And the painted ponies go up and down

Greetings from Nantucket Island! This quilt is made from a panel called "Painted Ponies," and it's a finish for Wrap a Smile.

I wanted to try a panel bordering technique that I saw on a free Benartex pattern called "Cool Cats." The octagon purple border is made of eight half rectangle triangles, and makes a neat frame for the floral horses. Everything inside that purple is part of the panel.

To round out the rest of the quilt, I pieced up four big hearts using Cluck Cluck Sew's free block pattern. So fast and easy. I used some fun novelty prints for the hearts, including balloons, rainbow trees and feathers. So I'm calling this one Horse Feathers.

I didn't manage to get a photo of the feather fabric heart, but here it is in one of the little border squares. You can also see the binding fabric, a multi colored butterfly print with a purple background. I usually cut my bindings 2.5" wide, but tried 2.25" this time for a tighter finish.

The back is pieced from a chunk of dark yellow and a groovy psychedelic star print.

Here's a closeup of the stars. Aren't they fun? And I was able to put one of the Wrap A Smile labels on this quilt myself. Now I'm an official "International Quilter," I guess!

The quilting is an all over stipple for cuddly softness. The lighting in Nantucket Harbor was briefly good enough to show the texture. We were anchored a loooooong way from shore, as you can see by all the tiny boats in the background. Mostly it was drizzly and foggy during our visit this week. I call that "Quiltin' Weather."

The HRT bordering technique was pretty straightforward and should be easy to adapt to other panel sizes, so I'm glad to have this in my tool kit. These ponies are 10" finished, so the HRTs were 5" finished. The only slightly tricky part was wrapping my head around how the panel borders and heart blocks lined up with the cornerstones.

I also wanted to share this lovely box of goodies that I received from a quilty friend. A bright stack of fat quarters, tons of scraps including dogs, owls, and bears, oh my! Plus a fat eighth bundle of sea critters, so cute! And can you see the little styluses next to the bears? Rose makes those herself and they are so clever. One is a black cat and the other is a funny lady with wild hair. For my non-quilting readers, a stylus is used to guide fabric under the needle so your fingers don't have to get too close. Very useful. Thank you so much, Rose!

And finally, it's the annual parade of Pets on Quilts over at Lily Pad Quilting. Angel has been enjoying her hexagon quilt lately, after snubbing it for many months. Who knows why these preferences come and go with cats? I'm just glad that she's been feeling better. You can see where they shaved her tummy for the ultrasound. Her fur is growing back slowly but surely, and her appetite is good. We bought her one of those pet drinking fountains and she really likes it, so I think she's also drinking more water for better kidney health. Be sure to drop by Lily Pad to see lots more cute animals on quilts!