Rocking Horse Baby Quilt

Finished Rocking Horse Quilt for my friends the Ritchie's new baby girl.

Started off by googling a photo of a rocking horse "clip art" style.   This one was the most prominent one and looked the most user friendly.   I tweaked it a bit, adding hearts, and seperating the pieces by fabrics.   I laid out the fabrics and labeled them A, b, C, D, etc., and wrote the label on the rocking horse clip art. 

Here I am tracing the Rocking Horse. . and making the EXACT SAME MISTAKE I continually make and have made a gazillion times:  I did not print the image in reverse!   Remember if you are doing fusible applique to print your image in reverse.  However, since I wasn't doing text or anything direction -specific, I left it as-is.  The rocking horse will just be in the opposite direction in the finished quilt! 

After fusing all the applique pieces, I used the leftovers to make a beautiful piano-key border!  I went ahead and sewed the border on.  I like my quilt top to be completely finished before starting the raw-edge fusible applique process.  

Next I just fused my pieces, and stitched them down.  I mostly used a buttonhole stitch for this project, but I also used a straight stitch with a darning foot in some of the tighter areas.  

I free-motion embroidered the baby's name in the bottom area. I used Wonderfil's Spaghetti thread for this.  (It's the thickets thread I have found that still works in my machine!)

When I took this picture, it had been 2 weeks straight of cold and snow, so I coudln't wait any longer, I had to go ahead and take the photo.  

Here I am quilting a wide whimisical feather stitch with variegated polyester longarm thread by Aurifil.  Then I used a white cone polyster thread by connecting threads for the white area.  

The photo on the left is the one Karen picked out and wanted me to try to recreate - the one on the right is my finished creation.   I had a FQ bundle of Aunt Jane 1930s reproduction fabrics that I wanted to use up and this project was perfect!

This thread would be perfect for this quilt:  Aurifil Mako Cotton Quilting Thread 50 wt. #3840 Variegated French Lilac 1420 yd.

I had a cone of  Aurifil longarm thread (that I LOVE) but cotton is great too - especially on a regular domestic sewing machine.