Tic Tac Hoot!

Tic Tac Hoot was the last Tic Tac Who? quilt I designed.  I had the other two finished when my daughter suggested an owl version.  I love owls!  I think it dates back to being a Brownie leader in Halifax in university.  My leader name was Sleepy Owl. It's a long story, but I promise I was wide awake and enthusiastic!

Tic Tac Hoot

Tic Tac Hoot turned out very well in the end, after a very slow start!  My first attempt at designing an owl yielded something that looked more like a bat, and definitely wasn't baby-cute.

Imagine this guy in black and you've got a bat!

I tweaked a little and came up with something I thought would work so I stitched him up in fabric.

Oh, that beak! This looked more like an owl but something was off, so I tried again.

I was getting closer to a finish!  I popped him into the quilt layout on the design wall...

I really thought the green background and the darker sashing would work, but once it was on the wall, I couldn't bring myself to start sewing everything together. It stayed up on the wall a few days, and still I didn't want to sew it up, which was a pretty good sign that I wouldn't be happy with it this way.

I decided that the green background behind the owl was the problem. It didn't "float" the owl on the quilt and it interrupted the diagonal of floating blocks created by the X blocks.  Also, it doesn't seem so in the photo above, but the X blocks disappeared a bit on that darker background.  Back to the shop I went, to buy the fabric I had briefly considered for the sashing and discarded as too bland.  I also chose slightly lighter browns for the owl.

Final version of owl block

Much better!  The lighter sashing/background softened up the look.

Tic Tac Hoot quilting 

Again, I quilted with my walking foot.  The owl is stitched in the ditch. For the rest of the quilt I started an all-over design, but didn't like how it played with the quilt as a whole.  Next I tried circles, then decided to do squares instead, then picked out the 7 squares I had finished and went back to circles!  Oh, and I found a spot where I had picked out a seam to fix some alignment then somehow missed re-sewing part of it.  Really?  I practiced a little bit of hand stitching to fix that little oops.

I think you get the idea that this quilt made me work a little harder than the other two!  It isn't a harder design.  I guess I was just due for a few quilting hiccups.

I was very happy to finally get the binding on.  That part went smoothly at least!  I love these little green dots, and the brown and leaf print for the backing.

Now all that's left to do is to finish the pattern!  Almost done. If all goes well, I'll be sending out to testers by the end of the week.

Tic Tac Woof!

Where did the week go?  I had planned to share individual posts of my Tic Tac Who? quilts during the week but here we are, Friday, and I'm just now getting around to it!  So without further ado...

Tic Tac Woof! by Canuck Quilter Designs

  I really wanted something simple that wouldn't compete or overpower the very simple design.  The fabrics and the puppy are the stars here.  My trusty walking foot came out to play again.  I'm sure if you've followed my blog for a while, you're not surprised!  This time I quilted concentric circles, centered on the puppy block, and kept echoing until the whole quilt was quilted.

Concentric circle quilting

A closer look at the puppy block

The pawprint fabric, in red, was just hanging around the sale room waiting for this quilt to come along, and my coworker Amy suggested the red striped binding.  I think it was the perfect finishing touch!

Tic Tac Woof! backing and striped binding

Happy Quilting!

Tic Tac Who?

Last winter several customers at the shop where I work were looking for baby quilt patterns with something cute but not applique.  Quick and easy but not just squares.  Oh, and small enough to be able to use a single length of regular width (42"-ish) fabric for the back.  The wheels in my head started turning.  With other projects in the works, it took a while for these ideas to become finished quilts, but here they are at last, each 38" x 47".  I love how they turned out

Tic Tac Quack, Tic Tac Hoot and Tic Tac Woof

The pieced focus block is the only slightly challenging part of each quilt.  The duck is the easiest, followed by the puppy, then by the owl.  I quilted them with my walking foot on my domestic machine, and kept the quilting simple to continue the "simple" theme.

I think I'll give each quilt its own post over the next few days to share lots of pictures.

All three block designs will be included in one pattern Tic Tac Who? The pattern is about 3/4 finished, then I'll be looking for volunteers to test the blocks and/or quilt.  Let me know if you're interested!

Linking up with

Linky Tuesday at Freemotion by the River

Let's Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts
Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

Tweaking designs

 I thought I had this block all figured out on paper.

Not bad, but hubby thought he looked a little, well, bloated.  Part of me just wanted to get this quilt done and said it was fine.  The other part of me wanted to get this done right and agreed Ducky was a little round.  After tweaking the design and cutting into more scraps, I think Ducky looks more comfortable, and certainly more like the rubber duckies gathering dust atop my bathroom cabinet since the kids outgrew them.

You can see I have done a bit more work beyond just the block, but I'm not quite ready for the reveal yet.  Soon!

I tweaked my puppy block too.  At least I figured that one out before sewing.  Here's how he started out.

 

He didn't quite fill the block the way I needed him to.  Plus, when I came back to him after a good night's sleep I no longer thought he was cute.  He seemed rather stern, like a guard dog on duty.  I started over almost from scratch to transform him into a cuddlier-looking pooch.

Now I'm working on Mr. Owl.  I went through several iterations in EQ. The first few looked more like bats.  I also polled my coworkers for opinions and fine-tuned him a little.

He needs a few little tweaks, including to my medium brown fabric choice.  I think the print is too busy and he'd look better in a solid or an almost-solid.  I think the design is almost set, though I'm not quite sure about those ear tufts, and that beak is not quite right.  I'll sleep on it and see.  I know exactly where he's going to live once I get him just right!

Linking up with

Linky Tuesday at Freemotion by the River

Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication
Let's Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts