My Horse Quilt

All my life I have had a passion for horses. I got my first horse when I was 12 yrs old, a large snow white pony I named Tammy. I was blessed with quite a few horses in my life time and could write a whole blog just about that. Just may do that too.

I enjoyed trailriding alot. There was nothing like saddling up and heading out on the trail with a canteen of cowboy coffee before the sun came up. There are a million stars in the sky before sun up and a cool misty fog rolls among the trees and the trail ahead.

Along the horizon the sky begins to turn dusky shades of greys, purples and blue with an explosion of orange and golds reflecting off the clouds as the sun rises. As the sun starts to climb in the sky it is time to head back to camp in hopes the hubby is up and has started cooking bacon over an open fire in the old iron skillet. As he fries up a few eggs you enjoy another cup of "Cowboy Coffee" also brewed over the campfire and if I close my eyes I think I can smell it now.

Just a few memories from this Ole Cowgirl. I can't ride my horses any more as I have hung up my spurs and my saddle now rests proudly on a saddle stand in the corner of my bedroom with a lifetime of memories tucked away much like my saddle blankets and my boots.

I decided to make a quilt in memory of all the great horses I was blessed with through out my life with the name of each horse among the blocks of my quilt.

Beautiful embroidered horses galloping, trotting and standing proudly among the blocks and borders of this quilt to be.

In May of 2010 I began to create this quilt the fabric in shades of blue, black and browns. My blocks a crisp white cotton with a border fabric of beautiful brown horses with flowing black manes galloping through the fallen snow.

The quilt block design I chose is a bear claw. There will be 17 machine embroidered horses and eight blocks with the names of some very special horses I have had in my life time. My summer was spent embroidering many different breeds of horses. Appaloosa, Quarter Horse, Arabian, the Clydesdale, Palomino, Paint Horse, Buckskin, Leopard Appalooosa and the Friesian.

My Horse Quilt story will continue........

September 2010
Just an Ole Cowgirl

It's Coming Together

It's fall of 2010 and I am working on sewing all my blocks together. I learned a hard lesson last year about squaring up my blocks. It has paid off cause these blocks went together like a puzzle.

The border I have planned to go around my blocks is a black jagged looking border made with a zillion half square triangles. At least it seemed like a zillion when I was making them. I love the look this has given my quilt.

Now I am working on the last border. It is a very wide border that shows off the fabric with the beautiful horses running thru the snow. I have mitered the corners. I was very happy to have completed piecing this quilt top and with my hubby's help we layed the top out on the livingroom floor to have a look. I sat back and cried because my outer border was all wavy and would not lay flat.

I put this quilt away till after the holidays deciding to take a breather and step away from it for a while.

When I picked this project back up I decided to rip all this last border off and had to carefully rewash the fabric. I figured out that the fabric in the last border got all stretched from holding the quilt up to show it to people during construction. Not a great idea and another lesson learned.

I swished the fabric around in the washer and layed each piece out flat to dry and then pressed and starched the fabric. Measured the center of the quilt both ways and went about sewing this last border back on.

I decided to do away with the mitered corners and decided on a block in each corner with a horse head embroidered on a black bearclaw. I am really happy with this change and it seems to go well with the black jagged inner border.

I think now I am finally done piecing this quilt as I have layed the quilt top out on the tables at the church and everything is laying nice and flat.....no more waves.

Now to find the fabric for backing this quilt. I have not been able to find just the right fabric and when I do this quilt will then go to my long arm quilting lady to be quilted. It just got too big for me to quilt it myself with my sewing machine. It's been a long journey piecing this quilt but I am very happy with how it turned out. I can't wait to send it off to be quilted.

July 2011
Corry