First Quilt of 2020

It's not a big quilt, but I am quite pleased with my first quit of 2020!  This project was commissioned by my husband as a gift for his boss.  Truthfully I was a bit nervous about it, but I think it came out pretty well for a person with admittedly few artistic skills.

Meet Gala!  She is one of the horses at the farm my husband works at a few days a week!  My husband took a picture and asked if I could make a quilt out of it, and of course I said I would try.  I ended up using a different picture to make the horse pattern from since his wasn't very clear and didn't show her running like he wanted.  His biggest request was that her tail would need to be up since that's how Arabian's run, so I had to figure that part out.

I traced a picture on EQ8 and was able to print out templates to use for the horse and went from there.  I strip pieced the fence (the gray strip is the road on the other side of the fence) and found the perfect fabrics for grass and forest backgrounds.  I even found a satisfactory shade of reddish brown for her coat!

So everything up to this point was pretty straightforward and not too difficult.  The quilting and detailing were the scary parts!

I was super nervous that I would mess up and spoil the whole thing, but I had to get it done, so pulled up those big girl pants and got to work yesterday!  I started out with using a reddish brown Aurifil thread to outline the entire horse applique.  Once that was done I used black Aurifil 50 wt to thread paint the lower legs, muzzle and ears.  I started the tail, but definitely needed a heavier thread to get that part filled in enough.  I found a black upholstery thread, and that was just the ticket to make the main and tail stand out.  Once those were done, I added the white star on her forhead, stitched an eye and inside the ears.  I also did a little contouring in the body.  I'm happy with it for the most part, especially with the face and neck.

 I even like the back!  It almost looks like a drawing - you can see the background quilting really well - back and forth wavy lines in the grass, stitch in the ditch around the fence and some random outlining for the forest.  I added a hanging sleeve to make it easier for hanging.

I loved the look of the forest fabric in the background!

This little quilt measures about 12 inches high and 20 inches wide.  I can't wait to hear what the recipient thinks of it!  It's good to have this off my list, now I can get on to some less stressful and more fun projects!