I bet you are wondering about this name "Hornicorns and Butterflies" and why I have called my quilt this. You see, I made this quilt originally for my granddaughter, and of course, like every little girl, she loves unicorns in all shapes and sizes. The cutest thing is, she used to refer to unicorns as hornicorns so the quilt just had to be named that.
This was definitely a fun project to make as we all know how magical unicorns are, well so is this particular quilt, let me explain.....
The background is strip pieced and the foreground is all appliqued. The magical thing here is, although the applique is one size, the background can easily be adjusted to be made bigger..... and additional borders can make it even bigger again. (In next week's blog, I'll show you some options for this)
I used Fairy Frost fabrics and other sparkly fabrics for the unicorn - sparkles are definitely magical!
....and I added little hearts to her hip and foot for extra love and magic.
Before using machine blanket stitch and black thread to stitch around all the applique shapes, I layered the quilt with backing and batting so stitching is done through all layers. This in turn minimizes the amount of quilting required.
A small amount of free-motion embroidery was added to finish off the facial features and wings.... this could easily be done by hand instead or even a permanent fabric pen could be used.
I used the layout guide included in the pattern as a quilting stencil to stitch the unicorn design onto the corner of a pillowcase that I made using some of the fabrics. (you can find instructions for pillowcases in an earlier blog post here: pillowcase instructions)
And on the back of this special quilt, I turned my printed label into a pocket by adding a facing to enclose the raw edges. This was hand stitched around three sides to one back corner of the quilt. I crocheted a unicorn (another hobby I love to do and a whole different topic) to tuck into the pocket so you can imagine my granddaughter's surprise when she discovered this little extra gift.... truly magical!
If you have a little girl you'd love to make this quilt for, you can find the quilt pattern available on my website here: Hornicorns and Butterflies
