From Moo to Quilt: Where mountains touch the sky

After finishing the pasture land yesterday, I was so excited to get back into the studio to work on the sky.

I originally had this fabric next to the cows…..

…but I felt that it was too bright to fit in that spot. Then I spied THIS fabric on my shelf…..

I loved the undulations (like hills) and the blue color was perfect.

But I only had a fat quarter, and of course, it was a SMALL fat quarter (only 19-inches wide. This meant that I would need THREE cuts from this particular piece.

I started out by deciding that I wanted about 1 inch of green at the top of each slice, and drew them out before I cut them.

I checked each slice before applying the rotary cutter to make sure that the designs would work together….

It was a lot of work for one 3-inch row, but was completely worth it….

I was pretty sure that I wanted to add a row with mountains so that was where I headed next.

I sketched a basic pattern….

…. and started adding fabrics (and making changes as I went).

I wanted to use Wonder Under for the outside edges of the hills, but didn’t want the fusing to extend over the entire piece. I have found that adding fused fabric on top of fused fabric often causes stiffness, and I wanted to avoid that.

My process was simple…..

Draw the curve (reverse side) on the Wonder Under…

….cut out the curve, leaving fusible on each side of the line….

…..iron the fusible in place, making sure to leave enough fabric below the curve to complete the pattern, then cut along the curve…..

I made a number of changes as I went along, mostly adding some peaks to the curves and moving a few fabrics around.

This was the final result…

Once trimmed, I added it to the rows already in place….

…and kept on building upward!

I was struggling to find enough appropriate fabrics to make the quilt a full 60-inches in height, but my husband reminded me that it was for a baby and there was no “PERFECT” height!

That was just what I needed to declare the quilt top FINISHED….

I am super excited about how it has turned out, and I can’t wait to get started on the quilting…..

I am thinking dreadlocks for the cows….what do you think?

…………………………………………………………….

“Let’s Get Scrappy is about how to decide, not about what to make.”

Let’s Get Scrappy is an on-demand online course that helps quilters overcome decision fatigue and finally make sense of their overflowing scrap bins. With four hours of step-by-step video instruction, you’ll learn simple systems for organizing, piecing, and pressing your scraps—so you can stop overthinking and start sewing beautiful, coordinated quilts with confidence and joy.