Sheepishly Returning to this Excuse of a Blog

In fact, I have been creating the whole of 2012, and here we are in May of 2013 to talk about it. One completed project I am particularly fond of is:   "A Sheep for all Seasons, " a gift for a departing friend and colleague who is a sheep nut (who is not??)
Since Paul is not a girl, it became a challenge to find fabrics which could represent each season but not be eye-rollingly  feminine, or worse nursery themed, combined with the sheep.  My personal stash was not a lot of help so off I went to the local quilt shop. It took some doing, but I was delighted to find fat cuts which were not break the bank expensive:

My finds

the green is spring, the yellow is summer, the orange is autumn, the blue is winter. I could not get away with no flowers at all for the border fabric (it is paisley) but all the colors are there.

I had a nice piece of  favorite grey print from my stash to sober it up a bit and use for the trim and backing, apparently I never took a photo of it, bad me.

Close look at the seasons fabric.

The paisley even had grey in it :)

Here are the original pieces. The pattern was scaled up for this project.

On to the pattern. A sheep duvet cover has been on the to-do list for years. This pattern for a sheep was a find on the Internet. It is ingenious because  how the feet, head, body and tail are positioned gives a different look and personality to the animal. It make me laugh to look at it.

Two bodies and a whole bunch of little legs

There be sheep here, mounted on fusible fabric, finished with zigzag on the edges.. 

Simple windowpane arrangement: I think it should have had a thin grey sashing around each patch. 

 I had to hand sew the padded cording.  That was a little unexpected horror.

I am not totally satisfied with it; it is pretty good for a one day project though. Paul likes it and that is after all what matters most.  I think the duvet cover-to-be will benefit from the experiment....and I love to work with this sheep pattern!