterns created by the quilting near the embroidery.

I began by isolating the embroidery with an outside star point design. The trapunto effect is made possible because of the batting used in the quilt. I used a combination of Linda’s Electric Quilters Linda’s Choice and Hobbs 80/20. I adore the weight and feel of this quilt because of the batting choices.

As you can see, the pebble background proves to showcase the gorgeous gold embroidery design. I couldn’t be happeri with this decision.

The borders included all hand-guided custom feathers so fed the need for my own creative mark as a final element.

What’s Next?

I have already designed my next – fresh – project. I love to try new things and I have had a box of ties in my sewing room for years. Now is the time to create something that combines these ties and a modern design. I can’t wait!

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Medieval Flags

What do you do when your quilt rod can no longer hold a quilt? Create some cool custom pennants to decorate the space. I am in love with these medieval flags, they really work with the other elements in our home.

Medieval Flags

New Book Cases

Originally, I had these two cool walls with curtain rods on them. I could hang quilts according to the season or my mood and change the look of our living room. And then a good friend gave me some beautiful book cases. For so long, I was sad because my books were still in the shop in boxes. I just didn’t have a spot for them. Now I did – but there was a cost.

I could no longer hang wall quilts like the one below in that space.

Quilt Hanger

By adding the book cases, I gained all my treasures, but lost a spot to hang quilts. In addition to this, I now have a rod with very little space to hang anything.

Solution

After careful thought, I decided to get out my design book and create three flags that represent our family’s interests. The compass is for our daughter, the knights helms is for my husband and I chose the butterflies. The blue color is special to me, but the butterflies were just because – because I loved that fabric so much! Of course, I looked on Pinterest for inspiration for these medieval flags and decided on a simple design that showcased colors and fabrics.

Pennant Design

How do you use small spaces to showcase your creativity?

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Scrappy Disappearing Nine Patch

Just a little scrappy disappearing nine patch quilt to help reduce my stash of scraps. I have actually never done this block before, but it was pretty fun! Once again, you will see that I have kept my scraps pretty orderly – I tend to lean toward color blocks. One day I really need to mix it all up, if my OCD can handle it!

Scrappy Beginnings

I am pretty organized as a whole and will prepare my scraps using my Accquilt Go! The processes starts with 4″ squares which I place into ziploc bags by color. Once I get as many as I can, I move down to 2″ squares.

Scraps all packaged and ready to go

Putting the nine patch blocks together

I love my design wall, it is not the largest, but it helps me visualize the designs I am working on. The scrappy disappearing 9 patch fit for the most part.

Hanger Trick

When doing rows that need to be kept orderly, I like to use a pants hanger and let it wait for me over a door. There is nothing worse than putting together rows in a quilt only to find out they were in the wrong order or upside down! The other element to this is taking a picture of the rows on my design wall. The visual along with the orderly way they are stored help to avoid frustration. You know what I mean!

All Pieced together

You can see how the colors play well with the white on white squares. Not quite a chain, but enough for interest. I just wasn’t sure I was in love with how they met up. For this reason, I decided to add sashing.

E2E Pattern

Edge to Edge Patterns
Bubble Bath

I decided to go with a very open and airy pattern so that the quilt didn’t have that densely-quilted feel. I really love how it turned out, and I was excited to show it off to my fellow quilters at the Johnson County Quilt Guild Meeting.

Are scrap quilts intimidating? Sometimes it can be overwhelming to look at a big bag of scraps and wonder how I will ever get through it all! What helps me is to use my Accquilt Go! to pare down the scraps into manageable shapes.

How about some other, fun scrappy quilts?

Paper Pieced Scrappy 2018
Scrappy Log Cabin
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