Machine Quilting: Wilbur

Anne made this Wilbur quilt for her granddaughter that rides and shows horses. It was too perfect for her.

 Anne wanted the horse filled in enough to tack it down functionally, but not take away from the design. Also, she wanted the horse to pop which was pretty easy when it's this big. Seriously, it's huge.

 I loaded the quilt on the machine sideways to take advantage of the most workable area at a time in chunks... The horse would have been too difficult to quilt if it was upright. I filled the background with swirls.

 I used a couple different threads in the horse to blend with Wilbur as much as possible.

Once I made the decision to turn the quilt sideways to have a better workspace, I had a genius idea but I had to run it by Anne. Since this is for her granddaughter, I had to make sure she knew how to read cursive writing or my plan wouldn't work. I still can't believe some schools quilt teaching cursive, but that's for another day. 

I pondered and asked and came up with a list of all sorts of horse terms - halter, bridle, colt, whoa, etc. Then to make it even more personalized, I quilted in Sydney's name and the name of her horse. It turned out awesome. So awesome that I'm actually working on another one for Anne right now for Sydney's trainer. I took pictures of my little way to keep the lines straight and even and I will show that later this week. 

For this quilt I used my handy yard sticks and chalk pens and marked the lines to "write on". Then I had another genius idea with this second quilt, no marking, no taking out chalk markings after, and time saving! Yes yes and yes! 

Oh, and in case you're wondering, Wilbur is a pattern by Moda and the horse is printed out on fabric and appliqued onto this quilt - it's not a ton of little pieces. So easy anyone can make this quilt if you can still find the kits. 

Thanks, Anne!