Desert Rose

This time of year, the weather is unpredictable, dry, and windy. I am not such a fan of the wind, it makes hair difficult to style, and seems to get kiddos wound up.  It also blows a lot of dust around in my neck of the woods.  The best thing about this time of year is the sun is coming up sooner, which I love! I joke that I am solar powered; I don't know if I'd make it up north because of the short winter days :P.

This quilt is perfect for this time of year.  It has a soft, "dusty" feel to it.  The colors are all muted and calm, and yet they still depict work that needs to be done out on the ranch.  When pregnant with my son, I was on a mission to finish as many of the fabric packs I had accumulated as possible.  This was one more on the list that I wrapped up.  The fabric line is called "Queen of the Ranch", and I didn't realize at the time that it was the same line as the panel I used in my "Cowgirl up" quilt. Clearly, I really liked this fabric line.

For this quilt, I decided to do a quick random-square pattern with the charm pack and then added borders in the rose pattern from the collection and the dusty-pink paisley pattern, both of which I had purchased extra yardage for this project. On the brown border, I added corner-stone blocks simply because I had one extra square from the charm pack and I just couldn't let it go to waste.

I love the fabric I used on the back, and it's perfect backing fabric because it's such a big print. The horse depicted looks just like my first horse, Sunny. Miss him so much! Maybe that's the other reason I like this quilt so much; it reminds me of him. I did a simple cross-hatch stitch on the squares, and on the border I had a little fun with some FMQ.  Along with the swirls (which I feel I am no good at) I added paisleys and roses (which turned out well).  I finished it with the brown roses fabric for the binding, which provided a nice frame. I was really happy with how it turned out considering I was working within the limits of what was available in my stash. This is, and probably always will be, one of my favorite quilts.