DQS8 #1 Finished

As I'm sure you know, I'm one of 160 members of the current Doll Quit Swap on Flickr.  I LOVE this swap!!  It's a secret swap and I have no idea who has my name, and I only know who my own partner is.  It's so fun!!  Last time in DQS7 I made the "Chickenfoot" quilt and the one Princess one, plus one other for my swap partner.  (Sometimes my partner is the last on my list because I have so many ideas in my head that have to come out first.)  I know, I'm bad!  Such is life!  Actually, that was the case with this one which I'm calling, "Think Spring".

First I started with a tree trunk, a base tree and ground cover:

Then, I fussy cut some flowers from some Kaffe Fassett fabric and appliqued them, along with some hand cut leaves to my bases.  (The color is weird on this picture because I took it at night under my lights on my kitchen island.)

After I got all those on, I hand stitched one stitch in each leaf for stability sake,  (going around each with the sewing machine would have taken forever, I figured.  LOL)  I also added the birds at this point.  See.....one is appliqued and the other one is not at this point.
Next, I sandwiched the layers and started doing the hand quilting by adding black colonial knots to the tree base and ground cover.  I should have counted how many.  It seemed as though I was knotting forever!  Here is a close up of the top.

Just about done.  Finally I did white colonial knots in the sky area to finish it off and took a few stitches in the birds tail feathers to add some color.  And ta-da.....a finished folk art quilt.

I hope you like it as much as I do. This is not for my partner. I do have someone special in mind though.....but, I'm not telling!!!