Ann Quilts: Animals of the Fen

June 25, 2011

Animals of the Fen

As promised, here come the animals to populate the fen quilt.

My friend, as I said earlier, specified particular species of each animal. It wasn't hard to find photos of each via google. I also found info on each animal's size, so I could reproduce them somewhat in scale.

I put each photo into Illustrator (I imagine any program would work somewhat the same, but I'm nowheres near a computer expert). I drew a box the size I wanted the animal to be, and scaled the photo accordingly. Then I printed them out, traced each onto paper, pinned them on the quilt, and checked it out with my friend. I posted a photo of the quilt with paper animals in place in a previous post.

When the sizing was all set, I used the tracings as patterns to cut the fabrics for the basis of each animal. Again, the fabrics were all stabilized with iron-on interfacing before I cut. I stitched the animals in place, using a zig-zag with invisible thread.

Then I made another tracing, this time with details also. I basted these over the plain bodies, and embroidered through the paper, using the photos as guides for color. It works best using a stab stitch, so the needle goes exactly where I want it to go. I used a quilters pin to finish tearing the paper along the perforations made by the stitching, so I could remove the paper. Sometimes, that meant scooping under the threads where there was a solid area of color. I had to be gentle so as not to disturb the stitches too much.

Here are the critters:

The Bog Buckmoth (3/4")

Dragonfly (1")

Green Frog (1 3/4")

Eastern Painted Turtle (3 3/4")

White-tailed Deer (1 3/4" tall)

(The deer was appliquéd with a straight stitch. The zig-zag looked horrible on the ultra suede, and wasn't really necessary for fray control anyway.)

Harrier or Marsh Hawk ( 1 1/2")

(I pulled the grey cross threads out of the back wing to lighten it up. Well, it happened once by mistake, and I liked it, so I pulled out some more....)