Our family is making good progress getting Aunt Aileen situated in a good nursing home. But there is still a great deal left to do. We are so grateful for the help of my other aunt, her sister Rheeta, who has come from Indiana to help clear out the apartment, make other necessary arrangements and visit with Aunt Aileen. Rheeta’s presence will go a long way in helping Aunt Aileen adjust to her new surroundings. Â
So it’s time for another re-run…..
I’ve added more information and details about the quilt than was originally posted. I hope those of you who have not yet read the earlier post will enjoy it. It’s the best I can do right now. ~~~~~
Being ever mindful that Rebecca likes and specifically requested bright colors, I went to the drawing board. I like to start a nursery decoration plan with a quilt. That establishes the color scheme and allows many spin offs and opportunities for accessories. But with all the visual fodder in the lengthy, seven book Harry Potter series, it was necessary to narrow the focus.
Deciding on “fantastic creatures, I set to work, looking for designs that could be edited and customized to meet the description of critters from unicorns to fairies (the easy ones) to a thesteral, Pygmy Puff and snidget. The search was more fun than a scavenger hunt.
Hedwig was my favorite design, purchased and stitched out exactly as digitized. I got more creative with some of the other creatures.
The Pygmy Puff is nestled on a Mary Engelbreit overstuffed chair. I extracted some fringe from another design and created the fluffy Puff.
The Quidditch snidget is the combination of a simple circle and a beak, wing and feet taken from other birds. A border was added to fill out the otherwise skimpy block.
The pixies are covered with a layer of vinyl, in an effort to recreate their glass jar container as I remember it from the book. In the movie, they were confined to a lidded basket.
By the time that was mentioned to me, the block was not only finished but inserted into the quilt top. I chose not to double check the accuracy of my memory with the book. If you know that this is incorrect, please refrain from enlightening me. It was a jar!!!!!! That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
The thesteral is taken from Laurel Burch’s Mythical Horses collection by Bernina. While not entirely compliant with J.K. Rowling’s description, the design seemed to fit the spirit of the magical beasts.
Of course, Padfoot had to be a black Labrador Retriever. The book’s description of him is a little scarier, but in my mind’s eye, I chose to see a Lab like our own beloved pair of long departed canine scamps, Jacob and Esau.
Stars seemed to be a logical alternating block. At the magical Rainbow’s End Quilt Shop in Dunedin (Florida), we found an extravagant variety of fabrics in the colors Rebecca had chosen. Their huge selection of batiks offered suitably unfeminine pieces for a boy quilt. A Halloween fabric with tiny bats was another welcome addition to our stack.
Each embroidered block was echo quilted, free motion, around the design. The star blocks and remainder of the quilt was quilted in the ditch.
The random angle pieced border was Rebecca’s idea, suggestive, she thought, of the Weasley’s irregular home.
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