Heberling Adventures: May 2012

Every so often, I hear song lyrics I really hope to remember... for... something. Some time in the future. Some art project maybe.

Today it's "Wildflowers" by Tom Petty, which would make a great graduation card:

You belong among the wildflowers
You belong in a boat out at sea
Sail away, kill off the hours
You belong somewhere you feel free

Run away, find you a lover
Go away somewhere all bright and new
I have seen no other
Who compares with you

You belong among the wildflowers
You belong in a boat out at sea
You belong with your love on your arm
You belong somewhere you feel free

Run away, go find a lover
Run away, let your heart be your guide
You deserve the deepest of cover
You belong in that home by and by

You belong among the wildflowers
You belong somewhere close to me
Far away from your trouble and worry
You belong somewhere you feel free

Well, as a new craft project, and because I was excited to be TTC (trying to conceive) and was naively convinced that it may happen soon, I started a baby quilt in January.

Friends and I were once talking about how we see the alphabet in our mind... whether certain letters are certain colors... and I realized that I usually see the alphabet in my mind in stacked rows, like an alphabet quilt we used to have. However, when my mom brought over the quilt, it's, well, a little ugly. It's old and a bit dingy now, but there are also certain images that I remember not liking... like this kinda ugly queen with a huge nose. Not that a queen needs to be beautiful... There is also no theme to it, except that things start with that particular letter.

So I decided I wanted an animal themed alphabet quilt, and preferably animals maybe in this area (vs exotic). I originally thought I'd do cross-stitch (which I haven't done since I was into it when I was about 10), but then I started doing a combination cross-stitch of the letters and applique of the actual animal. I'm using an online cross-stitch pattern for the letters.

For the animals, I find a photo online to model. It's all free-handed, thus it's a bit crooked in some places.

Alligator (though my mom said "green monster?" when she first saw it)

Bear and Butterfly The brown fabric is fuzzy. It was very thick and hard to stitch through, and kept sliding around, thus my bear is a little saggy baggy... maybe she just needs to put on her winter weight still.

The blue stitching is from a quilt my dad's grandmother stitched. I lovingly am repurposing the stitching. The original quilt seemed to just have random things stitched -- butterfly, lots of birds, flowers, dutch girl, windmill -- in no particular order.

Cat and Dog

obviously modeled after our pets

The black fabric is really soft.

Elk for my hunters

Frog Well, not all had a photo I modeled after

Geese

Horses

Iguana couldn't think of a local animal for this, plus this is so colorful

Jack rabbit

Kestrel This is my dad's fav bird. It's a small member of the falcon family. Matt calls this "ketchup bird."

Llama I thought the photo was cute but mine turned out a little strange looking. Might have to re-do him later. The black fabric is really soft.

Mouse The brown fabric is fuzzy.

Newt Not sure what the newt population is like around here, but what else starts with N? At least he's colorful.

Owl

Porcupine I saw several pics online of porcupines holding flowers so I thought it must be a legit thing. You can't tell but the quills are stitched with a kinda shiny and really coarse thread, which gives it a really cool look and texture (but was a huge pain to work with).

Quail

I've actually enjoyed this about 10x more than I thought I would. It's really relaxing and zen for me while Matt watches sports. I'm surprised by how into it I've become... And it's a little quirky and imperfect but I'm happy so far with how it's coming along. The four corners are just going to be plain with some of the blue stitches from my great-grandma appliqued on. There will be a border between all the blocks and around the edge.

Raccoon

Squirrel (and Sasquatch) Matt insisted on the 'squatch...

Turtle

(Sea) Urchin Matt's teasing me that "fireworks don't start with U..." This is actually one of my favs

Vampire bat Well I had a hard time of thinking of something for V. I really wanted to do vulture and try to make it look cute because, really, it's a nice enough animal with a bad rap. But, honestly, they are REALLY ugly. I could barely look at the picture. So bat should be B, and actually vampire bats have very ugly faces too with these weird snouts, but I like bats, so fine.