“Circus” Reveal: Tula-Tu Goes to the Circus

Good morning, my friends. The reveal date has finally arrived. It’s always hard for me to keep my mouth shut about these quilts when they’re finished, but this one was especially hard. On February 1st, just a day or two before our “Circus” prompt was announced, one of the elephants at the Oregon Zoo gave birth to a new baby. The Oregon Zoo has a robust elephant breeding program, and many elephants have been born during the nearly 50 years we’ve lived in Oregon. With the prompt, though, I sat up and took notice of this new baby more than I ever have before. Here’s an announcement from our local newspaper.

Oh my gosh. Is she adorable, or what?

She was given the name, Tula-Tu. Tula means “balance” in Sanskritt. The suffix, “-Tu” is to honor her mother Rose-Tu and her grandmother, Me-Tu. (And we’ve lived in Oregon long enough to remember when Rose-Tu was born.)

Well, and I got so excited about Tula-Tu that we decided to make a trip to the zoo to see her in person. This is one of the photos I took of her that day.

My quilt was already finished by the time we saw Tula-Tu in person. Earlier, I was spending time looking at published photos for something that could be rendered into fabric. I selected and rejected a lot of photos. And then this photo of Tula-Tu came out in a fund-raising newsletter.

And I loved the sassy look on that little baby, so I set about rendering her into a quilt. These are done by fusing the pieces to a teflon pressing sheet…

Bit by bit…

Piece by piece…

Paying attention to the color shading and the layering.

When I’m satisfied with the main subject, I peel it from the teflon pressing sheet, and then fuse it to a background. And, yes, these are zoo elephants. I turned them into circus elephants by taking them on a field trip to the Circus Big Top. Tula-Tu can’t wait to get her trunk wrapped around some of those circus peanuts.

From there, I added two borders and backed it with just the batting.

I did some thread painting on the elephants and the “wood shavings.” This was done just through the quilt top and the batting.

I followed the contours of their faces and trunks, but I was also using the picture to help see the wrinkles in their leathery skin.

When the thread-painting was finished, I added the quilt back, and did the remainder of the quilting through all three layers. The tan fabric was some I purchased during a visit to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I bought it because it looked like sand, but it can serve as the wood shavings commonly seen at circuses too. I just quilted some lines following the design in the fabric.

And I outlined the stripes in the circus tent for texture.

From there, it just needed a binding.

I used the same red from the inner border.

And then my quilt was finished. I had so much fun making this. Following the story about Tula-Tu made the time spent all the more precious.

Here’s how it looks from the back. It finishes at 19 x 25 inches.

Just for grins, I'll leave you with a video of Tula-Tu. I couldn't love her any more if she were my own baby. If you can't see the video, then click right here.

Thanks for checking in today. I hope you like my quilt. To see more "Circus" quilts, visit The Endeavourers blog.

Sweating the Small Stuff

Good morning, my friends. It's a foggy and wet Tuesday here. We had pretty decent weather yesterday, but it started raining overnight. That's pretty typical spring weather in the Pacific Northwest. We're doing our grocery shopping this morning, and so I'm hoping the wet stuff will stay in the heavens while we're out and about. Grocery shopping is bad enough without having to do one's loading and unloading in the rain.

With yesterday's weather fairly decent, Smitty kept me company while I walked around to check on the flowers.

The lilacs are very nearly open. We have a lilac planted in another area of the yard, but it doesn't get enough sun, and so it has never thrived. We got this one on a Mother's Day many years ago when we found some teenage girls selling them in a restaurant parking lot. The lilacs were volunteers they'd dug up from their own yard. It was small at the time, but it has grown into a very large bush now. At this time of year, it's surrounded by a halo of purple.

Over its shoulder, the dogwood is in bloom.

Around the corner, the clematis is looking very pretty right now.

And the flowers on the azaleas continue to open little by little.

I had a lot to do yesterday with housekeeping chores, planning the week's menu and making up a grocery list, and fitting in a workout too. I almost gave up on the idea of sewing yesterday, but I'd been plotting in my head throughout the day how I was going to add an extra bear to the Sweet Dreams pattern. As a reminder, here's the picture from the pattern.

Since this will be the fourth baby for this young family, I wanted to add in one more bear. I really didn't want to make the quilt any wider, but I was willing if I needed to. So I thought all during the day about the best plan of attack for this. Already, I'd reduced the bear templates to 75%. Then I had to decide whether to cut the fabrics to the size suggested in the pattern, or whether to start larger and give myself room to spare. I had plenty of fabric to work with, and so I decided to start with the suggested dimensions. I cut two strips 36-1/2 inches wide, and then sewed them together.

Then, I created the bears' heads and placed them 1-1/2 inches apart. And yahoo! They fit easily!

Now I've barely fused the centers of the heads with my iron to hold them in place. Today I'll focus on finishing off the rest of the faces, the ears, and the paws. The ears are tucked under the heads, and so I don't want to completely fuse the tops of the heads until I have all the ears added. I think this is going to be very cute.

All right, so that was all the time I had for sewing. And I'm afraid this is going to be all the time I have for writing. I need to eat some breakfast, and then we need to be on our way. The rest of the day is open, and so I'll have plenty of time for sewing later this afternoon. Hopefully the bears will be finished when I check back in tomorrow.

For those of you who like it when I pull out my bullhorn, this is for you:

At the end of March, I saw an ad for a t-shirt online. At the time, I was especially worried about how we Americans would be received when we crossed the border into Canada. I have less concern about that now than I did at the time. And, hey...good on you, Canada! I don't know if y'all are happy with your new PM, but I'm happy you decided to vote in the anti-Trump guy. Honestly, I believe both our countries will be better off if you have someone who will stand up to the Big Cheetoh.

So, anyway, I ordered this t-shirt. I didn't realize at the time that it was coming from Italy(!). It took a full month to arrive with a rather comical tracking history. At no point did they give me a clue where it was in this process, except to let me know it originated in Italy. Every couple of days, I'd receive an update, letting me know it was on the move. But where is it? I kept asking.

Finally, finally, finally...it was delivered yesterday. I plan to wear it while we're traveling through Canada. It's not the nicest sentiment, but at least it's honest.

Okay, and with that, I'll be on my way. Time's a-wastin'.